What we know about the Olney investigation into missing women

A law enforcement search continued Saturday at a dilapidated three-story brick twin in Olney, where police are investigating the homeowner’s connection with at least two missing women.

The house belongs to Eugene Albert Horsch, 44, who was arrested June 19 and charged with illegal gun possession and drug-related crimes.

Horsch’s initial arrest sparked questions: Why did he have a fake ID showing himself to be a DEA agent? Why did a woman with Horsch identify herself as someone else who was reported missing in 2023?

More questions unspooled as city police investigators and federal agents looked inside Horsch’s house, where they found hidden compartments, a 55-gallon drum, chemicals, unknown liquids, a woman’s death certificate, and a handwritten letter that seemed to describe hurting people.

On Saturday, Philadelphia police closed off the block and FBI forensic experts entered the property in hazmat suits.

In addition to these questions, there’s an older mystery — the June 2016 disappearance of Amy McHale.

Here’s what we know so far.

The morning of Friday, June 19, a U.S. park ranger near Independence Hall in Old City heard “a disturbance” coming from a black BMW, Philadelphia Police Department Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said Friday.

The ranger heard a woman say she was concerned that Horsch was going to hurt her, Vanore said.

The woman gave the ranger an identification card bearing her photo but the name of another woman who had been reported missing, Vanore said.

» READ MORE: Knives, drugs, and guns: A police report obtained by The Inquirer shows what officers found inside Eugene Albert Horsch’s car

“And the park ranger felt that there was illegal drug activity going on inside the vehicle,” Vanore said.

Other law enforcement officers in the area were called to the scene, he said. In the car, police found cocaine, fentanyl, marijuana, two firearms with serial numbers removed, a collapsible baton, a cattle prod, and switchblade knives, sources told The Inquirer Friday.

Law enforcement also found a fake U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency badge with Horsch’s photograph under the name “Eugene Frederick Steiner” in the car, sources told The Inquirer.

Police haven’t spoken publicly about why they believe Horsch had the fake ID. However, they soon brought real DEA agents to the scene, Vanore noted.

Soon, those agents were among those searching his Olney home.

Police searched Horsch’s home on the 400 block of West Chew Avenue, where they found a 9mm firearm, ammunition, and a marijuana grow operation on one of the floors, Vanore said.

“The further search of this property produced some other things that we have a lot of questions about,” Vanore said.

Police brought in homicide investigators — who are now leading the investigation with FBI assistance — due to their experience and because several urns, possibly from deceased family members, were found, Vanore said.

Investigators found at least one more fake ID presenting someone as federal law enforcement, Vanore said, as well as “computer evidence” that the DEA took for analysis.

They also found bank cards in the name of the woman who went missing in 2023, and recovered what appeared to be a death certificate for another woman who died last year, The Inquirer reported Friday.

Investigators also found hidden compartments, “hoses coming from barrels,” and bottles containing chemicals and unknown liquids, Vanore said.

Some of the chemicals, if combined and ignited, could pose hazards, he said. The chemicals are what led investigators to ask for help from FBI experts, Vanore said.

“There’s chemical work being done, but we just don’t know if he was trying to produce narcotics, or some other work,” Vanore said.

Federal investigators also found an unsigned handwritten letter that described references to hurting unspecified people, and references to the serial killer Ted Bundy, The Inquirer reported Friday.

“Acting on emotion is where problems occur. What I don’t think I told you was that the first time it was planned ahead of time. The threat was made before you know who came over and I already had a 2ft zip tie in my pocket and a drum set up,” the letter said.

“I had been ready and waiting and I damn sure showed no hesitation. And it was fun,” the letter said, according to an affidavit of probable cause for a search of the home obtained by The Inquirer.

Law enforcement sources said investigators were working to learn who wrote the letter and whether it may be part of a work of fiction.

Rumors spread quickly online Friday, with one of the most widespread ones being that human bodies or remains had been found at the house.

Speaking to reporters, Vanore dismissed these rumors.

“There’s no apparent bodies inside the house,” Vanore said. “Now, we’re going to further search. There’s a sump pump that looks like a hole in the ground, but there’s no bodies.”

Police have not released the names of any missing women connected to Horsch.

The woman whose name was on the fake ID went missing in February 2023 from the Kensington area, sources told The Inquirer Friday. The woman who was with Horsch when he was arrested told police she used the fake ID because she had outstanding arrest warrants. She didn’t know the missing woman, but feared that something bad happened to her.

Vanore said he didn’t know if the missing woman had known Horsch.

“I have nothing to say she was ever inside the house, but of course, that’s why we’re still holding it and we’re still going to look,” Vanore said.

Vanore noted that Horsch had enough information about the missing woman to create a convincing fake ID.

Another woman who disappeared was Amy McHale, of South Philadelphia, who went missing in June 2016. McHale was the ex-wife of Horsch’s father, R.C. Horsch. Police questioned R.C. Horsch about the disappearance at the time.

Horsch has a long criminal record including a May 2025 arrest for possession of marijuana and amphetamines, which got him three years’ probation.

In March, he was charged with aggravated assault after police said he stabbed a man in the stomach at Eighth and Market Streets. Prosecutors withdrew the charges in May after a witness failed to appear in court, court records show.

Horsch had at least 10 previous arrests for drug possession, dealing, assaults, and drunken driving. He was sentenced to four to eight years in prison after police discovered $1.9 million worth of cannabis inside the Chew Avenue home in 2013, court records show.

Horsch appeared to be living at his house on Chew Avenue, despite its boarded-up windows and rundown look. Vanore said Friday that the woman who had the fake ID also was believed to have been staying there.

R.C. Horsch, born Raymond C. Hoersch, was an erotic photographer and filmmaker who was convicted of forgery and drug manufacturing. R.C. Horsch changed the spelling of his last name.

R.C. Horsch pleaded guilty to passing bad checks in South Carolina in 1973 and the following year was charged in Doylestown by the Secret Service with passing nearly $180,000 in fake 10-dollar bills and possessing phony drivers’ licenses.

In 1977, federal agents raided what was described as R.C. Horsch’s home laboratory, seizing equipment they alleged was meant to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine. But R.C. Horsch absconded to New Zealand, later returning to California, and operating under the alias “Richard Harris.”

Eugene Horsch was born in 1981, while his father was still a fugitive.

R.C. Horsch was captured by authorities in Florida 1985. A psychologist hired by his defense attorney said he had an 140 IQ but had “deep rooted emotional problems.”

He was sentenced to three years imprisonment, plus probation, and settled into a home in Chalfont, Bucks County.

R.C. Horsch acquired the Chew Avenue house after the death of his sister, Helen M. Hoersch, in 2004. In 2007, R.C. Horsch used power of attorney to legally transfer ownership of the property to his son for $1.

In 2009, R.C Horsch was indicted in Chalfont for growing 455 marijuana plants. Investigators also seized two shotguns. The feds seized his suburban home and he was sentenced to 54 months in prison.

Federal inmate records show he was released from prison in 2013.

R.C. Horsch died in 2025, and Vanore told reporters Friday that investigators were looking at a lot of different angles. Vanore declined to go into specifics about R.C. Horsch, and said he wasn’t going to name “other missing people” potentially connected to the house.

“We’re certainly looking into the activities that went on at the house, even before he was there,” he said, referring to Eugene Horsch.

Under a gloomy sky Saturday, about 15 FBI agents went in and out of the boarded-up home, some wearing protective suits.

Next to the tent installed Friday outside Horsch’s home were four portable fabric shelters, with all sides shielded from public view.

Neighbors walked around the sealed perimeter asking for information, while men in protective suits came and went from Horsch’s backyard shed.

“They’ve begun processing the scene,” Vanore said Saturday. Forensic experts now are determining what evidence had to be sent away for scientific analysis, he said. “It’s going to take some time.”

Inquirer staff writers Max Marin, Ellie Rushing, Barbara Laker, Michelle Myers, Chris Palmer, and Isabel Maney contributed to this article. For more details, read this story.