Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Serial Killer Stalks Philly: “Snuff Film” Cracks Case Open?
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Tonight, a serial killer stalking Philadelphia.
- 0:11Speaker 1: This is a snuff film. Cracks this case wide open.
- 0:16Speaker 1: Good evening. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. I
- 0:19Speaker 1: want to thank you for being with us.
- 0:28Speaker 2: Police find violent videos and photographs of missing women inside
- 0:32Speaker 2: the home of erotic photographer R.C.
- 0:34Speaker 1: Horsch.
- 0:35Speaker 3: This video depicts a female and R.C.
- 0:39Speaker 4: Horsch.
- 0:39Speaker 3: Both are not wearing clothing. There's two separate cameras, one
- 0:43Speaker 3: he's controlling and one that's affixed. The female uses narcotics
- 0:48Speaker 3: and then affixed to the bed with handcuffs. He puts
- 0:52Speaker 3: a zip tie around her neck and she becomes unconscious.
- 0:57Speaker 3: in these images, initially, where we seen a 27-year-old Gabrielle
- 1:02Speaker 3: Armando and a 26-year-old Maribel Fereces, who were in the
- 1:07Speaker 3: house lying unconscious. They had what appeared to be injuries
- 1:12Speaker 3: on them, but that's all they really had. They were
- 1:14Speaker 3: just images. So at that time, we did notify family.
- 1:19Speaker 3: They are still missing and haven't been seen.
- 1:21Speaker 1: Because they're dead. They're dead.
- 1:26Speaker 5: And.
- 1:27Speaker 1: That is what a snuff film is. It's some sort
- 1:33Speaker 1: of film where typically the woman actually dies in the film.
- 1:40Speaker 1: That is from our friends Live Now from Fox. Now
- 1:43Speaker 1: we are learning not only are at least seven women
- 1:48Speaker 1: linked to the same Philadelphia house of horrors, that there
- 1:52Speaker 1: are very likely more. And these so-called snuff films, have
- 1:58Speaker 1: made their way to an underground snuff film network where pervs, ghouls,
- 2:07Speaker 1: all over the world watch women get sexually tortured and
- 2:13Speaker 1: then murdered on camera. Straight out to Joe Holden. You
- 2:20Speaker 1: know him well. Chief investigative reporter, anchor, CBS News Philly.
- 2:24Speaker 6: Joe Holden.
- 2:26Speaker 1: What in the world and how is it that no
- 2:31Speaker 1: one knew what was going on behind those closed doors
- 2:35Speaker 1: and that Philly home?
- 2:37Speaker 7: I don't think we're at a point where we're able
- 2:39Speaker 7: to establish who knew what and if people knew things
- 2:42Speaker 7: were going on. But what is playing out here in
- 2:45Speaker 7: Philadelphia was really worn to be believed to be the
- 2:48Speaker 7: worst case scenario. This started in late June when R.C.
- 2:53Speaker 7: Horsh's son was picked up. near the Liberty Bell for
- 2:56Speaker 7: acting like he was in a fight with another woman, who,
- 3:00Speaker 7: by the way, had a fake ID on her.
- 3:03Speaker 4: R.C.
- 3:04Speaker 7: Horse, his son, also had fake federal credentials.
- 3:08Speaker 8: R.C.
- 3:09Speaker 7: Horse's son is taken into custody.
- 3:11Speaker 8: His name is Eugene.
- 3:13Speaker 7: And then the whole case spirals from there. We were
- 3:16Speaker 7: told that.
- 3:17Speaker 1: Okay, hold on, hold on. Joe, Joe, Joe. You've got
- 3:21Speaker 1: to look at your monitor. Can I see those photos again, please,
- 3:25Speaker 1: that you were just playing? I mean, you see this
- 3:27Speaker 1: guy coming toward you on the street.
- 3:29Speaker 4: Run.
- 3:31Speaker 1: Are you in? I mean, and let's see the others.
- 3:35Speaker 1: You know, joining us, veteran criminal defense attorney Jeff Wolf. Jeff,
- 3:42Speaker 1: what do you make of that?
- 3:44Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, it's not the most flattering photos, but
- 3:47Speaker 5: these are mug shots, right?
- 3:48Speaker 9: So.
- 3:50Speaker 5: I don't want to sit here and say, okay, that's
- 3:52Speaker 5: not a mugshot right there. But he also doesn't look
- 3:55Speaker 5: nearly as bad in that one. That one's not great.
- 3:57Speaker 5: You're really coming at me. I appreciate that. But the
- 4:01Speaker 5: mugshots are the worst case scenario. And there's a reason
- 4:04Speaker 5: that mugshots typically don't come in at a trial, which
- 4:07Speaker 5: is not what we're having here. But yes, you are correct.
- 4:12Speaker 1: I get them in. I never had a problem getting
- 4:15Speaker 1: mugshots in.
- 4:16Speaker 5: Well, you never went up against me.
- 4:18Speaker 1: And compared to those four ladies that I just showed you,
- 4:21Speaker 1: and that's the tip of the iceberg.
- 4:23Speaker 7: Dr.
- 4:23Speaker 1: Bethany Marshall, did you see those guys? That would make
- 4:27Speaker 1: a train take a dirt road.
- 4:29Speaker 10: But according to one of the homicide detectives, R.C. Horsch
- 4:33Speaker 10: spent his life perfecting being evil. In other words, this
- 4:38Speaker 10: was his guiding force in life. He wanted to be
- 4:41Speaker 10: an evil person. There were urns in that house. that
- 4:45Speaker 10: they believe contained human remains. There are snuff films where
- 4:48Speaker 10: they are putting zip ties around women's neck who appear
- 4:53Speaker 10: live at one point, then unconscious, and then appear dead.
- 4:56Speaker 10: A 55 gallon tank or barrel in the basement of
- 5:01Speaker 10: that home with hoses leading to pipes. Their entire lives
- 5:08Speaker 10: were organized around a fascination with death and sex. That's
- 5:13Speaker 10: all they cared about.
- 5:15Speaker 1: Seven missing women now linked to a house of horrors
- 5:18Speaker 1: in Philly. Police say they have found over one million
- 5:22Speaker 1: photos and videos depicting multiple, multiple other apparent corpses. Back to,
- 5:29Speaker 1: we are just about to go to a young lady
- 5:32Speaker 1: that came in touch with, this is a father-son duo,
- 5:36Speaker 1: but Joe Holden, I wanted you to look at your
- 5:39Speaker 1: monitor and see these people. Please pick it up where
- 5:43Speaker 1: you were.
- 5:44Speaker 7: Well, you know what? I mean, here's the case as
- 5:46Speaker 7: it stands with us is that he is with these women.
- 5:49Speaker 7: And then somehow through videos that police are now at
- 5:53Speaker 7: 30 percent of review, there are a million videos. And
- 5:57Speaker 7: this man here, R.C. Horsch, allegedly then, according to some
- 6:01Speaker 7: search warrants that we were able to review, was doing
- 6:06Speaker 7: a process called alkaline hydrolysis. It's known as wet cremation. That,
- 6:10Speaker 7: at the very end of the day, is what investigators
- 6:13Speaker 7: believe was happening in the basement of that property there
- 6:16Speaker 7: in the Olney section of Philadelphia. He was able to
- 6:19Speaker 7: chemically destroy human remains, basically leaving police with a whole
- 6:24Speaker 7: heap pile of questions of, you know, what the hell?
- 6:28Speaker 7: And now there are in excess of 50 containers of
- 6:31Speaker 7: what's described to an oily, sludgy substance taken to an
- 6:36Speaker 7: FBI crime lab in Chicago for testing. Investigators are hell-bent
- 6:41Speaker 7: on trying to lift any potential presence of DNA or
- 6:45Speaker 7: human remains from those containers of sludge to find if
- 6:49Speaker 7: they can actually trace where their body's in this basement,
- 6:53Speaker 7: but they are operating on the theory that this man
- 6:56Speaker 7: was conducting what is known as wet cremation, to basically
- 7:00Speaker 7: snap the trail and keep investigators off his back.
- 7:03Speaker 1: Well, one way to do that, Joe Holden, is not
- 7:05Speaker 1: leave all the drums of wet, cremated bodies in your basement.
- 7:11Speaker 1: But how many drums did you say?
- 7:14Speaker 4: Fifty.
- 7:17Speaker 1: Okay, Jeff Gentry joining us. Jeffrey Gentry, Forensic Certified Bloodstain
- 7:22Speaker 1: Pattern Analyst and Senior Crime Scene Analyst and Death Investigator.
- 7:27Speaker 1: author of Forensic Science, Applications to Death and Crime Scene Investigations,
- 7:32Speaker 1: and you can find him at evidenceoverassumption.com. Wet cremation, 50 drums,
- 7:40Speaker 1: crime scene analyst, field day. I guarantee you that he
- 7:45Speaker 1: did not mix bodies. That did not happen. I can't
- 7:50Speaker 1: tell you why. It's just like a dog, circles three
- 7:53Speaker 1: times before it sits down. I guarantee you that each
- 7:56Speaker 1: one of those 50 drums represents something individually.
- 8:03Speaker 11: I think you're probably right. And I'm not a defense attorney,
- 8:05Speaker 11: so I will be happy to say that I, like you,
- 8:07Speaker 11: would run the opposite way as well. And it's not
- 8:10Speaker 11: a coincidence that there's a murder house and people are missing.
- 8:15Speaker 11: And this is a horrible task for the investigators because
- 8:17Speaker 11: these guys are using chemicals to likely break down bodies.
- 8:20Speaker 11: And the alkaline hydrolysis is a known cremation method. where
- 8:25Speaker 11: it breaks down the tissues, it breaks down any biological material,
- 8:28Speaker 11: and then you can just essentially wash it down the drain.
- 8:32Speaker 11: So that's going to be a really difficult task to
- 8:34Speaker 11: obtain usable DNA samples, because not only are you dealing
- 8:37Speaker 11: with quite a big mess, but then you're dealing with
- 8:40Speaker 11: possibly chemicals that are going to disrupt the ability to
- 8:44Speaker 11: get a usable DNA result. So this is a huge task.
- 8:48Speaker 11: And what they're looking for in these drums are any...
- 8:51Speaker 11: any tissue samples, any remaining biological material. And then of
- 8:56Speaker 11: course they're tearing apart the plumbing to try to find
- 8:59Speaker 11: samples as well that could be usable samples for testing.
- 9:03Speaker 1: You said it's going to be hard. I disagree. And
- 9:06Speaker 1: I'll tell you why. I think there's going to be
- 9:08Speaker 1: so much DNA.
- 9:10Speaker 6: Come on.
- 9:11Speaker 1: If the guy left 50 drums of sludge, which we
- 9:15Speaker 1: believe is wet cremation on victims there in the home,
- 9:20Speaker 1: There's going to be so much more. It's not like
- 9:23Speaker 1: this guy thought to wipe everything down with wet wipes.
- 9:25Speaker 1: Thomas Smith joining us. I want you to follow up
- 9:29Speaker 1: on what Gentry just said. Smith, NYPD, 30 years. He
- 9:35Speaker 1: is now a co-star of the Gold Shields podcast. It's
- 9:40Speaker 1: amazing to me. And we're about to talk to these guys.
- 9:43Speaker 1: It's a father and son duo straight from hell. Oh,
- 9:47Speaker 1: allegedly straight from hell. I've got a neighbor joining us,
- 9:53Speaker 1: and I don't know how creepy that must be to
- 9:57Speaker 1: read the news on Monday morning and find out. out
- 10:00Speaker 1: you've been living to an alleged serial killer. I always wonder,
- 10:04Speaker 1: did anyone notice women going in and never coming out?
- 10:09Speaker 9: Yeah, well, that's going to be part of the investigation
- 10:11Speaker 9: and what detectives are going to be facing. You know,
- 10:14Speaker 9: these interviews are going to be very, very important with
- 10:17Speaker 9: the case going forward. on top of all the evidence
- 10:20Speaker 9: that's going to be collected, as you were stating. But
- 10:23Speaker 9: the statements of neighbors, the statements of the individuals who
- 10:26Speaker 9: were there, the other women who.
- 10:28Speaker 12: Survived this, and the amount of women who went missing
- 10:32Speaker 12: and are still unaccounted for until this broke. So there's
- 10:36Speaker 12: going to be many, many more. There's much more coming
- 10:39Speaker 12: out of this. This is going to get worse before
- 10:41Speaker 12: it gets better.
- 10:43Speaker 1: Joining us right now, a woman who actually lived to
- 10:47Speaker 1: tell the tale. a woman who went into this house
- 10:52Speaker 1: of horrors where the father's son, Eugene, paid her to
- 11:00Speaker 1: take photos in his upstairs dungeon. We are using an
- 11:06Speaker 1: alias Jane and are not showing her. And I don't
- 11:12Speaker 1: blame you, Jane. I don't blame you for keeping your
- 11:15Speaker 1: identity a secret right now until this whole thing is over.
- 11:19Speaker 1: Tell me how you ended up inside this murder house.
- 11:26Speaker 13: Um, well, I initially was waiting for a bus, um,
- 11:30Speaker 13: right at 5th and Olney, which is not far from
- 11:32Speaker 13: the 417 Q street location. Um, and, uh, Eugene with
- 11:39Speaker 13: another young woman pulled up and, um, kind of, you know,
- 11:44Speaker 13: asked me if I would be interested in taking some photos.
- 11:48Speaker 4: At the time, I was in active addiction still. And
- 11:52Speaker 4: knowing I was.
- 11:53Speaker 13: Only at $ 10 in my pocket and that wasn't going
- 11:55Speaker 13: to get me far, I did agree to go ahead
- 11:58Speaker 13: because there was another female there.
- 12:00Speaker 4: And that's how the initial meeting happened.
- 12:04Speaker 1: What did you observe when you entered the Horsch home?
- 12:13Speaker 13: Well, they kept it very dark. Um, we kind of
- 12:16Speaker 13: just went in the front door and right up to
- 12:19Speaker 13: the stairs. Uh, I believe Ray was in the living room. Um,
- 12:23Speaker 13: and Eugene, myself and female went up to that second
- 12:27Speaker 13: floor room. At that point, we did start taking some
- 12:30Speaker 13: pictures together, her and I, um, he was not involved
- 12:34Speaker 13: as far as in any of the pictures.
- 12:36Speaker 4: He was there just doing the photography.
- 12:40Speaker 1: I'm defense attorney Jeff Wolf joining us. Jeff, what can
- 12:44Speaker 1: you possibly do with that scenario if you're stuck with
- 12:47Speaker 1: defending these guys?
- 12:48Speaker 5: I mean, you're going to have to come up with something, right?
- 12:53Speaker 5: And what we know to be true is there are
- 12:56Speaker 5: people out there that will pay to watch this stuff.
- 12:59Speaker 5: There are artistic licenses that people take with things that
- 13:03Speaker 5: you and I may not be interested in viewing. And
- 13:07Speaker 5: I heard you say you wanted to take a break
- 13:08Speaker 5: to vomit. This isn't for you. But this is stuff
- 13:11Speaker 5: that you're putting it up right there. This is stuff
- 13:14Speaker 5: that he was selling to a certain community prior to this.
- 13:18Speaker 5: And there is a First Amendment right to produce art.
- 13:21Speaker 5: And some art is disgusting to the normal citizen. And
- 13:25Speaker 5: this may very well be that. But that doesn't necessarily
- 13:29Speaker 5: mean that just because you're producing art that is morally
- 13:33Speaker 5: repugnant to a large segment of the population that you
- 13:35Speaker 5: then murdered the person.
- 13:37Speaker 1: Okay, note to self, do not get into Jeff Wolf's
- 13:41Speaker 1: DVD collection. That said, back to Jane. Jane, so you're
- 13:46Speaker 1: in there. What was in the dungeon? What did you observe?
- 13:50Speaker 4: Not much. There was a bed.
- 13:53Speaker 13: It looked like one of the old-time hospital beds with
- 13:57Speaker 13: the metal frame. That bed actually had a set of
- 14:02Speaker 13: handcuffs that hung off the side of the top of
- 14:04Speaker 13: the headboard part. a table, a lamp, maybe like blackout
- 14:11Speaker 13: curtains of some sort, or maybe a blanket. It was
- 14:13Speaker 13: over the window, but it was a dark, dark room.
- 14:17Speaker 13: And not much else was in the room except for
- 14:20Speaker 13: the three of us and those few other items.
- 14:31Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.
- 14:37Speaker 6: Okay, Dr.
- 14:37Speaker 1: Bethany Marshall, I didn't properly introduce her, and boy, do
- 14:41Speaker 1: I need a shrink and a drink. Sadly, I don't drink,
- 14:47Speaker 1: so all I've got is a shrink. Dr. Bethany Marshall
- 14:49Speaker 1: is a renowned psychoanalyst. She's the author of Deal Breaker.
- 14:53Speaker 1: You can see her on Peacock, Hulu, Bravo, brand new podcast.
- 14:58Speaker 1: It's a hit on the couch with Dr. Bethany Marshall,
- 15:01Speaker 1: and you can find her at drbethanymarshall.com. You know, Bethany,
- 15:05Speaker 1: when I asked Jane, not her real name, what she observed,
- 15:09Speaker 1: I was not prepared for her answer because what she
- 15:12Speaker 1: said was more chilling than the typical, oh, there were handcuffs,
- 15:18Speaker 1: there were chains, there was a torture stretcher, blah, blah, blah,
- 15:22Speaker 1: the same thing we always see in torture chambers. A
- 15:26Speaker 1: hospital bed?
- 15:27Speaker 5: What?
- 15:31Speaker 1: A hospital bed. What kind of perv doings is that?
- 15:36Speaker 10: Nancy, my first thought is a hospital bed is easy
- 15:39Speaker 10: to clean when there's blood, bodily fluids, semen, all of that.
- 15:45Speaker 10: You know, Nancy, so many of those snuff films had
- 15:50Speaker 10: women who were handcuffed to that bed with zip ties
- 15:54Speaker 10: around their neck, first appearing conscious and then appearing unconscious,
- 15:59Speaker 10: I would have guessed. allegedly aided with the drugs that R.C.
- 16:04Speaker 10: Horsch wanted to supply Gansi. I am desperate to correct
- 16:10Speaker 10: our defense attorney. He did not prey on women who
- 16:14Speaker 10: were drug addicts. He preyed on women who wanted to
- 16:18Speaker 10: get ahead, just like Epstein, just like P.
- 16:21Speaker 1: Diddy.
- 16:22Speaker 10: He promised them that he would get them into Playboy magazines.
- 16:26Speaker 10: He promised that he would take photos and make them
- 16:29Speaker 10: famous in some way. He just happened to choose people
- 16:33Speaker 10: who were temporarily estranged from family members who might not
- 16:37Speaker 10: notice that they went missing. You know, Nancy, I interviewed
- 16:41Speaker 10: one of the victims of Ray Horsch who was able
- 16:44Speaker 10: to get away. And you know what she told me?
- 16:46Speaker 10: She told me that he arranged to photograph her. He
- 16:51Speaker 10: was on his deathbed and he had an erection. On
- 16:57Speaker 10: his deathbed, he had an erection. So this tells me
- 17:02Speaker 10: that photographing, handcuffing, being sadistic, and not just killing women, Nancy,
- 17:09Speaker 10: slowly watching them drift out while they are in pain
- 17:15Speaker 10: was sexually arousing to him. And to this whole online
- 17:20Speaker 10: community of slimy individuals who now have all that material, Nancy,
- 17:26Speaker 10: All these women were victimized once, photographed twice, possibly killed. Third,
- 17:33Speaker 10: they and their families are now victimized by the fact
- 17:36Speaker 10: that all these images are being used as material online.
- 17:41Speaker 10: And that is part of the growing cancer in this situation.
- 17:49Speaker 1: Back to Jane, who actually went into the home and
- 17:52Speaker 1: lived to talk about it. After you saw the dungeon,
- 17:58Speaker 1: after you refused to lick the other woman's injection site,
- 18:02Speaker 1: what happened?
- 18:06Speaker 4: I can't. We just continued with the picture taking.
- 18:12Speaker 2: And then, you know, I started feeling a little uneasy
- 18:16Speaker 2: because questions that were being asked. And so at that point,
- 18:20Speaker 2: I called my boyfriend and left. Personal questions.
- 18:24Speaker 1: What kind of questions?
- 18:24Speaker 4: Questions about. um family members who uh was around me
- 18:30Speaker 4: a lot uh if i had a lot of people
- 18:32Speaker 4: in my life.
- 18:33Speaker 1: I would have run they would have seen nothing but
- 18:35Speaker 1: elbow and tail hole that's it gone bye-bye what what
- 18:40Speaker 1: went through your mind when they started asking you was
- 18:42Speaker 1: it the father or the son.
- 18:43Speaker 4: The son the son um when he started.
- 18:49Speaker 1: Asking you about do you have any close family members
- 18:52Speaker 1: what went through your mind.
- 18:55Speaker 6: Paranoia.
- 18:56Speaker 4: That's when it started getting very uncomfortable.
- 18:59Speaker 1: I don't think you were paranoid. I think that you
- 19:02Speaker 1: had an instinct that saved your life. How often do
- 19:05Speaker 1: you lay awake, Jane, and think about how close you
- 19:08Speaker 1: got to being one of those women in those snuff films?
- 19:12Speaker 4: Every night. Just about every night since the story broke, yes.
- 19:16Speaker 1: Joining me now is Jennifer, also using an alias, It's
- 19:22Speaker 1: so bizarre that this is a father-son duo. Jennifer is
- 19:28Speaker 1: Horsh's former neighbor. She does not want her name or
- 19:35Speaker 1: photo released. Jennifer, thank you for being with us and
- 19:40Speaker 1: we will never divulge your identity. You can count on that.
- 19:45Speaker 1: You stated that the neighborhood noticed his home and knew
- 19:49Speaker 1: to stay away from it. Tell me what you observed.
- 19:55Speaker 6: Yeah, so I was his former neighbor back in Chauvin,
- 20:00Speaker 6: which he lived for 20 years. He was the creepy
- 20:07Speaker 6: guy up the street. Um, he had women going in
- 20:12Speaker 6: out of the home often. Um, he, you saw them
- 20:18Speaker 6: go in, you never saw them really come out. Um,
- 20:21Speaker 6: we didn't think much of it. I mean, I was
- 20:23Speaker 6: a kid at the time. Um, so, but our parents
- 20:27Speaker 6: always said, walk on the other side of the street,
- 20:29Speaker 6: don't wave to him. He just was not friendly. Um, he, um,
- 20:38Speaker 6: It was very odd. It was very different living with
- 20:42Speaker 6: someone like that up the street. We didn't know what
- 20:45Speaker 6: he was doing in the house. We had no idea
- 20:50Speaker 6: until he was raided in 2009 in Chauvin for drugs
- 20:58Speaker 6: and guns and porn. But there were no.
- 21:06Speaker 6: Speculations of murder at the time but later you know
- 21:12Speaker 6: finding out that there are women's IDs that were discovered
- 21:17Speaker 6: in that home that somehow just vanished by the DA
- 21:22Speaker 6: was shocking and it was just it was all very
- 21:29Speaker 6: very odd to us very scary growing up with him.
- 21:35Speaker 1: What did the home look like from the outside, Jennifer?
- 21:39Speaker 6: It was run down. He didn't keep it up, like
- 21:43Speaker 6: upkeep it at all. It was, he had, he didn't
- 21:48Speaker 6: like keep his lawn nice. He was very private. Everything was,
- 21:54Speaker 6: you know, curtains on everything. Everything was closed, everything. So,
- 21:59Speaker 6: I mean, essentially he was the neighbor that was just dirty, didn't,
- 22:06Speaker 6: you just avoided. And that, I mean, that was how
- 22:11Speaker 6: he felt.
- 22:12Speaker 1: Were you shocked at all when you discovered what had
- 22:16Speaker 1: been going on in the home?
- 22:19Speaker 6: I was, my jaw hit the floor. I mean, when
- 22:23Speaker 6: he was raided back in 09, the top of my
- 22:26Speaker 6: street was, blockaded off um we walked up there um
- 22:33Speaker 6: they were pulling plants and guns and everything out of
- 22:36Speaker 6: that house his basement was uh careened into like a
- 22:40Speaker 6: torture chamber um and it was utterly shocking um we
- 22:50Speaker 6: are a suburban community to to have something like that
- 22:54Speaker 6: happen was It was horrific. It was uneasy being a
- 23:02Speaker 6: younger teen girl. And I can't explain the uneasy feeling.
- 23:10Speaker 6: And even to this day, I still live in... I
- 23:14Speaker 6: bought my family home. I still live in this family home.
- 23:17Speaker 6: Even to this day, that house, my children, that house,
- 23:21Speaker 6: we avoid it. It's had new owners, but I... there
- 23:26Speaker 6: is something wrong with that. Whether it was growing up
- 23:30Speaker 6: around that house has just always given me that feeling
- 23:33Speaker 6: and knowing what was being done in there. But yeah,
- 23:39Speaker 6: it's horrible.
- 23:41Speaker 1: You know, to Joe Holden joining us, chief investigative reporter, anchor,
- 23:45Speaker 1: CBS News Philly, she brought up a really good point.
- 23:49Speaker 1: There was a raid in 2009 and I guess no
- 23:55Speaker 1: evidence was found suggesting what was really going on in
- 23:58Speaker 1: the home. I wonder how many lives could have been
- 24:02Speaker 1: saved since 2009.
- 24:04Speaker 6: Possibly.
- 24:05Speaker 7: I mean, he goes to jail for a few years
- 24:08Speaker 7: on the weapons and drug charges. His attorney actually tried
- 24:13Speaker 7: to suppress evidence in the case. They tried to get
- 24:16Speaker 7: the whole case thrown out, yet Raymond Horsch ended up
- 24:19Speaker 7: going to prison for that. This is a full 14
- 24:22Speaker 7: years before... All hell breaks loose in Olney, Philadelphia, back
- 24:26Speaker 7: in June, where Philadelphia police are fearing the worst. They're
- 24:30Speaker 7: telling us, keep your eyes on the dad. Fixate on
- 24:34Speaker 7: the dad. We have the son, but we believe the
- 24:36Speaker 7: dad is the villain. And the books that you're showing,
- 24:40Speaker 7: they've since been canceled by Amazon within the last few days.
- 24:43Speaker 7: Empathy is the supposed diary of an empathetic serial killer.
- 24:48Speaker 7: It basically provided R.C. Horsch's own writing for what he
- 24:53Speaker 7: was doing, graphic sexual activities. At one point, he acknowledges
- 24:57Speaker 7: in the book that he strangles a woman and then
- 25:00Speaker 7: performs this process of wet cremation, getting rid of the remains.
- 25:05Speaker 7: So this is like chasing down a rabbit hole into
- 25:08Speaker 7: the mind of what we are only at this point
- 25:11Speaker 7: looking at, a potential serial killer here in Philadelphia.
- 25:15Speaker 1: Tom Smith, NYPD. Star of Gold Shields podcast. What do
- 25:21Speaker 1: these two have to do? Take out an ad on
- 25:23Speaker 1: 3rd Avenue? I'm a serial killer. An alleged serial killer.
- 25:28Speaker 1: Come bust me. Please find the 50 containers of wet
- 25:32Speaker 1: cremation in my basement. I mean, let me see that
- 25:35Speaker 1: book again. The man writes a book about wet cremation
- 25:39Speaker 1: and how he kills people and nobody notices?
- 25:44Speaker 12: Yeah, that's very.
- 25:45Speaker 9: Disturbing in hearing the account, you know, of your guest
- 25:48Speaker 9: was just as disturbing talking about that everybody knew what
- 25:51Speaker 9: was going on, including the district attorney.
- 25:54Speaker 12: So like you said, Nancy, what has to be done?
- 25:56Speaker 5: You know, do you have.
- 25:57Speaker 9: To wait until a body falls out of the house,
- 26:01Speaker 9: you know, before you do something? There are ways to
- 26:04Speaker 9: conduct investigations on information that's being developed through the neighborhoods.
- 26:10Speaker 9: and what's being said, there are ways to do that.
- 26:13Speaker 9: And that should have been done in this case, along
- 26:15Speaker 9: with the cooperation of the district attorney in this, especially
- 26:19Speaker 9: when you have past experiences of people, you have him
- 26:22Speaker 9: in jail, you have other worries that are going on
- 26:24Speaker 9: in that community. You know, when you have these thoughts
- 26:28Speaker 9: out there, investigations are allowed to be done. And I
- 26:31Speaker 9: would love to know why they weren't and who was
- 26:35Speaker 9: responsible for not conducting these investigations when there seems to
- 26:39Speaker 9: be so much evidence or intelligence enough to conduct one.
- 26:51Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Jeff Gentry joining us, certified
- 27:02Speaker 1: crime scene analyst and author of Forensic Science, applications to
- 27:07Speaker 1: death and crime scene investigations, please tell me that there
- 27:11Speaker 1: is a way to extract victims' DNA from wet cremation containers.
- 27:19Speaker 1: It looks like sludge.
- 27:21Speaker 11: Within the container itself, I think there are ways to
- 27:25Speaker 11: do that. It's going to be complicated. You would need
- 27:27Speaker 11: to find a lab that could process possibly multiple samples
- 27:32Speaker 11: at the same time. So you'd have DNA mixtures. If
- 27:34Speaker 11: there's multiple people that are being murdered in the same
- 27:37Speaker 11: home or areas where multiple people have been killed or
- 27:40Speaker 11: harmed or bleeding, you're looking at potentially very complicated DNA
- 27:45Speaker 11: mixtures with multiple people, but it can be done. And
- 27:48Speaker 11: then within the barrels themselves, I'd be looking on the
- 27:50Speaker 11: outside of the barrel where the person was picked up.
- 27:53Speaker 5: And put into the barrel.
- 27:54Speaker 11: I'd be swabbing that. I would actually test inside of
- 27:57Speaker 11: the barrel to see if there's any biological samples left,
- 27:59Speaker 11: whether it be the remains of tissue or hair or
- 28:03Speaker 11: anything that you can get a usable DNA sample out of.
- 28:06Speaker 11: It's very hard once you start mixing chemicals, body fluids,
- 28:11Speaker 11: multiple body fluids from different people. So it is difficult,
- 28:15Speaker 11: but it can be done. So it is a rather
- 28:18Speaker 11: large task for these investigators. So you'd wanna combine that,
- 28:21Speaker 11: of course, with the information that they're getting from all
- 28:23Speaker 11: this digital media, trying to match up DNA samples from
- 28:29Speaker 11: known missing victims to what you're getting from your DNA results.
- 28:34Speaker 1: Ironically, twice Raymond Horsch arrested in Bucks County. That was
- 28:40Speaker 1: on stolen property, according to the public docket we uncovered.
- 28:44Speaker 1: Now catch this, the defense attorney joining us tonight, the
- 28:46Speaker 1: veteran trial lawyer with a huge string of wins in court,
- 28:51Speaker 1: he's going to love this. Horsch's work as an artist
- 28:55Speaker 1: inadvertently led to his more serious arrest, revealing his, quote, creative,
- 29:01Speaker 1: obsession with sexual violence. So what's next for you, Jeff Wolf,
- 29:07Speaker 1: arguing first amendment, freedom of speech and freedom of art.
- 29:11Speaker 1: This was all just a pursuit of art and we've
- 29:13Speaker 1: got it all wrong.
- 29:15Speaker 5: Well, that's the path forward. Yeah, that is the path
- 29:18Speaker 5: forward is to argue that you have to separate the
- 29:21Speaker 5: art from the artists, right? That's the argument that you
- 29:24Speaker 5: have to be able to make. And you have.
- 29:27Speaker 1: To let me see Wolf as he makes this argument.
- 29:31Speaker 1: Go ahead, Jeff.
- 29:31Speaker 13: I'm sorry.
- 29:32Speaker 1: I need to look at you because you are, in fact,
- 29:34Speaker 1: keeping a straight face. I admire that. Go ahead.
- 29:37Speaker 5: I can keep a straight face through anything. That's my job.
- 29:40Speaker 5: You have to be able to separate the art from
- 29:42Speaker 5: the artist here. And what you need to be able
- 29:44Speaker 5: to do is you have to argue the lack of
- 29:47Speaker 5: evidence here. And you have to say, look, we have
- 29:50Speaker 5: missing women. It is under a cloud of suspicion. But
- 29:54Speaker 5: suspicion is not beyond a reasonable doubt. And that is
- 29:58Speaker 5: the job here. That is the job of any good
- 30:00Speaker 5: defense attorney. And it can feel as icky and horrific
- 30:04Speaker 5: as we want it to feel, but that is the job.
- 30:08Speaker 1: I can't wait till you follow that train of thought
- 30:10Speaker 1: through to its logical conclusion. I guess all those drums
- 30:12Speaker 1: of wet cremation sludge just close themselves. Okay, guys, joining
- 30:17Speaker 1: me right now, a special guest, in addition to Jane,
- 30:21Speaker 1: who somehow made it out alive from that house, and Jennifer,
- 30:25Speaker 1: the neighbor of Joining us now is Christy, who actually modeled,
- 30:31Speaker 1: modeled inside the Horsch home. Christy, what happened? How did
- 30:37Speaker 1: you end up going into the home?
- 30:41Speaker 8: So when I came to his house, he gave me
- 30:45Speaker 8: his address. I got dropped off by a boyfriend on
- 30:47Speaker 8: 2 Avenue in Kensington. They're kind of already waiting for me,
- 30:52Speaker 8: him and some other girl. And he opened the door
- 30:57Speaker 8: and that's as far as I went into is the
- 31:00Speaker 8: living room. Um, when I went into the living room, um,
- 31:07Speaker 8: it was dark. It was, I mean, it wasn't clean,
- 31:14Speaker 8: but I mean, what Kensington house really kind of is,
- 31:17Speaker 8: if you know, Kensington, Philadelphia, um, You know, he had carpet,
- 31:25Speaker 8: but then he had the wood panel flooring. So I'm
- 31:28Speaker 8: not sure if they were pulling up the carpet or
- 31:33Speaker 8: whatever they were doing with the wood paneling on the floor.
- 31:37Speaker 8: And the wood paneling looked like it was to an
- 31:39Speaker 8: older house.
- 31:41Speaker 1: Interesting. I'm just wondering what exactly you saw in there, Christy.
- 31:45Speaker 1: Did you see anyone else in there?
- 31:47Speaker 8: I can see the stairs, but... And I can see
- 31:52Speaker 8: the dining room kitchen area. And in that area was
- 31:59Speaker 8: a blonde-haired girl. She didn't seem scared. I seen just
- 32:03Speaker 8: the back of her. He was talking to her. She
- 32:07Speaker 8: looked very comfortable just talking back and forth. So I
- 32:12Speaker 8: didn't think anything at the time. He had a brown couch.
- 32:20Speaker 8: He had a floral chair and a woven like, I
- 32:27Speaker 8: forget what we would call them today, but they're like
- 32:30Speaker 8: an antique woven looking chair. Those are the two chairs
- 32:37Speaker 8: that I did model in. It was just him by himself.
- 32:41Speaker 8: I mean, his son could have been in a house
- 32:43Speaker 8: because his son was like my age at the time.
- 32:46Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, Christy, because they lived together and they
- 32:49Speaker 1: were definitely two peas in a pod. You know, we've
- 32:52Speaker 1: heard so much, Christy, about the house being dark. Neighbor
- 32:55Speaker 1: Jennifer told us it was always closed up with curtains.
- 32:59Speaker 1: We know there's 50 containers of human cremation, wet cremation
- 33:04Speaker 1: in the basement. What did it smell like, if anything?
- 33:07Speaker 8: It just smelled like an old, dirty house, like that
- 33:11Speaker 8: would be moldy. If you leave your trash and you
- 33:14Speaker 8: have food in your trash for like a week or two,
- 33:18Speaker 8: that is the kind of smell like it's smell. It
- 33:22Speaker 8: wasn't like a, oh my God, like I gotta get
- 33:25Speaker 8: out of here smell. It was just like, I can
- 33:27Speaker 8: tolerate that, but it.
- 33:29Speaker 6: Doesn't smell good.
- 33:30Speaker 1: So he was taking pictures of you in those woven
- 33:34Speaker 1: chairs modeling. Did he say anything?
- 33:38Speaker 8: While he was taking pictures, you know, he, he talks like,
- 33:42Speaker 8: he knew what he was talking about and he's very smart.
- 33:46Speaker 8: He talked about if you smell anything like unusual, like
- 33:52Speaker 8: I'm trying to be a scientist or something like I'm
- 33:57Speaker 8: trying to experiment with certain chemicals, something along those lines.
- 34:01Speaker 8: Cause I don't a hundred percent remember.
- 34:04Speaker 1: Oh, a scientist. Okay. Maybe a mad evil scientist. That said, Christy, you,
- 34:12Speaker 1: came in contact with another woman who had been inside
- 34:16Speaker 1: this house of horrors what did she observe.
- 34:22Speaker 8: She describes upstairs now she was there three years ago
- 34:28Speaker 8: and this is still fresh to her versus me um
- 34:34Speaker 8: eugene took the photos why Ray was there. He was
- 34:40Speaker 8: on his deathbed, basically still directing how he wanted those photos. Um,
- 34:48Speaker 8: she said that there was a dark hair girl in
- 34:50Speaker 8: the room. So from there, I feel like he might've
- 34:56Speaker 8: had another female always present to make another female feel comfortable.
- 35:01Speaker 8: That's just kind of what I'm, I'm getting, I could
- 35:03Speaker 8: be wrong. Um, She describes it as a dungeon. The upstairs,
- 35:12Speaker 8: one of the rooms, I'm pretty sure she said it
- 35:15Speaker 8: could have been a bedroom. She describes it as a dungeon.
- 35:18Speaker 8: And a dungeon meaning dark, scary, creepy, like a Halloween prop, basically.
- 35:32Speaker 8: That's how she was describing it. And very dirty. She describes.
- 35:39Speaker 12: Like a big.
- 35:40Speaker 8: Dumpster that hasn't came for, you're at the Chinese place
- 35:46Speaker 8: and they come and you smell that. She said that
- 35:49Speaker 8: is what she smelt. Like it was putrid, like horrible.
- 35:56Speaker 8: I did not ask her how she kind of overcame
- 35:59Speaker 8: it and still worked because she said she was there
- 36:01Speaker 8: for two hours.
- 36:02Speaker 1: I wonder how. A jury would react to the smell
- 36:06Speaker 1: of the home being putrid. Christy, you told me earlier
- 36:15Speaker 1: that you really couldn't tell what his intentions were at
- 36:20Speaker 1: the time. You were that close to becoming another murder victim,
- 36:25Speaker 1: I believe. Now, all of this is alleged, but you
- 36:29Speaker 1: still beat yourself up.
- 36:32Speaker 4: Why?
- 36:33Speaker 1: You survived.
- 36:35Speaker 8: Whatever his intentions were and however he got away with
- 36:38Speaker 8: a lot of this stuff is kind of like beyond me.
- 36:43Speaker 8: And I always beat myself up. Like, what if I
- 36:46Speaker 8: went upstairs? What if I asked to use the restroom?
- 36:50Speaker 8: What if I went downstairs? Would I still be here today? What,
- 36:59Speaker 8: what I've been able to like save someone else, you know,
- 37:02Speaker 8: like those are questions that I ask myself every day. Like,
- 37:06Speaker 8: and beat myself up over like, and I kind of
- 37:09Speaker 8: put my mind like, Christy, you know, you, you can't
- 37:13Speaker 8: save everybody, you know? Um, so that, that's kind of like,
- 37:17Speaker 8: just like what I, what I do and try to
- 37:22Speaker 8: help others.
- 37:24Speaker 4: Dr.
- 37:24Speaker 1: Bethany, it's, it's overwhelming to think about. It reminds me
- 37:30Speaker 1: of the Rex Urim and torture chamber, except frankly, I think,
- 37:34Speaker 1: possibly on a larger scale, if that can even be imagined.
- 37:39Speaker 1: The putrid smell, the darkness on the inside. We'll never
- 37:47Speaker 1: know how many women lost their lives, and now we're
- 37:51Speaker 1: trying to track down snuff films disseminated from that home
- 37:58Speaker 1: to see if we can match up the women who
- 38:01Speaker 1: and the films dying to missing people. It's just, it's overwhelming.
- 38:06Speaker 1: It's so dark. It's straight out of Satan's bedroom.
- 38:12Speaker 10: Imagine the families, Nancy, hanging on every little piece of
- 38:17Speaker 10: news that comes out. Over a million pieces of digital evidence,
- 38:21Speaker 10: each one containing a clue to some woman's life. The
- 38:26Speaker 10: woman that walked upstairs to that dungeon... saw the hospital bed,
- 38:31Speaker 10: the handcuffs hanging from the side of that hospital bed,
- 38:34Speaker 10: reminds me of John Wayne Gacy and my patient, who
- 38:37Speaker 10: was one of the homicide detectives, that noticed stalactites forming
- 38:43Speaker 10: on the bottom of the mattress from all the boys
- 38:46Speaker 10: that had been killed. So much blood pouring through that mattress.
- 38:50Speaker 10: And we think of all these women, the blood, the
- 38:52Speaker 10: body parts, the zip ties around the neck, and the
- 38:56Speaker 10: putrid smell. Nancy, that's not Chinese food.
- 39:00Speaker 4: It's not food.
- 39:01Speaker 10: It's not rats. It's not rodent feces. Those, Nancy, are
- 39:06Speaker 10: possibly human remains. Beautiful women who have sisters, mothers, brothers,
- 39:13Speaker 10: people who are members of our society, Nancy, in the
- 39:16Speaker 10: city that houses the Liberty Bell. Chaining, choking, killing, snuffing
- 39:24Speaker 10: is a way just to please one man's sexual proclivities.
- 39:29Speaker 10: It's all about sex, Nancy. It's all about sex. And
- 39:34Speaker 10: this torture chamber is now kept alive online. And I
- 39:39Speaker 10: do hope that the homicide detectives who are examining this
- 39:44Speaker 10: will follow a trail of digital evidence to every pervert,
- 39:49Speaker 10: every sadist, every serial killer who was online trying to
- 39:54Speaker 10: get a hold of those photos, that there will be
- 39:57Speaker 10: greater justice not only to the family house of horror victims,
- 40:01Speaker 10: but to victims all across our country.
- 40:03Speaker 6: You know, Dr.
- 40:04Speaker 1: Bethany, I've seen so many crime scenes and so many
- 40:07Speaker 1: dead bodies that you'd think I would be immune now,
- 40:11Speaker 1: but I can't understand why anyone would want to Buy
- 40:16Speaker 1: a video, a movie, and see a lady actually killed.
- 40:20Speaker 1: Not an actress, but a woman actually killed.
- 40:26Speaker 10: Because, Nancy, these men are so sexually compulsive that just
- 40:31Speaker 10: an image of a naked woman or having to deal
- 40:34Speaker 10: with a real woman who might talk back, might have opinions,
- 40:37Speaker 10: might want a relationship with them, they can't tolerate that, Nancy.
- 40:40Speaker 10: So they keep pushing the envelope. towards more and increasingly
- 40:46Speaker 10: gory scenes so that they can get arousal so that
- 40:50Speaker 10: they can have an orgasm, Nancy. I mean, it starts
- 40:54Speaker 10: with adults and then women and then boys and then
- 40:57Speaker 10: children and then torture and then cutting people's heads off.
- 41:00Speaker 10: And then Nancy actually inflicting the torture themselves, not just
- 41:04Speaker 10: relying on other people's handiwork, but inflicting the torture themselves.
- 41:08Speaker 10: And that's because in the brain of men's brains, aggression, emotion, excitement,
- 41:15Speaker 10: and arousal are all processed through the same parts of
- 41:20Speaker 10: the brain. And those instincts get confused so that inflicting
- 41:25Speaker 10: pain and sexual arousal become one and the same. And
- 41:29Speaker 10: then that becomes all they want in life, Nancy, because
- 41:32Speaker 10: it is a compulsion.
- 41:34Speaker 1: To Joe Holden, our friend at CBS News Philly, what now, Joe?
- 41:41Speaker 5: What now?
- 41:42Speaker 7: Well, you know, as they have to go through these
- 41:44Speaker 7: one million pieces of evidence, the FBI has 100 analysts
- 41:48Speaker 7: looking at all sorts of videos and clearing some and
- 41:51Speaker 7: fixing on others. And then some of my sources in
- 41:54Speaker 7: the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office say, without knowing what that
- 41:58Speaker 7: sludge actually is, is their DNA, can they run down
- 42:01Speaker 7: a trail? They don't know if they'll ever be able
- 42:04Speaker 7: to come up with a prosecution. And they are so
- 42:08Speaker 7: focused on R.C.
- 42:10Speaker 13: Horsch.
- 42:11Speaker 7: So my sources are telling me they're trying to find
- 42:14Speaker 7: anything that ties his son, Eugene Horsch, to any of this,
- 42:22Speaker 7: what was going on inside that home at 417 West
- 42:25Speaker 7: 2 Avenue in the Olney section of Philadelphia. To the
- 42:28Speaker 7: extent that some of your guests have said that he's around,
- 42:32Speaker 7: that he's interacting with them, what evidence can they develop
- 42:37Speaker 7: that places him in a possible jeopardizing situation? that moves
- 42:41Speaker 7: the case forward against him and perhaps brings some accountability
- 42:45Speaker 7: for what was going on inside that home. That is
- 42:48Speaker 7: what's next. His lawyer won't speak to me on the record,
- 42:52Speaker 7: has declined to comment, but they have sort of an
- 42:55Speaker 7: uphill battle here with the feds as they are working
- 42:58Speaker 7: through drug and firearms charges. He wasn't supposed to have
- 43:02Speaker 7: that firearm on him when they picked him up near
- 43:05Speaker 7: the Liberty Bell in late June. So he is facing
- 43:09Speaker 7: significant exposure. on just some of these counts that could
- 43:13Speaker 7: land him in jail for a few more years.
- 43:16Speaker 1: If you know or think you know anything regarding this case,
- 43:21Speaker 1: there are so many women's families out there wondering, where
- 43:27Speaker 1: are they? What happened to them? Please dial 215-686-8477. We
- 43:31Speaker 1: remember American Hero Police Officer Michael Horan. Greensboro PD, killed
- 43:42Speaker 1: in the line of duty.
- 43:44Speaker 6: U.S.
- 43:44Speaker 1: Coast Guard veteran leaving behind wife Courtney and children Kayla
- 43:50Speaker 1: and Nate. American hero, police officer Michael Horan. Thank you
- 43:57Speaker 1: to our guests, but especially to you for being with us.
- 44:00Speaker 1: Nancy Grace, signing off for tonight, but I'll see you
- 44:02Speaker 1: tomorrow night. And until then, good night, friend.