I Met a Photographer Suspected of Murder—and the Clues Haunt Me

Raymond R.C. Horsch repeatedly emphasized that he wanted to change direction.

While eating hummus and ricotta dip during an interview with Peter Crimmins, a veteran arts and culture reporter for Philadelphia public radio station WHYY, the erotic photographer and filmmaker said several times that he felt it was time “to do something else.”

By that point, however, Horsch—little known outside niche erotica film circles—had introduced himself in a deeply unsettling way.

“‘I’m a sociopath.’ That was the first thing out of his mouth,” Crimmins told the Daily Mail.

Crimmins interviewed Horsch twice in 2014. Their discussions focused on Horsch’s highly explicit grindhouse films—low-budget horror and exploitation productions—and were disturbing. Still, the journalist could not have anticipated authorities’ announcement more than a decade later.

Last week, law enforcement said they believe Horsch, who died last year at age 82, may have been a serial killer active for more than 30 years.

A search of his home at 417 West Chew Avenue in Philadelphia’s Olney neighborhood uncovered more than one million photographs and films, according to the FBI and local police. The material shows women who appear to be injured, unconscious or possibly dead.

At least seven women have been connected to Horsch’s home, which authorities have described as a possible crime scene. At least five of them are believed to be dead.

Horsch’s former wife, Amy McHale, was 44 when she was last seen in 2016. Police say she is not one of the five missing women currently under investigation.

The five women include Blair Tonzelli, who was 35 when she disappeared in 2023; Gabrielle Amarando, who was 22 when she went missing in 2012; Maribet Fresses, who was 27 when she was last seen in 2018; and Nicole Fusaro, who was 27 when she disappeared that same year. Authorities have not identified a fifth woman, who was believed to be approximately 25 based on footage recovered from the West Chew Avenue property.

No bodies have been recovered, and police have not announced any murder charges.

Crimmins first spoke with Horsch about his 1973 film, The Erotic Memories of a Male Chauvinist. The obscure vintage erotica movie was later selected for Cinema of Sexual Revolution, a Philadelphia film festival held more than 40 years after its release.

Crimmins was reporting on the festival when he noticed that one of the participating filmmakers was a Philadelphia local. He saw Horsch’s background as a promising angle for his story.

“We sat down in the studio, turned the mics on and I said, ‘Okay, we’re going to talk about the festival,’” Crimmins told the Daily Mail. “I think my first question was something along the lines of, ‘What drove you to make this film?’ And he paused for a really long time and said, ‘I’m a sociopath, always have been.’”

Even so, Crimmins—who had never heard of Horsch before the festival—said the remark did not immediately alarm him.

“His [art] is very, very dark, and no one likes it, including myself. But, coming out of that interview, I didn’t see him as doing something really monstrous,” Crimmins said.

Crimmins believed Horsch was presenting himself as a provocateur—an artist deliberately positioned outside conventional society. He saw that persona as consistent with someone who entered the art world during the so-called Golden Age of Porn.

Horsch’s first film, The Erotic Memories of a Male Chauvinist, was released after sexually explicit movies such as Deep Throat and Last Tango in Paris began finding mainstream success in the late 1960s. The film follows Barney, a divorced artist who walks around recording his misogynistic thoughts on a portable tape recorder.

‘I knew he was into rough and really exploitative stuff,’ Crimmins said. ‘But criminally dangerous? I never got that vibe.’

The ongoing investigation into Horsch and his dilapidated house began in June when his son, Eugene Horsch, 44, was pulled over during a traffic stop. Police found crack cocaine and two guns in his vehicle, as well as fake IDs on both Eugene and his female passenger – including identification belonging to Tonzelli, one of the five women whose disappearance police are investigating. 

Police began searching Eugene’s house on Chew Avenue – where his father had lived until his death last year. Philadelphia’s Action News claimed to have obtained documents revealing that authorities had found chemicals, zip ties and a handwritten note that mentioned Ted Bundy.

Last week, police executed a fresh search warrant at the property. People in white hazmat suits were seen walking around the home early Monday, October 5.

On Friday, investigators brought K-9s to sweep the property. Those dogs included Cache, the Philadelphia Police Department’s electronic-sniffing Labrador retriever. Detectives are expected to return to the property to use luminol to look for any blood residue in the house. 

Eugene remains in federal custody on charges including carrying a fake federal law enforcement badge, possessing guns with destroyed serial numbers and stockpiling dangerous chemicals. 

Horsch’s pornographic portfolio of work has complicated the investigative task, as authorities are faced with the challenge of discerning whether the films and images are play acting or evidence of actual crimes.

For example, in one video, Horsch is allegedly seen strangling a woman believed to be Fusaro. The video, in which both Horsch and Fusaro are described as being naked, allegedly shows Fusaro using drugs and being given money before Horsch handcuffs her to a bed and places a zip tie around her neck. 

‘Let’s remember, he was making movies,’ Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said at a press conference last month. ‘Some of his movies are there on this digital evidence.’

Police have identified at least 58 people in the files that have been recovered from Chew Avenue. Some have been tracked down and have spoken to police, but at least 16 people who were found and interviewed declined to cooperate. Another 10 people are known to have overdosed at a later time.

Horsch was never charged in connection with the disappearance of the identified women, but court records show that he was convicted for attempting to lure a nine-year-old girl into his Jeep Wrangler in 2009.

In 2010, he was found guilty, sentenced to two and a half years in prison and required to register as a sex offender. But he insisted he did nothing wrong and requested a new trial. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the victim and her mother were too afraid to testify a second time. His original conviction was vacated and in 2015 he successfully petitioned a judge to expunge his record.

When Horsch’s name made the news over the summer, Crimmins was taken aback.

‘I hadn’t thought of him in a very long time,’ Crimmins told the Daily Mail.

He decided to go looking for the tapes from their interviews and was shocked with what was on them.

‘You were never arrested for your films, were you?’ Crimmins asked Horsch.

Horsch responded: ‘No, but not for lack of trying. I think the reason I haven’t gotten into more trouble with my artwork is simply because it’s remained obscure.’

In addition to the half hour they spent at the WHYY studio, Crimmins also found recordings from the three-hour lunch he shared with Horsch just months after their first encounter.

At the time, Crimmins had been thinking about writing a book on Philadelphia’s criminal underworld. He thought Horsch, who served time for counterfeiting and operating a methamphetamine lab in the 80s, could be a good place to start.

This time, Horsch had a lot more to say.

‘I didn’t think it would take three hours,’ Crimmins said. ‘He kept talking about these anecdotes from his life, spanning 1980s through to 2010.’

Horsch told him about running a meth lab and the time he spent in jail as a result. He made numerous claims that Crimmins couldn’t verify, like meeting intelligence officer Howard Hunt and activist Abbie Hoffman behind bars, and ones that Crimmins later could fact-check to be true, like being a known fugitive in New Zealand.

‘In broad strokes, a lot of those things were true, but I do think he embellished it,’ Crimmins said.

During that conversation, Horsch likened himself to Walter White in Breaking Bad, citing his meth lab, and Forrest Gump in the titular role played by Tom Hanks, reasoning that he also had so many personal connections to major historical moments and figures.

‘He was trying to insert himself into culture in ways that may or may not have been true,’ Crimmins said.

‘I got a strong sense that he needed, he wanted to be noticed,’ he added. ‘He wasn’t being recognized, even in the fringe circles, like fetish [sadomasochism]. He said, “The S&M people don’t like me. The avant-garde art people don’t like me.” Nobody was embracing what he was doing.’

And just as anyone would be shocked to find out someone they knew could be a monster, Horsch confessed to Crimmins that he was amazed by people who had done horrible things but seemed so normal in person.

‘He was shocked by that,’ Crimmins said. ‘And when he said it, there was a ring of sincerity in the tone of his voice that was different when he was talking to me about Breaking Bad and Forrest Gump.’

As for Crimmins, it’s eerie to hear back audio from their interviews.

‘I’m not sure how to feel about it all,’ Crimmins said. ‘I’m glad I have the tapes because we don’t know where this investigation’s going and no one’s really heard from him because he’s dead. So, even a little peek into what he was thinking 12 years ago – I’m glad there’s something about him that we can maybe make sense of what’s going on.’ 

At the time in 2014, Horsch said he had been working on a ‘really exploitative’ photo project that involved him photographing prostitutes who were addicted to opioids in the nude. But he emphasized to Crimmins that he wanted to do something different. Crimmins wondered what could possibly be next for the pornographer.

‘I don’t know what you do when you escalate from that,’ Crimmins said, noting that the films under investigation today are ‘a very different variety’ to what Horsch was doing in the 70s.

‘They’re very dark. They’re about master-slave relationships. They’re about abuse. Psychosexual scenarios, extremely dark stuff. A totally different vibe from his earlier work.’

Crimmins learned later on that he had met with Horsch at what might have been a pivotal moment in his life. Horsch was fresh out of serving a stint in prison for possession of marijuana.

‘I caught him just as he was getting out of prison and just as he was moving into Philadelphia, into that house, trying to reestablish himself as an artist,’ he explained.

Two years later, Amy McHale, Horsch’s 44-year-old ex-wife, disappeared in 2016. Philadelphia police said that Horsch was interviewed after McHale’s disappearance, although it was not disclosed when he was questioned. She is believed to be dead.

Horsch’s first wife and Eugene’s mother, Myroslawa Anna Ferkuniak, died from an accidental overdose in 1989 when Eugene was seven. 

Forensic processing of Horsch’s house of horrors began last Monday. Over the next few weeks, investigators will begin taking the property apart in a search for new evidence.

Investigators are expected to look at everything in the home, including flooring, drywall, plaster and pipes, as they search for evidence of ‘wet cremation’ – the grisly term for using chemicals to break down human remains.