Philadelphia detectives have embarked on an investigation straight out of a serial killer horror film initiated randomly when an illegally parked vehicle expanded into a search for five women who may be missing or dead.
“Police say a search of the vehicle and a home connected to the man inside uncovered weapons, drugs, unusual identification documents and more than a million digital files,” WPVI reported, and a macabre basement that contained a “homemade laboratory” and suspected ashes of human remains.
Some of the files appear to show women who may be unconscious or possibly lifeless.
The resident of the house, Eugene Horsch, 44, was first found in June parked in a space designated for police, with a woman accompanying him in the back seat, according to news reports.
Inside the vehicle investigators found a stash reminiscent of famous serial killer Ted Bundy’s Volkswagen crime kit. They confiscated guns, drugs, weapons and a fake DEA ID card bearing Horsch’s photo, according to a criminal complaint cited by the news station.
Searches of Horsch’s home turned up more drugs, weapons, and potentially incriminating evidence.
FBI raids the home of Eugene Horsch on June 27, 2026. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty)
“There was a homemade laboratory of some kind in the basement area. There were five urns believed to be containing human ashes, a large amount of digital evidence,” Frank Vanore, deputy commissioner of investigations for Philadelphia police, said.
More than 1 million digital images were recovered, along with thousands of videos, police said. Police have identified 58 people in the digital evidence so far, including at least five women who are missing or believed to be dead, Newsweek reported on Wednesday.
Among the missing women linked to the investigation are Gabrielle Amarando, who was 22 when she disappeared in 2012, and Maribel Fresses, who was 27 when she disappeared in 2018.
According to Newsweek:
Philadelphia Police Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said images recovered from a computer hard drive, with metadata dating to 2017, show Amarando and Fresses inside the home, appearing unconscious and showing what appeared to be injuries. Investigators notified their families at the time, but both women remain missing.
…
Vanore said they have not recovered bodies, DNA or other physical evidence connecting either woman to the home.
The case has gone viral on social media, with true crime buffs going wild with speculation that an epic serial killer case is about to be blown wide open, though police say it’s not being investigated as such as this time.
Some of the material, they said, likely belonged to Horsch’s late father, reportedly a drug manufacturer and erotic filmmaker who produced films depicting violence, news outlets have reported. He died in 2025.
Social media and crime commentators are wondering whether those films were faked homicides or actual “snuff films” — where victims were in fact murdered in real life — made by the father.
Among the images are photos of at least five women who appear unconscious or possibly dead, including one strangled by a zip tie.
“At the center of the investigation are the victims and the families and they deserve answers,” said Wayne Jacobs, FBI special agent in charge.
Attorney Jerome Brown, who represents Horsch, refuted allegations made by a former FBI agent that his client was a serial killer.
He told Newsweek in an interview published Thursday:
We categorically deny that Eugene Horsch is a serial killer. Secondly, he was incarcerated from some point in 2013 through 2017, during which period we know at least one person, Amy McHale, went missing. Further, in 2018, he was virtually paralyzed from the waist down and was hospitalized for several weeks and was in a rehab facility for three months, with six to nine months of rehab thereafter. As far as whether anyone living at that house was a serial killer, there’s zero evidence right now that anyone was killed at that location except for videos which might show merely staged killings.
Mary Ellen O’Toole, a former senior FBI profiler, told CNN that investigators are likely questioning Horsch about his late father.
“That’s a lot less threatening. It would be very rare, not impossible, that father and son both have the same criminal type of behavior, and for the father, it looks like he has indications of being a sexual sadist,” O’Toole said.
Horsch remains in federal custody on gun charges. His attorney has said he plans to plead not guilty.
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
