Olney rowhouse raid uncovers curious letter, drugs, chemicals, fake DEA badges -- and possible links to two missing women
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During a weeklong search of a crumbling Olney rowhouse, federal agents and Philadelphia police found guns and drugs, tubs of chemicals, a curious unsigned letter, and fake law enforcement badges as they were investigating the homeowner's connection to at least two women who have been missing for years.
The unusual investigation began under similarly bizarre circumstances: U.S. Park Police encountered Eugene Albert Horsch, 44, acting suspiciously in his black BMW parked near Sixth and Market Streets on the morning of June 19, Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said.
As the ranger approached the car, Vanore said, he heard a woman in the backseat say, "You're going to hurt me." The woman then falsely identified herself to the officers using the name of a 38-year-old woman who had been reported missing in Kensington in February 2023, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
The woman, 39, later told investigators that she'd given the alias because she had open warrants for her arrest in ongoing drug cases, and that Horsch had previously made her fake identification cards in that name, telling her she could use it if she was ever stopped and questioned by police, the sources said.
And later, the sources said, she told officials that she did not know that missing woman - but feared something bad may have happened to her.
When police searched Horsch's car outside Independence Hall, they recovered two firearms with obliterated serial numbers, as well as cocaine, fentanyl, and marijuana, according to an affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. What's more, a source said, the car also contained a collapsible baton, a cattle prod, switchblade, and a fake U.S. Drug Enforcement badge with Horsch's photograph under the name "Eugene Frederick Steiner."
Horsch was taken into custody and charged with illegal gun possession and drug crimes. He's currently being held on $500,000 bail at Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.
Officials with federal drug enforcement began searching Horsch's home on the 400 block of West Chew Avenue alongside Philadelphia police on June 19.
Vanore, in a news conference Friday, said the conditions of the boarded-up twin and materials recovered inside of it - including hidden compartments, drums filled with chemicals, and what appeared to be urns holding at least one of Horsch's relatives' cremated remains - only deepened the mysteries of the case.
And investigators soon found themselves confronting a second concerning thread: Horsch's late father, R.C. Horsch, a convicted drug manufacturer and erotic filmmaker, had an ex-wife who was last seen at the Olney property in 2016 and has never been found.
Horsch's attorney, Jerome Brown, said he did not have details about the ongoing police investigation.
Brown said R.C Horsch, who died in 2025, had been questioned in the June 2016 disappearance of his ex-wife Amy McHale, of South Philadelphia. She suffered from mental health and substance abuse issues, he said.
"This is much ado about nothing," Brown said of the missing persons investigation. "They're barking up the wrong tree."
Inside Horsch's home, investigators found another handgun, chemicals and bottles of liquid that forensics investigators in white hazmat suits were still working to identify on Friday, Vanore said. There was also a 55-gallon drum with connections to waterlines leading into a hole in the ground, he said, and materials to grow marijuana upstairs.
Federal investigators also found a multipage and unsigned handwritten letter that described references to hurting unspecified people, and references to the serial killer Ted Bundy, according to an affidavit of probable cause to search the home that was obtained by The Inquirer.
"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, according to the affidavit.
According to the warrant, it went on: "I had been ready and waiting and I damn sure showed no hesitation. And it was fun."
Law enforcement sources said investigators were working to verify the authenticity of the letter, who wrote it, and whether it was meant to serve as a portion of a novel or screenplay. Horsch's father published several works of fiction with masochistic themes, including one described as an "autobiographical memoir of a caring, empathetic serial killer."
Police also found bank cards in the name of the woman who went missing in 2023, and also recovered what appeared to be a death certificate for another woman who died last year, the document stated.
Vanore said no human remains were found inside the home.
Forensic experts from the FBI are now analyzing the liquids and materials recovered in the home, he said.
Vanore said it wasn't clear whether the chemicals were intended for a drug manufacturing operation or another purpose.
"We just don't know what he's doing, if he's producing something, if he's making something, if he's irrigating something, we don't know," Vanore said. "I'm not a chemist, but from what I've been told ... they could have been explosives."
And, he said, it was too early to say whether the evidence would speak to any of the missing person cases tied to the property. He declined to identify the woman who had been reported missing in 2023 and did not answer questions related to the ongoing investigation into McHale's disappearance.
"We're certainly going to look into the activities that went on at that house," he said.
News reports of the search of the Horsch home reopened wounds for McHale's family. Gloria McHale said her daughter struggled with mental health issues and a drug addiction, and was married to R.C. Horsch for several years before disappearing June 14, 2016.
In an interview Friday, she said when police questioned R.C. Horsch at the time of her daughter's disappearance, he said he last saw McHale drinking vodka before he went to bed, and that when he woke up, she was gone.
"I knew that wasn't right," McHale's mother said. "She wouldn't disappear. She had a daughter and grandkids. Her daughter was about to get married."
Prior to his arrest last week, Eugene Horsch had a criminal history that included at least 10 other arrests for drug possession, dealing, assaults and drunk 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.
He was arrested again in May 2025 for possession of marijuana and amphetamines and handed three years' probation.
Then, 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.
Since his release from jail, he appeared to be living back at his rundown home on Chew Avenue, a property that city inspectors cited as vacant and unsafe in recent years and that neighbors described as an increasingly off-putting presence on the block.
On Friday morning, anxiety swirled along the typically quiet residential neighborhood, about a mile from the Montgomery County border.
A security camera mounted on Horsch's home between the boarded-up windows on the upper floors looked out over an overgrown yard where at least a dozen local and federal agents collected and tested evidence into the late afternoon.
Sid Brunson, a construction worker who lives nearby and occasionally cut the grass in front of Horsch's house, said Horsch often had women who appeared to use drugs at his property. A fire broke out on the upper floors of the property several months ago, he said, which led to plywood covering the windows.
He described his neighbor as a "quiet" and "real jittery" man who kept to himself.
"He always had a nice shirt on like he was going to the office," Brunson said, "but he never gave you enough time to talk because he was always rushing."
Staff Writers Ryan W. Briggs, Samantha Melamed, Brett Sholtis, Michelle Myers, Isabel Maney, Andrea Padilla, and Jesse Bunch contributed to this article.
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