What Led Seven Missing Women to the Horsch House of Horrors?

It all started with a fake ID… On June 19, 2026, a park ranger near Independence Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, approached a black BMW parked where it shouldn’t have been. Inside were a woman and 44-year-old Eugene Horsch. The woman was carrying an ID bearing the name Blair Tonzelli, but she wasn’t Blair. The real Blair Tonzelli had been missing since 2022, and investigators would soon learn that her last known location was a house at 417 West Chew Avenue in the Olney neighborhood of North Philadelphia. The house belonged to Eugene Horsch. When investigators searched it, what they found launched an investigation now connected to at least seven missing women, hundreds of thousands of disturbing images and videos, and Eugene’s late father, Raymond “Ray” Horsch. As of this episode, investigators are still trying to determine exactly what happened inside the property that has become known as the Horsch House of Horrors. In this episode of Crime Junkie, Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat break down the still-developing investigation into Eugene Horsch and Raymond Horsch, while Audiochuck’s reporting team digs into the history of both men, the Philadelphia properties connected to them and the women investigators are still trying to find. You’ll hear about the fake Blair Tonzelli ID that helped trigger the investigation, the weapons and other items authorities say were recovered from Eugene Horsch’s BMW, the search of 417 West Chew Avenue in Philadelphia, hidden compartments and a basement containing chemicals, a makeshift laboratory setup and a 55-gallon drum, five urns containing cremated remains, a disturbing handwritten letter referencing violence, zip ties, a drum and serial killer Ted Bundy, and the enormous cache of digital evidence investigators recovered from the house, including approximately 50 hard drives, more than 600,000 images and 70,000 videos. Blair Tonzelli was last heard from in August 2022 and officially reported missing in February 2023. When Blair’s disappearance was reported, a friend told police she had last been at the West Chew Avenue house with a man who frightened her. Investigators later recovered multiple fake IDs bearing Blair’s information, as well as bank cards in her name. Then there’s Amy McHale. Amy had previously been married to Raymond Horsch and continued spending time with him after their divorce. On June 14, 2016, Amy left her daughter a voicemail saying she was at Ray’s house and was okay. She has never been heard from again. But Blair and Amy weren’t the only missing women investigators would connect to the house. On August 12, 2026, Philadelphia Police announced that investigators had identified images of two additional missing women: Maribel Fresses, reported missing in 2018, and Gabrielle Amarando, missing since 2012. On September 16, 2026, Philadelphia Police announced that three more women had been identified in recovered material. One was Nicole Fusaro, a 27-year-old woman who disappeared in 2018. According to information shared with Nicole’s family and described in this episode, investigators recovered video showing Raymond Horsch with Nicole during an encounter that appears to end with her death. Two additional women shown with visible injuries have also been identified by investigators, one whose family requested that her name remain private and another woman whose identity had not been publicly established as of this recording. Police have stressed that the investigation remains ongoing, and no bodies or remains belonging to the missing women have been recovered from the Olney property. Raymond Horsch died in 2025, before the current investigation began, but investigators are now examining decades of material he left behind. Raymond described himself as an artist, filmmaker, writer, counterfeiter, drug smuggler and former fugitive. He had a criminal history involving counterfeiting and drugs and spent years photographing and filming vulnerable women, including women struggling with addiction in Kensington, Philadelphia. Much of his work depicted staged violence. Investigators reviewing the enormous archive recovered from the Horsch home are trying to determine what was staged and what may have been real. Crime Junkie’s investigation also examines Raymond Horsch’s former home in Chalfont, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Former neighbors and Eugene’s childhood friend described unusual features and activity at the property, including numerous barrels and a large safe built directly into the basement foundation. A former police chief also told 6ABC Action News that during a 2009 search of the Chalfont property, investigators recovered IDs belonging to several women. What ultimately happened with those IDs, and whose names were on them, has not been publicly explained. As of the time of this episode’s recording on September 29, 2026, Philadelphia Police confirmed that the Chalfont property had not been searched as part of the current Horsch investigation.