She disappeared from Kensington three years ago. A fake ID in her name led police to a disturbing Olney house.
Police said they have not recovered any human remains at the house, but law enforcement sources on Monday said there was a “significant amount” of blood inside.
Blair Tonzelli had been missing from Kensington for more than three years when her name turned up somewhere unexpected: on the fake ID of a woman in the backseat of a car parked near Independence Hall.
The woman showed the ID to U.S. Park Police on June 19 after they found her and Eugene Albert Horsch, 44, seated in his black BMW, with drug paraphernalia, guns, and knives stashed in the car, according to police records. The woman later told officers that Horsch made her the fake ID in Tonzelli’s name and urged her to use it if she ever got into trouble.
That encounter sparked a sprawling investigation into Horsch and an ongoing search of his Olney home for connections to Tonzelli and at least one other missing woman. Amy McHale — ex-wife of Raymond Horsch, Eugene’s father — was last seen at the Horsch property on West Chew Avenue in 2016.
Tonzelli was 35 when a friend reported her missing in early 2023. Police records now link her to Horsch following his arrest during the car stop. Philadelphia homicide detectives began probing Tonzelli’s disappearance last week and interviewed at least two women who said they believed something bad may have happened to her, according to police documents.
One reported that Horsch was “a sociopath,” and that while he had never been violent toward her, he said things that suggested he was to others. According to the police documents, the woman told detectives that Horsch said that he knew of three chemicals needed to melt human remains and that he could make a body “so small it could be flushed down a toilet.”
The woman told police that Tonzelli was a home healthcare aide who had worked in Horsch’s Olney house, according to the records. She believed Tonzelli and Horsch had a disagreement over money at one point, the records say, and that he still had access to a CashApp account under Tonzelli’s name.
Horsch remains in a Philadelphia jail after park rangers searched his car and found two firearms with obliterated serial numbers, as well as cocaine, fentanyl, and marijuana, a cattle prod, switchblade knives, handcuffs, and a fake U.S. Drug Enforcement badge featuring Horsch’s photo. He is being held on $500,000 bail for illegal gun and drug charges.
Jerome Brown, an attorney for Horsch, declined to comment on Monday.
Horsch has not been charged with any crimes linked to Tonzelli’s disappearance. But the statements in law enforcement records raise concerns about her well-being and have provided local and federal investigators probable cause to search the Olney property for more than a week.
Inside the boarded-up twin, officers recovered several fake IDs in Tonzelli’s name and her bank card, according to police records. Investigators also found drugs, guns, vats of unknown chemicals, a 55-gallon drum, and an unsigned, handwritten letter that graphically described hurting people.
Police said they have not recovered any human remains at the house, but law enforcement sources on Monday said there was a “significant amount” of blood inside. Investigators are awaiting forensic testing to determine whose blood it is or if it’s even human, a process that could take weeks to complete.
Police are preparing to excavate the front and backyards of the home, the sources said.
Local and federal investigators continued to scour Horsch’s home Monday for additional evidence.
In the years before her disappearance, Tonzelli struggled with an opioid addiction and floated through the streets of Kensington, spending time in and out of jail on drug and prostitution charges. David McCarty, 72, said that he lived with her for a time in a house on Wensley Street and that their friends would try to look out for one another.
Even in the throes of her addiction, Tonzelli was fiercely loyal, McCarty recalled. She once threw herself in front of a tow truck to prevent the operator from illegally taking McCarty’s car, yelling “You’re not gonna do this to my friend!”
But Tonzelli, he said, would disappear for stretches, often with a man from Olney who sold marijuana. She told McCarty she was visiting with a man named Raymond, he said.
At the time, Eugene Horsch lived with his father, Raymond “R.C.” Horsch, a convicted drug dealer and a producer of erotic films and novels. His work often focused on serial killers and the sexual exploitation of women with substance-abuse problems. The elder Horsch, who died in the Olney house in 2025, often featured women who frequented Kensington in his films.
Tonzelli typically returned from her trips to see Horsch, McCarty said, but then he didn’t hear from her after August 2022.
Joseph Gunkel said in an interview that he and a friend called police to report Tonzelli missing in February 2023 after months had passed without hearing from her.
The friend told police that Tonzelli was last seen at the Olney home of a “sketchy” man who scared her, according to police records. Tonzelli was meant to meet someone one afternoon and never showed up, and none of her acquaintances — from Philly to Florida — had heard from her since, the friend said.
McCarty grew worried as days became weeks. He knew she needed regular medical attention because of a drug-related wound that ran from her armpit down to her knee. McCarty said he replaced the gauze and applied ointment to the open gash twice a day, and Tonzelli needed daily medication to fight off the infection.
“I can’t tell you how many times I spent visiting her and putting her in the hospital,” McCarty said. ”People make choices. She’s an adult, and it didn’t matter what I’d say or what I’d do to help her.”
Gunkel said he didn’t hear from police again about Tonzelli until last week, when homicide detectives asked him to come in for an interview about her disappearance. He said he was relieved someone was finally looking into her whereabouts, even if it was three years later.
“At least reporting her missing helped out some,” he said.
Tonzelli’s Facebook page says she attended Archbishop Ryan High School. Her mother, who grew up in Fishtown, died when Tonzelli was 18, according to an online obituary.
Tonzelli’s family declined to speak this week. McCarty said that Tonzelli was estranged from her relatives but that she had a son who she talked about often.
After she went missing, McCarty urged a mutual friend to file a police report, because he worried no one else would.
“My soul just believes something was going on,” he said.
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