Police say they believe two women were killed in Olney home — neither previously linked in missing persons search
Police say “graphic and dark” evidence leads them to believe two women were killed in Eugene and Raymond Horsch's house.
At least two women were killed inside the Olney home at the center of a sprawling missing persons investigation, police say, neither of whom had been previously linked to the case.
Philadelphia Police Inspector Raymond Evers said one of the women believed to have been killed was Maribel Fresses, who was 27 when she was reported missing in February 2018. Evers identified the other woman as Gabriella Amarando, born in 1990 and missing since September 2012.
The announcement at a Wednesday news conference marked a stunning breakthrough in a case that has drawn national attention since June, when police began investigating two other women who were connected to the West Chew Avenue home of Eugene Albert Horsch, 44, and his late father, Raymond “R.C.” Horsch.
Evers said the two-month search of their home involved over 95 search warrants and surfaced an “astonishing” array of evidence — including five urns of cremated remains, more than 20 containers full of unknown chemicals and oily substances, and 50 hard drives and other electronic devices holding more than 600,000 images, 70,000 videos, and 10,000 pages of writings and drawings.
An early review of one of those hard drives found images and videos that appeared to show Fresses and Amarando alive inside the house — and then dead. Evers described the images as “graphic and dark.”
“Usually when we have a homicide investigation, we have body parts,” Evers said. “This time we do not.”
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Because of that, he said, the Office of the Medical Examiner cannot officially declare the women dead without bodies to examine. Evers stopped short of directly blame either of the Horsches.
Police notified the families of Fresses and Amarando Wednesday morning, he said, and continue to review the vast amount of material found on the hard drives — a search that is only about 7% complete, the inspector added.
The news comes nearly two months after police began combing through the Horsch home in connection to at least two other missing women, following a car stop near Independence Mall.
On June 19th, a federal park police officer stopped Eugene Horsch after he was seen arguing with a woman inside his parked BMW. After a search, the officer found the car was filled with drugs, guns, and various other weapons, along with a counterfeit U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration badge in the name of “Eugene Frederick Steiner.”
Horsch’s female companion was also found with a fake ID and bank card made out in the name of Blair Tonzelli, a woman struggling with addiction who was reported missing in 2023.
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An ensuing search of Horsch’s home also renewed suspicions about his father, a fugitive and erotic artist who died in May 2025. Raymond Horsch’s ex-wife, Amy McHale, was reported missing in 2016 and last heard from at the Olney house.
The woman later told police Tonzelli was a home healthcare aide who had worked for Horsch’s father, and that she believed Tonzelli and Eugene Horsch had a disagreement over money.
She also said the younger Horsch had bragged that he knew of chemicals needed to melt human remains so that they “could be flushed down a toilet.”
Since the June arrest, Horsch has remained in federal custody on charges related to the illegal weapons as law enforcement conducted searches of the Olney home on suspicion that both Tonzelli and McHale were killed there.
Last month, police secured a warrant to excavate the property in search for more evidence, ultimately removing a buried pipe. FBI agents, meanwhile, continued examining hundreds of pages of text messages, handwritten and typed documents, CDs, and videos – including many of Raymond Horsch’s artistic works.
An attorney for Eugene Horsch did not respond to a request for comment.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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