Eugene and Raymond Horsch

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Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 423 of the Criminology Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson.

And this is Mike Morf.

Morf, what's going on, buddy?

Not too much. What are you up to?

Oh, got a lot of stuff going on. My, my new 2K basketball game just came out. And so, you know, that's a big thing for me every year. I'm like the 53-year-old kid in me, just, you know? It's like Christmas morning.

Yeah, I know you love your basketball, your March Madness and your, your video games, too. So I guess you're in, you're in heaven right now.

Yeah, my wife says, or she always asks me, do you think you'll stop playing video games at some point? You are 53. And I was like, I don't know. I love them. I always have, since I had an Atari way back in the day.

I've never been a big gamer and, you know, every once in a while I play my son Madden and get my butt kicked and, you know, like go on about my day.

Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout-outs. We had new support from Sue H. and Aiden Hartnett. So that's amazing. We really appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you so much, Sue and Aiden. That really helps us out and to everyone else that helps support the show. Thank you. And if you want to help support us, head over to patreon.com/criminology to get started.

All right, Morf, let's get to it. And we have a case for everyone that is developing in real time. Facts continue to change all the time as new information is revealed. And there are a lot of rumors swirling. And there's a community that's waiting for answers. This is a case that has it all. Sex, drugs, fake IDs, multiple missing and presumed dead victims, and even snuff films. The men at the center of all this chaos are a father and son named Raymond Horsch, or RC, as he's widely known, and Eugene Horsch. Police are convinced that one or both of them are a killer.

Unfortunately, Ray can't help investigators sort out the mess we're about to talk about because he died in 2025, leaving his son Eugene behind.

The story in the news cycle started on June 19th, 2026, when 44-year-old Eugene Horsch was arrested by federal park rangers near Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia. The charges were related to drugs, but the investigation into Horsch would reveal a lot more. Park rangers initially took notice of Horsch in June because he had parked his BMW in an area people aren't supposed to park in, and he didn't have the proper credentials displayed, which he was required to have. According to NBC Philadelphia, rangers saw him leaning into the backseat of his vehicle. And when they got closer to the car, they heard a woman's voice coming from the back. She told him, "You're going to hurt me." It seemed to the rangers like they were having an argument.

Rangers became even more suspicious of the situation after laying eyes on the couple. They apparently both had visible signs of serious substance abuse, like open sores on their faces. Horsch was also holding a butane torch and a pair of tweezers, both of which are used to do illegal drugs.

Rangers interrupted the couple, and both were asked for identification, and they cooperated. When rangers checked the woman's ID, they got an alarming alert. The ID she presented had the name Blair Tonzelli. That was the name of a woman who had been missing since 2022. And when it became clear that the rangers were going to separate the couple, leading this woman to their patrol car, Eugene Horsch interrupted and told them, "They're not hers. She's a good girl." Police haven't, to this point, released the name of this woman who presented this ID with her photo on it, but using Blair Tonzelli's name.

A search of the BMW turned up a lot of suspicious items. First of all, under the driver's seat, there were two guns that were loaded. Eugene Horsch was not allowed to have any firearms because he's a convicted felon and is legally barred from owning or possessing any guns. On top of that, the serial numbers on the guns had been destroyed, and this is a major federal offense.

Rangers continued to comb through the car and found additional unloaded firearms. The more the rangers looked, the more troubling things they found. They discovered cracked cocaine, fentanyl or heroin, a glass pipe, multiple pairs of handcuff keys, a cattle prod, a switchblade, and a fake DEA badge with Eugene Horsch's photo on it, as well as a fake FBI badge and identification cards with the name Eugene Frederick Steiner. Obviously, this was a treasure trove of evidence that would result in a slew of charges. And the couple was taken into custody, and the Philadelphia police became involved.

Okay, Morf, so we got a lot going on here, right? Very early in the story. I mean, this stop, I think we have to break it all down because it's just so weird. And I say stop, they, they didn't actually stop the car, but they felt like something was wrong. They went to check on these people. I mean, right off the bat, the description of the two individuals jumped out at me. I mean, open sores on the faces, visible signs of serious substance abuse. I don't know, to me, open sores, okay. Depending on how severe that was,

I'm getting some mental images here that are not great. And then you have this woman in the car who seems to be in some type of distress and gives them, you know, an idea of a woman who comes back to have been missing for a few years. On top of that, all kinds of illegal things in this car. Right? We've got a couple of guns that are loaded with the serial numbers destroyed, some other guns that are unloaded. And this guy's not supposed to have any guns because he's a felon. And then you have a bunch of illicit drugs.

And then this guy Eugene Horsch has multiple fake IDs, you know, badges, DEA, FBI, and a cattle prod. I mean, there's just so much going on that I don't even know what was going through these individuals' minds when they were pulling all of this stuff out of the car.

Yeah, I think when you're law enforcement and you come upon a scene like this and you've got, you know, two people that seem like they're on drugs, you've got multiple guns, and then that, that combination of handcuff keys, a cattle prod, and a switchblade, on top of everything else you just mentioned, just doesn't paint a real good picture about what's going on and what the potential here is for, for something very sinister to happen.

Well, and you said, right? There's a bunch of charges related to all this stuff. But you also have the dynamic of, you know, who is this woman? Because they realized she wasn't Blair Tonzelli. So who is she? And then Blair Tonzelli's missing, so what happened to her? There is just so much going on.

Yeah, I think it's good that the Philadelphia police detectives became involved quickly because there's a lot to sort out here.

And it didn't take long to confirm that Eugene Horsch had a criminal record, and he had been in prison multiple times. In 2004, he was arrested on charges of aggravated assault and aggravated assault by vehicle. And in 2013, he was arrested again, this time for drug-related charges. When he was arrested a few months ago, he was still on probation due to charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. About a week after his arrest, investigators obtained a search warrant for his home on West Chu Avenue in the only neighborhood of Philadelphia. Neighbors recalled a fire in the home

and said the place had been boarded up ever since, estimating that it had been that way for at least a year and a half. Police questioned neighbors who said that they rarely saw anyone come or go from the residence.

Based on the treasure trove of evidence rangers had found in Eugene Horsch's car, they expected to find even more troubling things in his home. And it turns out that they were right. What investigators found there kept them in the home for more than two weeks. Police discovered a lot of ammo, more drugs, and also seized more than 50 electronic devices, including computers, hard drives, and USB drives. The real Blair Tonzelli's debit cards, as well as multiple fake IDs with her name on them, were also found in the home. There was no sign of Blair. According to NBC Philadelphia, a 55-gallon drum and various chemicals and bottles were found inside the home. This could be related to some kind of production of narcotics.

But there was also some kind of handwritten note about murder and Ted Bundy that mentioned trash that needs to go. So the 55-gallon drum and various chemicals also brought to the minds of investigators the disposal of bodies.

And I'm telling you right now, Whenever I think of a 55 gallon drum, or when I hear about it, when somebody's talking about it, the, the true crime person in me immediately goes to that. Now, I know people use 55 gallon drums for, you know, various things.

Well, when you find a 55 gallon drum in this environment that we're talking about, it, it makes me think there's a possibility that there is something sinister going on with it.

Yeah, right. It's, you know, in a vacuum, just having a 55 gallon drum. Okay. It's not criminal. People could use it to store water. I mean, they could use it for a bunch of different things. Some people have them outside as, as burn barrels. But then even that, the true crime person in me thinks, okay, what are they burning in there? Is there, is there bodies? 55 gallon drums just scream out criminal activity, even though I know that's not really what they're always used for. There were reports that investigators found a significant amount of blood at the home. However, further testing found that whatever was found, it wasn't blood.

It's possible that what was discovered was prop blood used for movies, which we'll talk more about later. Eugene's father Raymond Horsch had lived in the home too, until his death in May of 2025. He was 82 years old when he died. His official cause of death was due to complications from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Five urns were found inside the home. Investigators believe that there are cremated remains inside each urn, one of which has Ray's name on it.

Jerome Brown, Eugene Horsch's attorney, believes the chemicals belong to Raymond Horsch. Like his son, Raymond had a criminal record. He was arrested in 2009 on drug charges after investigators found out that he was growing nearly 500 marijuana plants. This was far from his first run in with the law, and certainly not the first time he was caught with drugs. In 1974, when he was 31, the Secret Service seized over $1 million worth of counterfeit $10 bills from him. He was arrested in Dulles Town, Pennsylvania, and was in prison for two years. When he was released, he moved to Philadelphia where he started making meth. In 1977, he was caught. He was arrested and released on bail.

He fled the state instead of facing trial. His girlfriend, Myra Slaw, Anna Fricuniak, who went by her middle name, went with him. They ended up in Nevada where they were married in 1980. By this time, Horsch was using someone else's name. He was going by Dr. Stanley Eugene Stokowski. The real Dr. Stokowski, a chemist, lived in California and obtained his doctor from Stanford University. The newlyweds fled the country shortly after their wedding. They ended up in New Zealand. He used the stolen identity to get a job as a chemist working with alternative fuel sources.

So we talked about the son a little bit, right? Being arrested, everything he had in the car, everything he had in the house. And then, you know, when you start to talk about his father, all right, he had a lot of stuff going on too. Drug charges. You said more of 500 marijuana plants. That seems like a lot to me. I don't know a lot about growing marijuana, but 500 plants seems like a lot. And then $1 million worth of counterfeit bills? Okay. He was only in prison for two years. Now, I get it. This was the seventies, but I thought they took that stuff very serious, right?

To Secret Service, counterfeiting money? You would think you'd get more time than just a couple of years for that amount of counterfeit money.

Yeah, maybe back then, those charges, like a lot of charges back then, weren't prosecuted as heavily or the sentences weren't as lengthy as they are nowadays. But definitely seems like he was certainly on a criminal path. And, you know, to me, it looks like the apple's not falling far from the tree here.

Yeah, I would definitely say that. The other thing that I think the father and son had in common was, you know, stealing identities, using fake identities. They, they were into very similar things, it seems. Eugene Horsch was born in 1981, when Ray was still going by the stolen alias and the family were technically fugitives. Despite being on the run from the law in the United States, Ray kept traveling back and forth from New Zealand to the US. He would actually later fondly describe this time in his life through his writings. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, he wrote,

"It was always exciting, always thinking, who am I going to be today?" He used different aliases each time to avoid suspicion, but his luck ran out in 1984, when he was caught trying to get back into New Zealand with five fake passports in his possession. He was investigated and it was discovered that he wasn't a doctor at all. This launched a different investigation because now there was a real security issue with his company. Ray decided to take his chances back in the US. He broke into a home to obtain yet another passport, which he used to flee back to the US without his wife and son. He just left them there alone.

He spent some time in California where he used the name Richard Harris, another alias. Investigators eventually found him in Orlando, Florida, and he was extradited to Pennsylvania to stand trial on the original charges he had skipped bail on in 1977.

Yeah, this is giving me vibes of that movie Catch Me If You Can. Do you remember that one with Leonardo DiCaprio?

Yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking. I was gonna say that. Yeah, I love that movie. And I actually met the, the real guy. And he signed the book. I have it in, down here in my office, in the, in the studio.

It's a good movie and a fascinating story, but this, this guy here seems a little bit darker and maybe a little bit more dangerous than that guy was.

Yeah, that guy, I can't think of his name off the top of my head for some reason. But yeah, he did stuff that was illegal, but it was definitely a, a little bit, you know, more white collar crime. I don't know. It's still illegal. I get it. But he did lead a fascinating life. I'll give him that. And this guy, you know, you talk about him kind of reliving his time through his writings, and it seems like he thought it was fascinating too, right? Exciting. Who am I going to be today? He's got all of these different fake IDs, different identities,

and he's just picking and choosing depending on the situation.

Yeah, it seemed like he was pretty proud of himself and in his writings, he was sort of reliving those, those memories. Despite having evaded law enforcement for years, Ray was released from prison early in 1987. By then, Anna and Eugene were back in the country. The family moved to Philadelphia. He went into IT and Anna worked as a housekeeper. Anna died of an overdose in 1989. She was 39 and Eugene was just seven years old at the time. She was in the living room with him when she combined codeine and a sedative called glutamide, which was pulled from the market just four years later. This was a tragic loss for a young child, and Ray seemed to harbor a lot of anger toward Anna, which he readily admitted.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, Ray once said in an interview, "My basic reaction was anger because she bowed out and left me with a kid to raise." So it seems like this was a recipe for disaster. A young child left without his mom and with a father who blamed her for leaving.

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We don't know all the details about what kind of Father Ray was to Eugene, but we do know that he was an author, among other things. He used the name R.C. Horsch for his artistic endeavors, which, along with writing, included taking erotic photos of young women and making pornographic videos. Some, or actually, most of his work was focused on sadomasochism, and his last published work, which was self-published, was titled Slaves. According to HorrorNews.net, his movie called Deleted Seeds, made in 2016, is an experimental unconventional story,

told almost entirely from the viewpoint of a deeply disturbed sociopathic serial killer. And his movie called Slaves is a controversial quasi-documentary about women who voluntarily enter into and remain in an ostensibly abusive emotional and sexual relationship. His film called Snuff is a hyper-realistic sexually graphic, deeply psychological depiction of an encounter between a sadly troubled psychotic killer and his victim that transcends genres

of both horror and porn. His 1973 pornographic film, called The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig, is apparently focused on the main character's violent relationship with a woman struggling with substance abuse, and features bondage and rape scenes. And to me, Morf, all of this, you know, it really paints a picture of what type of man we're dealing with here. This Ray guy, what type of man he was, and where his interests lay. I mean, he was into some really strange things for most people.

Yeah, I'm a big horror movie fan, and I know some of this stuff mentions a crossover of horror, but these aren't any of the movies I've ever seen, and probably nothing I'd have an interest in watching, but Ray was certainly into that stuff.

But one thing that I found interesting was, you know, one of these films dealt with a violent relationship with a woman struggling with substance abuse. And we know that his wife died from an overdose. I just wonder, you know, they say that art imitates life, and I wonder how much of this is a crossover?

And I think as we get further along in this case, we're going to see that the lines sort of blur, and police have to figure out what's truth and what's fiction. On a website owned by Ray, he published a so-called biographical note, written by an Essie Stokowski. In other words, this was an autobiographical blur by Ray, describing himself as an artist, filmmaker, composer, writer, porn performer, drug smuggler, sometime political activist, art forger, counterfeiter, pot grower, airshow pilot, army deserter,

fugitive, sociopath, ex-convict, and all-out villain. The same blurb notes that his works have increasingly reflected his focus on the darker aspects of human sexuality. When this is the kind of stuff he was filming, trying to photograph and writing about, of course, it's going to look very suspicious to people, and it did to police. But what if these descriptions of himself by Ray were not fiction? According to CBS News, Philadelphia, Ray once called himself "kind of a natural as a perverted serial killer," saying that assuming the role for films wasn't much of a stretch at all.

And I consider myself to, you know, be into, you know, quite a few different things, right? I'm a podcaster, I'm a father, a husband, you know, but that list was massive and, and so strange, right? For, I think, most people listening, it starts out kind of benign. I'm an artist, I'm a filmmaker, I'm a composer, but then it goes from the strange to the illegal to possibly murderer slash serial killer.

Yeah, closing it out with sociopath, ex-convict, and all-out villain, you know, that's his words. So, you know, it's pretty disturbing.

Well, and to say it's not a stretch, right, to play a perverted serial killer, I mean, what are you really saying? That that's what you are? I don't know how anyone would take that as anything, but that that's kind of the way you lean or the way you are?

So let's turn back to Ray's family life for a little bit. He remarried to a woman named Amy McHale. They met sometime in the 1990s, and they dated for a long time before they married in 2004. They lived together in Shalfont, but ended up divorcing four years later. Ray moved from Shalfont to the Olney home, the scene of this weeks-long search. He inherited the home in 2004, after his aunt passed away. Amy McHale went missing, and has been missing since June of 2016. According to her daughter Amanda Stouffer,

Amy was last seen at the home in Olney, or at least last heard from while she was there. On June 13, 2016, Amy called her mother Gloria to tell her she was going to head home soon. Gloria could tell that Amy was intoxicated and didn't want her walking alone at night while she was drunk, so she told her to stay where she was. Gloria told the Philadelphia Inquirer, she was in no shape to take the subway. The next day, Amy called Amanda, but she didn't answer, so she left her a message. She said that she was doing fine and was at Ray's house. Amanda never heard from her again after that voicemail.

At the time of that phone call, Eugene Horsch was in prison. Ray claimed that Amy had been at the house when he fell asleep, but said she was already gone when he woke up the next morning. And this is the same story he would tell detectives looking into her disappearance.

Amy's family members were always suspicious of Ray and felt that he knew more than he was telling them. Amy's mom Gloria told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "A long time ago, before she even married him, she told me if anything ever happens to her, that he was the one." She also said, "When Amy would disappear before, Raymond would always keep calling me. After this, I never heard from him." When Amy's family heard that there were searches being done on the property, they thought they were finally going to get some answers. Amanda told 6ABC Philadelphia that "I immediately thought they had found my mom." This makes two missing women that are definitely linked to the Horsch's, Amy McHale and Blair Tonzelli.

And Morf, we've heard this before, and it never is a good thing, right? When someone tells a family member, "Hey, if something ever happens to me, this is the person who would have done something to me." That is so strange in my world. I have never thought to tell a family member, "Hey, just, you know, want to let you know, if anything happens to me, my wife did it," or "this person did it," because I don't think like that. So to me, that really tells you what she thought about Ray and what she knew he was capable of.

Yeah, we don't know what Amy's mom said when she told her that, and I don't want to blame her for her daughter going missing later on, but I'd like to think if I was in that situation, I'd be like, whoa, what are you talking about? I'd want to get to the bottom of that, that comment and try and get more details.

Yeah, I'm sure there was more to that conversation that we don't know about, but that would be, um, you know, if one of my daughters said that to me, obviously, we're going to have to have a deeper dive, right, into that. Blair was last seen in August of 2022. She was supposed to meet up with some of her friends, but she never made it, and she hasn't been seen since. Her friends reported her missing in February 2023. Friends recall that she knew a man named Raymond, who lived in Olney and would sell her marijuana. It wasn't unusual for her to disappear for a few weeks while she

was spending time with him, but she always showed back up, and she was never out of contact for that long. Ray was in his 70s during the time that Blair would go to his house. She would stay there for extended periods, and if anyone asked, they would say she was working for him as a home health aide. The woman who was caught using Blair's name on an ID told investigators that Eugene Horsch gave her the fake identification documents and instructed her to give them to police if she was ever stopped. She was happy to comply because she had warrants out for her arrest. So if she used her own name, she

would be taken to jail. The woman told police that she had no idea who Blair was or that she had been reported missing.

In an effort to get answers and figure out what was going on in the Raymond and Eugene universe, investigators poured over the contents of the electronic seized from the home, and this was a lot to go through. More than 600,000 images and 70,000 videos, and among all of that, they found evidence related to two more missing women, and the evidence wasn't good. Images of these two missing women, 27-year-old Maribel Freesas and 22-year-old Gabriel Amorando, indicate that they are now dead.

Maribel Friesis was last seen in the Kensington area of Philadelphia, where her boyfriend was living at the time, in June or July of 2018. There hasn't been more information, at least any publicly released information, about the details of their deaths, which many people believe are the result of murder. We don't know when the photographs or videos of them were taken, what they actually show, or which of the horse men, if not both of them, was involved. But whatever police found, it has led them to believe that Gabrielle and Maribel are dead. Philadelphia Police Inspector Ray Evers told 6ABC Philadelphia, "It's real dark.

What we saw is these two girls alive. There is a period of time. And what appears to us, they're deceased." He explained that while searching the first hard drive, homicide detectives found the images and video of what appeared to be two deceased females. He also used the phrase, "based on the video and photo evidence." So it sounds like there are photos and some kind of video. And it sounds like there may have been proof they were alive inside the home at some point before their death. Whatever they saw, though, isn't enough for the medical examiner to declare a cause of death. And since they're missing, there's no body to examine.

But it seems like if there was something caught on video, that is what clearly caused their death, that perhaps that could be used in lieu of an autopsy. There's a ton of online speculation and rumors that the women were visibly injured, imposed in unnatural ways. Authorities notified the Friesis and Amarondo families that their daughters were likely dead, which is something you would hope they would do only if they were extremely confident in that fact. So more if you talked about it, 600,000 images and 70,000 videos. Now, I know a lot of people take pictures, they save pictures.

But I think it's pretty clear that we're not talking about family photos here. I don't know that all 600,000 images and all the 70,000 videos are dark, twisted, and illegal, but you have to believe that a lot of them are.

Yeah, I think for the police, since they know Raymond made movies with these kinds of themes, you know, they've got to figure out, okay, are some of these willing participants that were, you know, involved with this with their own consent? Or are these victims potentially of his?

And to me, at least as it relates to these two women, this is not a scenario of, you know, pictures and videos of them being portrayed as deceased. Like, everything that's coming out is that the police know they are not alive. Now, to me, I don't know much about them, but you would think that's the very definition, right, of a snuff film?

Yeah, to your point about the snuff films, I don't really know anything about them. But, you know, my understanding, at least what I believe, is that they have something to do with filming someone being purposely murdered on film. So, you know, you have to wonder, do police have some kind of evidence that that happened here?

Well, the one thing I will say, right, this police inspector said, "It's real dark." And I don't think there's any doubt about that. And it might be an understatement, right? Real dark, definitely, but probably even more than that.

And investigators are being extremely thorough in multiple areas of this investigation, not just when it comes to the digital evidence they seized. The home sewer line was also excavated and collected in July. Cadaver dogs were also brought in to search the property. Investigators clearly seem to believe there may be more evidence of what was going on in this house and on that property. All state charges against Eugene Horsch have been dropped. He's still in federal custody with the bail set at $500,000, and he'll face trial on the thorough charges. Investigators are still working through everything on the hard drive, so there may be more discoveries in the future. As of early August, 95 search warrants have been executed in this case.

No charges have been filed regarding the four missing women linked to this home, and no digital evidence linking Amy McCall or Blair Tonzelli to the home has been discovered. Yeah, this house sounds like a place that I would never want to visit. I know some people have deemed it a house of horrors online, and I, for one, fully agree with that. This doesn't sound like a nice place to go.

Yeah, I'm right with you, Morf, but here's my thought, right? We don't even know everything. I mean, this is a case that is still unfolding. They are still working through evidence. So my thought is, there's going to be probably more in the future to come out about, you know, what they found in the house, what they ultimately, you know, end up linking as far as what happened in that house. I think when it's all said and done, this is going to turn out to be a house of horrors, and it could ultimately, you know, be on the list, right?

Of some of those houses you think about of really depraved individuals. You know, this could be a Dahmer residence. It could be a Gacy residence, possibly, in the grand scheme of things.

Yeah, to me, this has the makings of a horror movie to some, and that's something that Raymond would probably love the idea of.

So we talked a couple of times about the woman who was caught with Eugene while using Blair Tonzelli's name on an ID. There's no further information on her that police have released, but documents indicate that she was cooperative with the investigation. She did have her own warrants, so she may end up serving time, depending on what they were for, unless her cooperation in this case leads to some kind of deal. From what we can gather, it seems like they were all drug charges. So it's likely that something could be worked out. This woman reportedly told detectives that Eugene bragged about knowing how to get rid of bodies using chemicals.

And I think this may end up being a big deal, right? This woman, whoever she is, she has warrants. So that could be a big carrot, right? That law enforcement can use to get her to testify. I mean, we've seen deals like that happen all the time. And these are drug charges. Hey, we'll drop them, you testify. Who's not going to take that deal? People don't want to spend time in prison. That's why they take those kind of deals.

And I just wonder if she's being honest and she really didn't know anything about Blair, can she really provide any more details that will help investigators? Or is she just going to, you know, give them some hearsay about Eugene? It'd be interesting to see what she actually has, if anything.

Yeah, well, hearsay is probably not going to get you the deal, right? You're going to need some concrete information to get that kind of deal of dropping all the charges. But she's not the only one talking about, or has talked about, the horseshits.

A woman named Krista Killen had some interactions with Ray and Eugene Horsch. She met Ray in Kensington, where she was using fentanyl and crack cocaine regularly. Ray took her in off the streets, and according to her, was not violent or creepy toward her. He also provided her with drugs to use so she wouldn't have to go back to Kensington, where she would often have to perform sex work in order to have enough money just to keep from getting sick from severe withdrawals. Krista agreed to model for Ray's photos and videos, often nude, and sometimes depicting death or violence. Krista knew Ray's son Eugene, too, but she didn't have the same safe and caring relationship with Eugene that she shared with his father. She was actually afraid of Eugene because due to his drug use,

he had been unexpectedly angry and violent multiple times, and he often carried weapons around.

Krista told people about a very scary incident that happened just two years ago in 2024. At that time, she was still staying in the basement at the home in Olney. Eugene started banging on the door until the lock broke and he barged in screaming at her and threatening to kill her. The whole time, he was holding a gun. Ray, then 80 years old, defused the situation and took Eugene back upstairs. Danielle Nguyen, one of Krista's close friends, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Krista was always fearful that if something happened to Ray or he passed away, Eugene wouldn't know what to do and he wouldn't know

how to control himself. It was apparently Krista who accidentally started the fire, we mentioned earlier in the episode, which damaged the second story of the home. She was smoking a cigarette shortly after having a leg amputated and wasn't able to move quickly enough to put out the fire after embers ignited something in the room. Krista ultimately died of an overdose. She was 47 years old. She passed away just three months after Ray did. And one of the questions I have in this case, and I think a lot of people probably do, is you have father and son, right? Ray and Eugene, are they killers? Are they both killers? Is

one a killer and one not? One thing that is striking to me is that a number of people talked about Ray in, I guess what you'd have to call more of kind of a fatherly figure type of way. Obviously Krista did. Now, he was giving her drugs. He was doing a bunch of illegal things, but she said he wasn't violent or even creepy towards her. But that wasn't the same for Eugene. Now, Ray was in his late 70s, you know, 80 years old. So you have to

take that into account too. Man, there's, this is a fascinating story. You have two individuals, father and son, that seem to be very similar. But what is the, the actual dynamic? And I think that's what a lot of people are trying to figure out.

Yeah, and it seems like unfortunately, some of the people that may have answers that might help fill in the puzzle pieces are either dead or missing. And, you know, we just are missing some of those answers at this point. Ray's first wife, who was his high school sweetheart, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he was emotionally abusive. She also said that he really thought he was smarter than anybody and he thought that he could get away with anything. Amy McCall's daughter recalled Ray Horsch as very quiet and very intelligent. So investigators have a really mixed bag of input from people that knew Ray and Eugene, but overwhelmingly as a whole, it's not a flattering picture of the father and son.

Investigators still have a real task ahead of them, making their way through all the pictures, movies, the pieces of writing. At a press conference, police said, "The first hard drive that investigators searched, which contained the images of Gabrielle and Maribel, represents 5 to 7% of the evidence that has been collected and needs to be reviewed." They also have to figure out what is fake and what might be evidence of an actual crime. And this could be a real challenge for them, right? Ray is dead, so they can't ask him who his models in the photos or videos were, or how to contact them.

Ray wanted his images and films to look as realistic as possible and to depict women in various awful scenarios. One of his movies, which he screened publicly, had a scene where it appears a dead body is cremated. Was it art and special effects? Or did he openly film his misdeeds? Were his artistic works just a way to create a cover for the things that he was really doing? It was no secret that he made art focused on sex, bondage, rape, and violence. And it was no secret that he used models who were struggling with addiction and willing to do a lot if it meant that they had free drugs and a safe place to sleep. Unfortunately, these are the type of people who might be easily preyed upon.

And to me, you know, this thought of these hundreds of thousands of pictures and 70,000 videos that law enforcement has to go through, and this question of, okay, how do they figure out what is fake or art? And I hate to use that word because to me, none of this is art, right? But filmmaking or whatever you want to call it, and what is like real crimes? First of all, it's got to be horrible for the people who have to do this type of work because they have to look through hundreds of thousands of images that I'm sure they

don't want to see. Or if nobody wants to sit there and look at all this stuff, but they have to do it. And it's, I'm sure, real painstaking work.

Yeah, and then they have the task of trying to identify anybody they find in those photos or videos and maybe contact them, question them. So this could be a real lengthy process.

Yeah, and I think you just touched on, you know, the real important part, right? Who's in these? How do we figure out who they are? We need to contact them. You know, what if it turns out that, you know, some of these people are missing? I mean, it could open up a Pandora's Box of crimes. And to me, you know, that's the question. Kind of scope are we looking at here? When this thing's all said and done, it could be massive. One of the photo collections on Ray's website is described as pictures of real heroin overdose victims, which are said to be very graphic and disturbing. According to online posts,

these photos were alleged to have been somehow photographed in unknowing collaboration with the Philadelphia Medical Examiner and the 24th and 25th District EMT Unit. Now, it's not clear how that happened, or if it actually did happen, but if it did, it's troubling and investigators are definitely going to have to look into that.

So what happened in Raymond and Eugene's home? What horrors may have unfolded there? It's going to be hard to prove that anyone was killed inside the home without undeniable forensic evidence or actual remains. But if the horses really did know how to use chemicals to break down a body to the point you could flush them down the toilet, resulting in police digging up their pipes, does it mean it's possible they will never find the evidence they need? Police also have to figure out what horrors in that home are real and which were fake. Michael Yoder, retired FBI agent, said of the situation in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer, "If you say he videoed women in fake death or fake assaults on video, it'll throw a jury through a loop. You're getting the point of if they don't

believe something, they won't believe everything."

This entire situation has left Ray and Eugene's neighbors understandably shocked and shaken. Larry Alosi, who lives on the same street, told 6ABC News, "It shows you don't know who your neighbors are." Eugene's attorney, on the other hand, seems to be downplaying all of this, saying, "This is much ado about nothing. If any of these women died of drug overdoses, it doesn't explain why they're still missing. Even if this is what happened to them, even if they weren't murdered, their families deserve the truth and to know where their bodies are."

Whatever answers Ray Horsch had, he took to the grave. Eugene Horsch remains in custody at the Kern Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia. His case was set to go to trial on September 8, 2026, but has now been postponed until January 2027. Now Eugene is arguing that his BMW, which is still in police custody, should be returned to him so that he can sell it or use it as collateral to help pay for his legal fees, which, as you might imagine, are going to be quite hefty.

And it doesn't surprise me at all that this case has been postponed, right? We talked about this mountain of evidence that authorities have to go through. I'm sure they need probably more time to figure out what all is in there. We mentioned how hard it might be to track down some of these individuals. So, yeah, not shocking at all to me that this has been postponed.

And all that time that investigators need to go through it, then at any kind of trial, the legal defense, the team, they'll want to have time to go through everything too. So this could be drawn out pretty, pretty far.

Yeah, that's a great point. It wouldn't surprise me if it gets postponed again. This is still an open investigation. Anyone with information about the property, the horses, or any missing women in the area, especially Amy McCall, Gabrielle Emorondo, Blair Tonzelli, and Maribel Frees is are encouraged to contact authorities with what they know. You can call the Philadelphia Police Department's tip line at 215-686-TIPS, or if you would prefer to connect with someone from the homicide unit, you can call 215-686-3334. So more

of as we wrap this one up, you know, obviously, it's an ongoing thing. We don't know everything. Nobody knows everything. I don't even think law enforcement at this point knows everything. But obviously, they're not going to share all of what they know anyway. But from what has come out, this is a dark but fascinating case. You know, you have a father in Raymond who obviously was, at the very least, into some incredibly strange stuff. You know,

I don't think there's any doubt from what's come out that, you know, he was targeting vulnerable women who were addicted to drugs. He was supplying them with drugs and a place to stay. But was it just for them to appear in pictures, to appear in films?

Even if that's all it was, he's still taking advantage of them. You know, he's giving them illegal drugs, things like that. But to me, there, there could be a lot more to it. And the thing I can't get out of my mind is that, you know, when some of this is happening, he's in his seventies. He's 80 years old. What did this guy do in his twenties, thirties and forties?

And he moved around a lot. So who knows what kind of, you know, criminal profile he has. You know, he seemed to be proud of his resume of being a villain. So he could have any number of crimes and victims over those decades.

And as you said, right? The apple doesn't seem to have fallen very far from the tree. I think, you know, Eugene is still alive. He's the one that's going to go on trial. I am just fascinated to learn what comes out as time goes on.

Yeah, and I wonder if there'll be a point where he takes some kind of plea and reveals some of the truth. I tend to, you know, doubt that, but who knows? You know, self-preservation is, is a key thing for a lot of people. And if Raymond had anything to do with any of these deaths or these missing women, if they met their deaths at his hand, you know, then he's escaped justice. He died before, you know, he could be accountable for this stuff.

But I have a couple of thoughts. One is that it wouldn't surprise me if Eugene does try to put a lot of this on his father. Since Raymond is, you know, deceased. The other thing is, and we talk about it quite a bit, right? I always feel as though, you know, some of these really bad individuals have a lot more that police don't discover, right? I, I feel like a lot of times serial killers have more victims. They're not just going to offer them up, right? If police don't know about them. I just feel like this could end up being just a massive case.

And one thing I'm left wondering at the end of this episode, what happens to that house? Cause that house gives me, I think I use this term in the last episode, but I have to bring it up again, gives me the ick factor. Cause I personally wouldn't want to go in that house if I didn't have gloves on, hazmat suit, something like that. It doesn't sound like it was a very pleasant place to go. And who knows what things happen in there? And if, you know, this house gets turned over to the city or the state, if whatever happens to it, and it's not owned by Eugene anymore, somebody at some point you think has to sell this house. Who wants to move in there with this dark history that this place has?

It's, I just, it's one of the things that I, I take away from this episode.

Yeah, I, I'm with you. With all of the things that we've talked about, I think ultimately this will be another one of those houses that gets torn down. Right? Cause that does happen quite a bit, especially if it turns out to be the house of horrors that many people believe it is. It, it'll probably have to be torn down. But this is an interesting one and it's a case that we're just going to have to, to keep an eye on to see what comes out. But that's it for our episode on Eugene and Raymond Hors. As always, if you love the show, take a minute, leave us a rating. You can leave a review. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the podcast really goes a long way.

If you want to find us on social media, we're on every major platform. Just search for criminology podcast on your favorites. For news about the show, old episodes and more, head over to criminologypodcast.com. And if you want to join a discussion about the cases we discuss in the podcast, head over to Facebook and search for criminology podcast discussion and fans.

So that's it for another episode of criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike.

And Morph.

We'll talk to you next week.

Take care, everyone.