INFAMOUS: The Horsch House of Horrors

Hi, crime junkies, I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. I'm Brit. And the story I have for you today is a case that's unfolding right now in North Philadelphia. At the center of it is a house that people have compared to something out of a horror movie connected to at this moment, at least seven missing women. As of this recording, nobody has figured out where these women are, or exactly how the two men who lived in that house could be connected to their disappearances, if at all. But there is still a lot to wrap your head around. And I think this might be one of the biggest cases of the year. So since all of you have been in our DMs, asking us to connect the dots and see what we could find out about Eugene and Raymond Horsh, this is the still developing story of the Horsh House of Hors. Okay, Brit, before we jump in, like just a little bit of a caveat. So like every episode, our investigative reporters and producers were pounding the pavement, like pulling records, reaching out to sources. But this one is a bit of a different game for us, because we're not telling a story that is complete or happened decades ago. We are literally getting new information every single day. But I'm going to tell you what we know so far. So this whole thing started unfolding just a few months ago on Friday, June 19th, 2026. That's when a park ranger is near Independence Mall in Philadelphia, just like steps from the Liberty Bell when he spots this black BMW park somewhere it shouldn't be. So he walks over to check it out and that's when he hears a woman's voice from inside the car saying, "You're going to hurt me." Now he gets even closer so he can look through the car's window and in the driver's seat, he sees this middle-aged man and then the woman. And just one look at them tells this ranger that this is probably going to turn into more than just like a simple request for them to move their car, because both of them have visible sores. Like the kind he knows sometimes comes from drug use. They also have some drug paraphernalia that he can spot through the window. So he asks them both for IDs. And this is where things go from the routine to the bazaar. Because what they end up learning is that both of these people have fake IDs on them. The man's is a fake DEA badge, which is like, "No, guys." This is definitely not just like a, "Hey, move your car situation with a fake federal badge." Right. But the woman's is somehow even more concerning, because even though her ID looks legit at first glance, like with her picture on it and everything, when the park ranger runs it, it turns out that the information on the ID belongs to a woman named Blair Tonselli. And Blair Tonselli has an open missing persons case on her. The real Blair was last heard from more than three years before this in August of 2022, and then she had been officially reported missing in February of 2023. So they end up identifying the man she's with as 44-year-old Eugene Horsh. So this is now officially above the park rangers' pay grade. So police get called in, and they bring in the real DEA agents. And once Eugene is taken into custody, he admits to officers that he is a convicted felon, which makes the other stuff that they find on him and in his car real bad news for Eugene. He's got a switchblade and a glass pipe on him, and in the car is crack cocaine. Another switchblade, a cattle prod, a collapsible baton, and a set of handcuffs. Oh, and by the way, two loaded guns, at least one with the serial number filed off. I mean, I was going to say huge red flag, but that's like a barrage of red flags one after another. Now authorities learn that Eugene owns a house at 417 West Chew Avenue in a neighborhood called Alny. So within hours, law enforcement's headed there with a search warrant in hand to see what else Eugene might have going on. And listen, moral of the story, sometimes you can judge a book by its cover, because even from the outside this house, a crumbling three-story brick twin is bad vibes. I mean, the second and third floor windows are boarded up. There are bars on the first floor windows, and there's a security camera pointed right at the street. And truly, as bad as it was from the outside, I don't think anyone could have imagined that what they were walking into would be so disturbing that this house would become infamously known as a house of horrors. Because this was not a quick in-and-out search. Police ended up securing the whole neighborhood. Investigators in hazmat suits were going in and out of the house over the course of days, which gets the attention of local news and social media. Eventually, Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore gets in front of cameras for a press conference. Vanore says that they found some stuff that I think would be pretty normal for a search involving the DEA, right, like a gun, over 100 pieces of ballistic evidence, a marijuana grow operation. But then there were other things that they couldn't quite explain. Hidden compartments, a makeshift laboratory set up of some sorts in the basement. I mean, so many chemicals that investigators say some could be dangerous if the wrong ones got mixed together. And a 55-gallon drum hooked up to the water lines that ran down into a hole in the ground. What does that even mean? So what was going through those lines or where it was going? Nobody has officially said. Vanore called it a "strange setup." But I think Eugene could have maybe been making something, maybe irrigating something. I mean, remember, we've got a grow operation, so it could have just been part of a system for watering plants. I mean, this early on, they can't say what any of this means. They just started processing this house, and they still have a lot of work ahead of them. I mean, there are a thousand questions from reporters and from the community after this, but few answers are given, at least not that day. But the slow drip of information doesn't always come from behind a podium. Local reporters working sources begin to shine a light on the true scope of what was found in that house. Now Max Marin over at the Philadelphia Inquirer spoke to us for this episode. He has been working with this core team of four, including him, who have been dedicated to this case. So it's him, Ryan W. Briggs, Ellie Rushing, and Barbara Laker, among others. Now Max told us that when this first broke, they honestly thought that this was going to be some big drug case. But once the details started coming in, a missing woman's ID, a 55 gallon drum in the basement, he said it was hard to not let your mind go to dark places. And the more that kept coming out, the darker it got. Sometime after that first press conference, police sources tell reporters that they found something else. It looks like a significant amount of blood. No other detail. There are also five urns containing cremated remains. Now one of them has a name on it, a relative of Eugene's. But the other four. Mystery. Vanore said that it could be other relatives, but truly they didn't know. But this other thing that comes out is a bit harder to just like explain away. They find a handwritten letter, a real disturbing stuff. It describes hurting people. It references zip ties, a drum, and serial killer Ted Bundy. And this is when people start going wild. And this story begins to spread beyond the Philadelphia area. Which is why Deputy Police Commissioner Vanore moved fast to shut down some rumors spreading online. Because already people were saying that there were bodies in the house. He assured reporters, nothing like that had been found anywhere on the property. That they know of. Yet. But the truth is, what they had found had them make the decision to have homicide detectives leading this up. So you can imagine that nothing really quieted down. The public was clamoring for more information about the man at the center of this. And about the missing woman who stolen information seemed to really kick this investigation off. All the things at the house investigators also found several fake IDs in her name plus bank cards for her. And when they'd spoken to the woman from the car who had been carrying the ID with Blair's name on it, she tells them that she doesn't even know Blair. She says that Eugene is the one who made the fake ID for her using her own picture and Blair's name. He told her that she could use it if she ever got pulled over because she had like her own warrants out on her. But she said there was something odd about the way that Eugene talked about Blair, something that made her think that something bad might have happened to her. Oh, and by the way, she also said that although Eugene never out hurt her. He did once tell her that he knew the chemicals needed to dissolve human bodies. By that point, investigators have to be having the same fear that this woman did. That something bad happened to Blair Tonselli, maybe even in that house. And when they look into her missing person case, they see a potential tide that had been there all along. So by the time Blair disappeared in 2022, she was estranged from a lot of her family. She had struggled with opioid addiction for years and she had cycled in and out of jail on drug charges and charges related to sex work. So it was not unusual for her to go MIA, which is why nobody really worried at first when she kind of just dropped off. But when months went by, without so much as a sighting of her, a friend decided to report her missing. And according to reporting by the Philadelphia inquirer, when they do, they tell police that Blair was last known to be at the house of some sketchy guy who apparently scared her. And where did sketchy guy live? The friend gave police the exact address of the Horses house in the only neighborhood. Now, who was that sketchy man? The friend who made the report didn't give a name. So let's start with the name on the house, Eugene Horses. Now nobody has said that he is the man Blair's friend was talking about. But since it's his house and all this started in his car, investigators start digging into him. So here's what we know about Eugene. He grew up in Bucks County, and by all accounts, at least as a kid, he seemed pretty normal. His childhood friend, Jeremy Perry, spoke with one of our reporters and said that Eugene was actually one of these smartest kids that he knew. Jeremy lived down the street from Eugene back in the day, like not in the only neighborhood, but in an area called Shalfont, where Eugene mostly grew up. The two hung out constantly growing up, and Jeremy said that things were all good right up until high school. That's when Eugene started gravitating toward harder drugs, started hanging out with a different crowd, and the two of them just kind of drifted apart. But sometime before they did, there is this thing that happened that is always stuck with Jeremy. At some point, and it's a little unclear exactly when, Eugene's childhood home in Shalfont caught fire, it got completely tore down, rebuilt from the ground up, which like, okay, happens. But it's what was added during the rebuild that was always strange to Jeremy. He remembers this like steel door built right into the basement walls. So of course, he like had to ask his buddy about it, and he was told that it was just going to be a safe room, like a panic room, which was odd to him, but as a kid, he didn't really want to push. Now after Jeremy and Eugene drifted apart, it seems like Eugene kept drifting farther and farther from center. According to six ABCs reporting, in 2004, Eugene pleaded guilty to aggravated assault after a DUI crash. In 2013, a separate traffic stop led police to that house in Olney. He's living there by that point. And inside, they discovered a marijuana grow operation worth almost $2 million. Then in 2025, when first responders were responding to a fire at the Olney house. Wait, another one? Yeah, different house now, but like another house fire, but I don't know what it means. And he was while firefighters are tending to that, they expose yet another grow operation plus three guns with the serial numbers removed. So overall, he has spent about five or so years behind bars spread across his entire adult life. And by 2026, he was on probation. So Eugene is far from squeaky clean. But when his attorney, Jerome Brown, started speaking up, he said this whole thing is getting overblown. Quote, "much to do about nothing," says that he would be shocked if police found any real harm tied to the house. But he kind of insinuates, you know, if they did, that still doesn't mean anything for his client. Because he says he thinks that a lot of the chemistry stuff belonged to somebody else entirely. Because as you know, Brett, there was another person who also lived in that house for a long time. Somebody with what attorney Brown calls a very interesting past. The person with a very interesting past, who Eugene's attorney is referring to, is Eugene's very own father. But he's deceased by 2026. Yes, so Raymond Horch, also known as Ray or RC, died in 2025, like a year before any of this exploded. But this dude, now this is the kind of guy that you would expect to live in a house with chemicals and drums and letters about Ted Bundy. But I want you to just, like, read his author bio for people. This is what is on some of his books, including a book that he put out in 2003 called Erato. So his bio, which, like, he has a heavy hand in writing, describes him as, quote, "an artist, filmmaker, composer, writer, porn performer, drug smuggler, sometimes political activist, art forger, counterfeiter, pot grower, airshow pilots, army deserter, fugitive, sociopath, ex-convict, and all-out villain." Listen, this is not just something that he wrote for a book jacket either. We tracked down this reporter at Philly's NPR station, W.H.Y.Y. News, his name's Peter Cremens. And he interviewed Raymond back in 2014 for a story about vintage erotic film screenings around Philly, including one that Raymond made in 1973. And then he talked to him again for a book idea about Philly's criminal underworld in the '60s and '70s. And Peter played a clip of Raymond from that interview on W.H.Y.Y. News podcast, and brought you have to hear him in his own words. I think it's chilling. I mean, basically, I'm a sociopath always have been and it was a nice way to express myself. What makes you describe yourself as a sociopath? I don't like disagree with society. I think civilization is the biggest evolutionary mistake ever made. Even this is not a performance that he puts on. So when Peter later met up with him for lunch, he said the two of them were having like this totally normal meal together, like Raymond's munching on dips, except Peter said like completely deranged things were just coming out of Raymond's mouth the entire time. Surprisingly, though, Peter told us that he didn't find Raymond creepy or threatening at all. He said he never felt like he was in danger. This guy was just calmly telling him about running a meth empire he compared to Breaking Bad, fleeing to New Zealand under some scientist's name, crashing a Reno air show uninvited in a jet that he said he bought from the author of Jonathan Livingston's Seagull. Well, by the way, he's like just sitting there eating hummus. Okay, but did any of that like check out though? So Peter actually asked a Philadelphia inquire reporter that same question once this case broke. And the answer was mostly yes. New Zealand, a counter-fitting operation, the meth lap, he even owned a real jet. It all seems to be confirmed. Now some of the smaller, more colorful details nobody really knows, but the core of it checks out from everything that our team learned about this guy he genuinely seemed like somebody who like his son started out as a really bright kid. But by his thirties, he was deep into crime, bad checks, counter-fitting, that meth lab he was running out of his own home in the seventies. And when it looked like he was about to get caught, he fled the country entirely. New Zealand living under fake names for years. Now this is right around the same period when his son Eugene was born. While Raymond was still on the run, so Raymond eventually ended up back in the US and got caught. And according to the Philadelphia inquirer in 1985 as part of his sentencing, his defense team had him go through a psych evaluation. And I found their conclusions very interesting. The psychologist report painted a picture of a man obsessed with control, constantly working an angle on people around him. It said that he was "consumed" by anger. And the evaluation points toward bipolar disorder and a paranoid personality disorder. Now he got sentenced to three years in prison, and even though he would end up getting out early, for those first few years Eugene's mother had to raise him mostly on her own. But you can piece together that mom wasn't much more of a stable presence than dad was, because the Philadelphia inquirer says that she died of an overdose in 1989 with seven-year-old Eugene in the room. After that, it was just Raymond raising Eugene alone in Bucks County, in his childhood home in Shalfon, the one I told you about. And you can trace this shifting in his path, like who he could have become to who he became. I mean, that was one of my biggest questions with this case, too. - There's something. - The nature versus nurture, right? - Yeah. - And like, what was Eugene exposed to growing up that made him go from this like smart, pretty normal kid that Jeremy remembers to getting like so far off path? - Well speaking of Jeremy, this is actually where Eugene's former friend his story comes back in. So he told us about this time when they were around junior high-ish age and they'd been playing video games on the computer. And Jeremy remembers something else like popping up on the screen. It was explicit content. But Jeremy described it as like way out of what he assumes most people would think of when they think of porn. It was actually gore and blood, like torture situations. - And what does Eugene do during this? - Nothing. That was the part that stuck with Jeremy all these years. He said that Eugene barely reacted. He just went like, oh yeah, that's just like my dad's stuff. And then they go right back to gaming. So that is the environment that Eugene is actually growing up in. Because at the same time that Raymond is raising a kid, he was building an entire career as a quote unquote filmmaker and photographer. And for decades, his whole body of work centered on women, addiction and violence. According to what we learned from the Philadelphia inquire, his whole MO was built around one neighborhood in Philly, Kensington, which is one of the biggest open air drug markets in the country. Raymond's play was to approach women who were struggling, who were vulnerable. And he would offer them somewhere to stay, something to numb the pain. And in exchange, he wanted them to get in front of his camera to act out basically like staged death scenes, hangings, strangulations, drownings. Now we spoke with several long time neighbors from his house back in Shalfont. And they all described the same pattern where women would just be coming and going. So were these legit movies is such a strong word? Were they being distributed? Or were they just for him? It kind of seems like both. So way back in the '70s, he made at least one real movie that got a real release. They ran ads for it in the paper. But over the years, most of his stuff was self-made. And he had photo books that he published himself, the documentary stuff that he posted on his own website. And in 2014, he even got a gallery show in Kensington. But it all seemed like super low budget. And it doesn't seem like it was making him much money. Neighbors told the inquire that his only income appeared to be selling drugs. And we'll come back to this a little bit later, like when we get to the whole of this, because I think that the question you're asking is an important one. Now, in 2009, Raymond got in trouble with the law again for a grow operation in the Shalfant House. So he got a little over 50 months that time when he was sentenced. He got out in 2013, and he had lost the Shalfant home. So he went to go live with his son, Eugene, at the house in Oli. And he keeps making his stuff there. The Philadelphia inquire describes the house as basically becoming a porn studio. And years later, he was still posting photos of women acting out their own deaths on his website. So to bring it back to Blair Tonzelli, there are a couple of things you need to know. We know that she spent years struggling with opioid addiction on the streets of Kensington. Where Raymond found women. Right. And we know that she was last known to be at the Horses House. And even though the friend who reported her missing didn't name these sketchy guy that Blair was scared of that lived there, according to reporting by the inquirer, another friend did know the name of the man she was visiting. And it wasn't Eugene. He said it was Raymond. And guess what? Blair wasn't the only missing woman whose last known location was at that house. About as quickly as reporters in the public were learning about Blair Tonzelli, they were piecing together that another woman connected to Raymond Horses had gone missing with her last known location being the only house. Her name's Amy McCale. And according to what we learn about her from the Philadelphia inquirer, she and Raymond met while she'd been struggling with substance use. And he was like 30 years older than her and basically gets her off the streets. And her mother later said that Amy saw Raymond as her savior. So they get married in 2004, right in the backyard of Raymond's Shalfont house. But Raymond is no one savior. The marriage didn't last. They divorced a few years after that. But apparently she's still hung around. Even after Raymond got out of prison and moved to the new house in only. Which brings us to June 13, 2016. Amy went to the Horses House that day. And she called her mom from there that night sounding really drunk. So her mom told her to just stay put instead of taking the subway home. Then the next day, June 14, Amy left a voicemail for her daughter. According to reporting by the inquirer, she said that she was at raise and that she was okay. And then that's it. She has never heard from again. Like what I don't understand about any of this is how police weren't picking up on this pattern. Like years ago. Well, I think they were at least suspicious. But Raymond never pretended that he didn't know these women. He always had some kind of like harmless sounding, like explanation. So like with Blair, he claimed that she worked as his home health aid. And then with Amy, he just tells everyone, police Amy's family, the same story that she was drinking vodka. He went to bed and then when he woke up in the morning, she was just gone. And apparently they like didn't have enough for a warrant. So like I would love to understand the nuts and bolts of that. Like someone goes missing. She literally leaves a recorded message saying, I am here, this is where I am. And like the person confirms that she had bed there. And you can't get a warrant for here? Like that's wild to me. I mean was her family convinced that he did something to her like back then? Or they never came out and publicly accused him as far as I can tell. But they knew that she wouldn't just leave. Like her daughter told the inquirer that her mom was, you know, she would sometimes be gone for a couple of days, but never longer. She never missed big things like her grandkids milestones, for example. And Amy's mom put up signs all over Kensington looking for her. And there's actually this one detail that stuck with Amy's mom for years. So I guess normally whenever Amy would disappear for a little stretch or whatever, Raymond would call her like checking in. But after this time, there was nothing. He just stopped reaching out completely. So Amy's case sits like that for a decade. Unsolved no real leads. But there's this woman we connected with, named Barbara Rotella. She is or has dedicated a huge amount of time to creating this entire database of under-reported and under-represented missing people. Like in Philly. No girl, like much bigger. But she does seem to focus on like the mid-Atlantic, with some cases even further out though. Like Barbara literally decided that what's already out there wasn't good enough. So she's like, but Kay, I'll just gonna make my own thing. So we love her. We do. We absolutely love her. She is one of us. All of our crime junkies should check out her work. Her website's super easy to remember. It is underground mysteries.com. So obviously she had been looking into all of this. And she told one of our reporters about how she found a photo of Amy on Raymond's website back in 2024. Now the site has since been taken down. So this was like two years before any of this broke publicly. She told us that the date in the photo file put it right around the time that Amy disappeared. And the detail that stuck with her is like, Amy is sitting in a car and it looks like she had been crying. And Barbara had sent that photo directly to Amy's daughter who confirmed that she had never seen that picture before in her life. So Barbara told our reporter that she shared what she had with police back in 2024. A detective did follow up. They interviewed Raymond. And he just told detectives, you know, the same story. And he said that all of his works were works of fiction. That was his excuse. And Raymond denied any involvement in her disappearance. So all of this story involves Raymond. But like Eugene is in this house too. Rightly did they question Eugene about any of this? I don't know for sure. I haven't seen the files. But I don't think so about Amy because what I can tell you with near certainty is that Eugene was incarcerated at the time that Amy disappeared. So I don't know that he would have any relevant information. Now as far as we know, he wasn't in custody when Blair disappeared. And to be clear, Eugene has not been charged in connection with any crimes related to the missing women. And a lot of what we know about Blair points back to Raymond. Don't remember, it was Eugene who allegedly made that fake ID even ends up reporting that there was at least one photo of Blair reportedly up on Raymond's site too. In it, they say she was nude with a black eye and a bloody lip. I mean, you have to assume that both women at least maybe crossed paths with Eugene though. Like, if they were in the house, those are the problem. I don't think anything like can be fully answered yet. Because things get even more complicated. The more investigators continue. you to uncover things from the house in only. Because to come back to the early days of this investigation in 2026, what police hadn't even revealed publicly right away was that part of what they had seized from the Horses house in only included digital evidence. - And we're not talking just like a couple of pictures. - Right, we are talking around 50 hard drives. We've over 600,000 images, more than 70,000 videos, and over 10,000 pages of writing. - Right, they're not just a computer. This is like a database of persons entire life. - Now look, by this point, investigators already know that this case is dark. They've read the letter. They know about Raymond's whole career staging violence for the camera. They have heard from witnesses. So you would think that they would walk into this digital evidence somewhat prepared for what's coming. But actually sitting down and going through hundreds of thousands of files trying to figure out which ones are staged and which ones might be legit is something else entirely. - I truly cannot imagine having that job. Just like how much it would mess with your head. - Where on you, do you remember? We didn't entire show on this, actually, like dark greeners. - Yes, but someone has to go through this stuff because within these hard drives full of files that he called fiction are glimpses of the truth that tells us at least some of this might be real. This realization does not reach the public until August 12th, 2026. That is when police call another press conference. An inspector named Raymond Evers stands in front of the cameras and says something that nobody's heard yet in this investigation. He says two women are now believed to have been killed inside that house. But it is not the two names that we already know, Blair and Amy. It is Maribel Fresses reported missing in 2018. And Gabrielle Amarondo missing since 2012. The reason they were announcing this now is because as investigators were coming through a mountain of files, they found images of these two young women. And at one point, both women appear alive and then in other images contained within those same files, they both looked dead. - And has it ever come out how they were able to ID them? - So police never said. But this was actually a question that we had while we were reporting on this case. So we reached out to a guy named Adam Scott Want. He is an associate professor of public policy who specializes in digital forensics. And he didn't work on this case. We just wanted to like understand in general how something like this typically works. And he said that the likely tool that was used was some kind of facial recognition software which pulls from everywhere. Drivers license, photos, social media, all of it. And he said that matching somebody in that way isn't difficult at all these days. So that is his best educated guess. But back to the press conference. So along with naming these women, who by the way, police are clear, they do not have bodies for. They say that the material that they're having to review is quote, graphic and dark. Though they won't say what it shows or how the women may have died. But even the medical examiner's office has weighed in. And they say that the women are dead if the images and the videos are real and not altered in any way. - And in this AI AIDS, that's like a big if. I mean, even in like 2012, 2014, 2016, like 10, 15 years ago we had incredible Photoshop tools. And you know, Raymond considered himself an artist. So it's totally possible. - Right. Outside of the pictures, are there other ties to like either of the guys, either horse, like. - Not like Amy and Blair had no. So they just have the images, which police believe were taken inside that house. And that is what ties them. - That's like a connection. - Yeah. Now even though the pictures came from the search of the house in only, and we know Eugene and Raymond lived there. And we know that Raymond was known to be the one who captured the stuff like this. Police have stopped short of blaming either of the horses. Inspector Evers actually gets asked this question pretty directly. Like, were they involved in these women's deaths? And here's exactly how he answered it. Quote. Eugene lived there? He lived there for a long time. His dad lived there for a long time. And to quote. - Okay. - Exactly what I told you. Did the pictures have dates on them or like any of the metadata that could help them find the body? - So here is where things get real interesting. Yes, investigators would later go on to say that they pulled the metadata. And that shows that both images were taken in 2017. - But we. - I know. So Gabrielle went missing in 2012. - I mean, we're concerning, I think, is that Maribel went missing after 2017. Like in 2018, is the date fake? Maribel was reported missing February 2018. So I wonder if maybe it's possible that she had been MIA for longer. Remember how kind of like Blair was? Or maybe somehow that 2017 date is just off because you're right. There is a huge gap between 2012 and 2017 for Gabrielle. Now Maribel and Gabrielle were the first two women that police openly said like they believed were dead. But there was also a caveat that left all of us feeling like there was gonna be more press conferences to come because at that point, what they said is they had only gone through about 5% of what is actually on those hard drives. And as expected, the more they viewed, the more potential victims they've identified. (dramatic music) September 16th, 2026, police hold another press conference. W.D. Commissioner Vanour says that while going through the digital evidence, investigators have identified three additional women who may have been harmed. Two are described the same way. They were found in recovered images, unconscious with visible injuries. Now, one of them, they say that it was a woman around 25 years old, but they don't release her name out of respect for her family's wishes. And the second woman was still unidentified is still unidentified as of this recording. But the third, Vanour goes further than anyone has so far when he describes what it was they found involving her. He said they came across a video, not a photo, an actual video from not one but two cameras. One of the cameras, police say Raymond was controlling himself, filming as a woman used drugs. Then he says Raymond Horsh hands her money, handcuffs her to the bed, and then using a tool, basically like a pair of pliers, he puts a zip tie around her neck until she looks lifeless. Now, police don't identify this woman in the video publicly again out of respect for her family, but there is a man watching that press conference on a live stream who already knows who she is. Because just a few hours earlier, detectives had been sitting in his mom's house, making the death notification. You see, this man is Jonathan Halloran-Korin, and for the past few years, he had been looking for his cousin, Nicole Fusaro. They'd been close growing up. He described her as one of the sweetest girls you could imagine. But like both her parents, she struggled with addiction. Now, the cousins lost touch around 2011 when Jonathan was living overseas for work. He actually lost touch with a lot of family, which is why he didn't realize until 2020 that Nicole had gone missing. He was just searching her name on Facebook and found a group created to help find her. And in that same sitting, one of the first posts he reads tells him that Nicole's mom, Diane, who had been the one like spearheading the search for her daughter, Diane had already died two months earlier. So Jonathan decided to pick up where Diane left off. He was back in the US pounding pavement in Kensington where he found out she was known to frequent. And the same name kept popping up for him. Ray. This guy known as a pornography and photographer who puts ads out on Craigslist looking for models. And this is years before any of this broke. Years. So his ears perked up right away when the first news articles were coming out mentioning Raymond Horsche. He started tracking the case closely. And then on September 10th, a family member called him. They had gotten a notification from Philadelphia police that Nicole was dead connected to what they called the quote, Ray Horsche case. Now this first notification was to Nicole's father side of the family. And apparently they have requested that Nicole's name not be publicly disclosed, which is why police initially didn't say it at the press conference. So fast-forward six days later, detectives showed up at Jonathan's mom's place to give her a notification, too. And Jonathan was there when they arrived. So they tell his mom that Nicole was killed, strangled, and they say there was a videotape. And Jonathan tried to ask them more questions about what was on the tape. But he said that they got super short with him. They wouldn't tell him since he was not technically the next of kin. And they apparently said something like, we know all about your advocacy for the other victims. Because by this point, as he had learned about this investigation, he had been petitioning for additional-- FBI involvement in the case. - Okay, so sorry for caring. - Yeah, and listen, he told them, he's like, I've got other leads that I want to hand over, but at least to him, he said they didn't seem to like, want to hear any of it. They didn't even give him like an email or a name to send his tips to. And so then fast forward, just a few hours later, there they are telling the whole country, what's in the video, which is like what he was asking them, they said they wouldn't say, but you'll tell the entire public, like that really rubbed him the wrong way. And he said, watching that presser on the live stream, he told us he just felt anger and sadness. But Nicole's name, even though they're not saying it, it doesn't stay secret for long. So that soon gets leaked to the media. Nicole Fusaro missing since July 2018, 27 years old. - And did please say when she was killed or when they believed she was killed? - Well, they say that like Maribel and Gabrielle, the metadata says 2017. But just like in those cases, that's weird with what we know, right? Like for Nicole, in her case, we actually know that she was alive and like spoke to her mom in 2018. - So the date has to be wrong. - I think so. And Jonathan said that they did say something interesting to his mom. So when she asked like when this happened, they allegedly told her that the camera's date and time had to be set manually by hand. So they don't even know if the date on the video was accurate. So going back to like the question we have about all of them, honestly, we might as well just like completely scratch that date until we know more. Though Jonathan did tell us that investigators have since told him that his cousin's digital evidence was sent to a specialized FBI lab and that the videos confirmed to be real and not anything like a deep fake. So I don't know if they're gonna be able to like pull more data or what. - Yeah, and do we know if any of the digital evidence so far has connected to like Amy or Blair? - No, not as far as we know, they have not come up. - What about all the physical evidence from the search of the only house? Like that we talked about from the beginning, like blood, the drum, like does anything connect to any of these women? - As of everything we currently know today also know. That significant amount of blood that they found early on got tested turns out it's not blood at all. I don't know if it's like fake blood, I don't know if it's something that just looked like blood or maybe something from one of women's like crinkle projects. - And like all the chemicals, the 55 gallon drum? - The police haven't even offered anything up related to those. At the same September 16th briefing, a reporter directly asked for an update on the chemical testing and the answer is basically like nothing to report yet still ongoing. So really they have the digital stuff, but no physical evidence, no bodies, no remains, like you're saying connecting to these women. - So my question is like, are all the women actually dead? - Exactly, there are seven women that we have talked about. Five that police have said are on pictures or footage in some awful way. So our reporter actually asked point blank, like you have five women who are on video or like you got pictures of them that they appear to be dead. Is that right? And the answer that's given is quote, "Well, we know they're unconscious, we know they're not there." People looked at them, but as long as everything we see is accurate and we can't say that yet, end quote. So like the same hedge is like applied to all of them at once. - Even though they're out there making like death notifications to family members. - Yeah, I guess so. So what about the urns? - Oh, they've been digging into those as well, metaphorically speaking. And investigators believe that three of the five are accounted for as of now. So they think one is Raymond, one's another relative and one is a friend, but that does leave two that I think we're still unsure of. - Can you even DNA test ashes? - From everything I know, not reliably. Like it's my understanding that cremation burns at temperatures so high that it destroys most of the DNA that like testing depends on. And we sometimes labs can pull something from like a surviving bone fragment, but it's really difficult. - So even if one of those two unlabeled urns like belong to one of these women, they might never be able to prove it, especially if there aren't any like usable bone fragments left. - No, and there is a chance this could be the Achilles heel of this whole case. Because as it turns out, those Philadelphia inquire reporters that I told you about, Ryan W. Briggs, Max Maran, Barbara Laker, and Ellie Rushing, well, they figured out that at one time, Raymond had real documented access to an actual crematorium. So back in 2014, Raymond did this art show in Kensington, and the finale was this video that he claimed shows a real woman who died of an overdose, and the footage shows her body being loaded into an incinerator and cremated. And he wrote in his own promotional material, quote, "The medical examiner totally botched the autopsy and didn't even bother to sew her up properly." My horrible photograph is all that is left of her, the only trace of her short, sad existence. And it gets just more disturbing because according to a law enforcement source and people who knew him personally, this wasn't just Raymond being shocking for the sake of it, he genuinely had access to a real crematorium, connected to the Garzone funeral home, which got shut down over an actual illegal body parts trafficking scandal years earlier, completely separate from this case. The Garzone brothers and a business partner were apparently caught selling close to like 250 bodies worth of tissue and bones on the black market, sometimes leaving bodies un-refrigerated in an alley behind the funeral home for days before parts were harvested. And all three ended up getting convicted. The brothers, Lewis and Gerald Garzone, they pled guilty in 2008 to running a corrupt organization, conspiracy theft and abuse of corpse. And they were each sentenced to eight to 20 years in prison. Now their partner in the crematorium, James McCaffrey Jr., also pled guilty to running a corrupt organization, conspiracy and theft. And he was sentenced to three and a half to 10 years. That whole thing honestly is like a horrifying case all on its own. - Yeah, and how did Raymond have access to this place? - Well, so according to people who knew Raymond, who then talked to the inquire, he got into that building by paying somebody off, allegedly giving a guy named George Newsom drugs and cash just so that he could get close enough to film actual human remains. And I say allegedly because George died in 2014, so like no one's been able to confirm it. And the Garzone crematorium itself actually closed back in 2007. From what the inquire reported, Raymond's access there goes back to the early 2000s though when it was still operating. And that 2014 art show, Raymond said that it was shot somewhere else entirely at a Kensington warehouse where the city more sent unidentified remains. Now when our reporter spoke to journalist Max Marin about this, he made it clear, this isn't like a here's where the bodies went kind of situation. It's more like this is just proof that Raymond had a real established pattern of seeking out actual human remains for what he referred to as art way before any of this became a criminal investigation. And police are now actively looking into his connection to that crematorium as part of their broader investigation. But Max made sure to emphasize, the timeline surrounding Raymond's access to the crematorium doesn't directly line up with any of the women that we know about. At least not the ones we know about so far. Right. So what are we missing here? Like where are the remains? Where are the missing women? That is the million dollar question. It is something that haunts me. And I don't know, dude, I just cannot stop thinking about the old horse house, the one in Shalfan in Bucks County because think about it. Raymond lived there for a long time before all me. And what we heard from neighbors there only adds to my uneasiness about the whole thing, like none of it's actually proof of anything. But one neighbor we spoke to described seeing a hired groundskeeper and they were like constantly moving dirt and stone with a wheelbarrow like into the backyard. And their point was like that yard never showed any signs of landscaping. It was always a hot mess, no garden, nothing to show for all that work. And something nearly every neighbor we spoke to brought up was that they all described seeing barrels around the property. And remember Jeremy Eugene's friend from growing up in the neighborhood we spoke to, he guessed that there were at least 15 total barrels at one point. And he believed at least some of them were full of something because he and Eugene would climb on them as kids and they didn't tip over. And when he even asked about it at one point, he remembers hearing that it was like dark room chemicals for his like photography or something, but like looking back in hindsight, he's like, why would you need that much of like a dark room chemical? I mean, that could at least explain maybe some of the stuff they found at the house in all need to. I mean, even during like the most recent raid. Yeah, but emphasis on some right while our reporter was talking to Max Marion. He brought up the fact that both Raymond and Eugene were also into like horticulture and growing stuff chemistry. Like, those were their hobbies, so, again, could there be an innocent explanation for all the chemicals and stuff? I don't know. Has anyone actually gone back and searched that first property? So, this is the big thing for me, as of this recording, which is happening Tuesday, September 29th, 2026. Philadelphia police have confirmed that they have not searched the Shalphont property as part of this current investigation. Which is why, like, we, like me and the report, have been obsessing over this, because this house is like everything, it's like to me. It feels like where it started. Yeah, and here is something that makes this feel even more urgent. Something that I think is honestly huge and hasn't gotten nearly enough attention. Remember that 2009 bus, the one that sent Raymond to prison? A retired new Britain township police chief actually went on the record with six ABC action news about that search recently. And what he confirmed is wild. In his own words, quote, "As part of the investigation, fire arms were found. There were also IDs of various females. There were a few of them. The DA's office took them and were going to follow up. I really don't know what happened after that." End quote. Actually, who are these women? Nobody has ever said whose IDs those were. Nobody has confirmed if they were ever actually investigated, or if they even still have them stored somewhere at this point, or a list of them. Like, were they simply left behind by guests, or is it something more sinister? Like, it's been 17 years, and that thread has never been publicly closed, which is unreal to me, since this whole thing started with the ID that had a missing woman's information on it. Again, though, technically, when it comes to the timeline, at least, with the names of these women, we know so far, and the dates we have so far. None of the victims we know, like, match up or could be linked to the shallot house. Like, the timeline doesn't work. Raymond lost that house sometime after his 2009 arrest. And every one of the seven women we've talked about today have known disappearance dates from like 2012 onward, so after that. Right, but is that because there was nothing before that? Or because nobody's ever said what happened with the evidence that they do have, like, I don't know, the IDs. That, yes. So our reporting team was going hard at this house. Remember that steel door that Jeremy saw during the rebuild, the one that he was told was like going to be like a safe room or something. Well, it sounds like Jeremy's memory checks out one of the neighbors we spoke to told us that the family who lives there now found what they referred to as a large safe built right into the basement foundation. So big that they can't take it out without like tearing up the foundation. Now, they opened it when they bought the house or whatever. It was empty. Nothing left behind in it or anything like that. But this neighbor said it's not the kind of safe that you necessarily keep things in like it's big, big enough that they say people could fit inside. And that's not the only thing that was hidden in that house. Other neighbors, a couple who live across the street told us that they heard this story about how years later after this house was sold to new owners. Those residents were doing renovations, and they found something hidden inside the garage walls, homemade DVDs. They just assumed that they were like old family movies, so they just tossed them in the dumpster, which like I don't know if that's like the normal person move you would never do that. There is not a world in which I would not have popped in every single one of those DVDs and watch them start to finish looking for some like mystery to solve proactively, but that's like the crime junkie and me. And also like like homemade tapes or videos worse in like the live show that we did, like we're like Gary and tune to them. And I come back to like what could have been on it? What could have been on them? Yeah, like do we even want to know, especially knowing the kind of stuff that would pop up in front of his own kid and his kids kids friend? I can't imagine the kind of stuff that Raymond was working hard to hide in garage walls. It would be hard to look at, but God, it would have been worth it if they could have, and maybe it could help connect investigators to more potential women. And I have no doubt that there are so many more women that we're going to hear about though not every woman on a video or in an image met the same fate. Deputy police commissioner of the North said at that September 16th presser that out of everything they'd reviewed so far at the time, which was still only like a third of it, they had identified close to 60 different people in the footage and images. Now, five of them are the women that we've already talked about, the ones who appear lifeless, 10 of them were ID but found to have died of overdose's sins, but at other locations entirely not the only house and after whatever was captured of them on the hard drives. 16 were found alive, interviewed, but apparently weren't cooperative. Another 25 are alive and at the time of this presser were scheduled for interviews, so I don't know if those have happened yet. And finally, three people actually called police themselves just to say like, hey, you're going to see us in the footage eventually, but we are not coming in. I mean, I feel like this is just like the tip of the iceberg totally totally because by the way that list of close to 60 I just mentioned as far as we know didn't include the two missing women who were last seen at the Horseshouse Blair and Amy. But again, I want to remind everyone that Eugene Hors has not been charged in connection with any crimes related to the images, videos or the missing women. As of this recording, he faces two federal charges related to the search of his vehicle, so possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of an unlawfully produced document and authentication feature. And while his attorney Jerome Brown didn't get back to us, he has said quote, we believe Mr. Horses is innocent. We reached out to law enforcement agencies involved in this case for comment to and they declined because this is a very active and ongoing investigation. We also tried family members of all of the women that we discussed in this episode, but most of them were either unable to speak with us at this time or didn't get back to us. Investigators have gone through a fraction of one house's evidence and already found what we've talked about today. More people in that same footage are still just faces in a file. So this is where we need crime junkies to pay attention. If you have anything, a name, a memory, a bad feeling you never said out loud, please reach out to the Philadelphia police or FBI's Philadelphia field office. Because right now, neither of the two men who might actually have those answers are talking. Eugene himself hasn't commented publicly and Raymond never will, he's dead. He'll never have to answer for any of this, whatever this turns out to be. And that's even if we ever learn the full truth. Per the Philadelphia Inquirer, in one of his own books, Raymond once wrote, "Would it surprise you to learn that I'm lying?" Well, at this point, I think the scarier question might be, "Would it surprise you to learn that he wasn't?" Crime junkie is an audio chuck production. I think Chuck would approve.