Police find more photos of women who appear dead in pornographer R.C. Horsch’s home, bringing the number of missing to 7
Police continue to sort through more than a million pieces of photo and video evidence linked to the home.
Philadelphia police on Wednesday said investigators have recovered images that appeared to show two additional women dead inside the home of Raymond “R.C.” Horsch — bringing the total number of dead or missing women linked to the violent pornographer’s home up to seven.
Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said investigators recovered photos that showed a 25-year-old woman unconscious, with visible injuries, inside the home. He did not say when she was reported missing, and declined to identify her at the request of her family.
Detectives also recovered images showing another woman lifeless with injuries inside the home, though investigators have not yet been able to identify her, he said.
Vanore also confirmed that police recovered a video that appeared to show Horsch strangling a woman to death. Horsch used two cameras — one mounted in the room, and another that he held — to film the assault, he said. In the video, he said, the woman used drugs, before Horsch gave her money, then handcuffed her to the bed. He was naked, and tightened a zip tie around her neck until she became unconscious.
That woman has been identified by a family member as Nicole Fusaro, who went missing in 2018 at the age of 27.
The announcement marks the most significant development in the investigation since police last month said they had begun sorting through nearly 1 million photos, videos, and pages of writing recovered on hard drives inside the home on Chew Avenue where Horsch and his son, Eugene, lived for decades.
After going through just the first 5% of those materials, officials said, they recovered images that appeared to show two women dead inside the home: Maribel Fresses, who was 27 when she was reported missing in February 2018, and Gabrielle Amarando, who went missing in September 2012 at the age of 22.
Police have not recovered any human remains.
The elder Horsch, who died last year at age 82, spent decades producing pornography that often focused on the brutalization of women in addiction — printing and uploading photos and videos of the women appearing to be drowned, shot, and strangled.
The investigation began June 19 after a U.S. Park Ranger encountered Eugene Horsch and a woman acting suspiciously inside of his black BMW near Independence Hall. When the officers questioned them, the woman produced a fake ID in the name of Blair Tonzelli, who had been missing since 2023. Police searched the car and also found two guns, drugs, a cattle prod, and a phony federal dug enforcement badge.
Local and federal law enforcement then spent weeks searching the their home on Chew Avenue and found additional drugs and weapons, as well as a basement holding vats of mysterious fluids and a 55-gallon drum leading to a water line.
The case expanded when investigators learned Raymond Horsch’s ex-wife, Amy McHale, had also previously been reported missing in 2016, and was also last seen at the home.
Police then went so far as to excavate the yard of the home in search of physical evidence linked to the missing women.
Vanore said they have not recovered any digital evidence as to the whereabouts of Tonzelli or McHale.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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