Over the past several months, the world has been learning about a potential serial killer and snuff producer named Raymond “R.C.” Horsch. He died in 2025, but police are now investigating seven missing women connected to his former Philadelphia home following the arrest of his son, Eugene, on June 19 of this year. Eugene was parked illegally in a BMW in front of the Liberty Bell early that morning when police approached him. He was arguing with a woman who said her life was in danger, so police searched the car, finding $8,000 worth of crack and numerous weapons, including a cattle prod, a switchblade, and two guns, one of which had its serial number removed. Even more suspicious were the fake FBI and DEA credentials he attempted to pass off to police.
This arrest led to a search of the home that Eugene inherited from his father, Raymond, where police found what they described as a “house of horrors.” Inside, police discovered a makeshift laboratory with corrosive chemicals that could have been used to chemically cremate bodies. There were also 55-gallon drums connected to the sewer system, further supporting this theory. The search also revealed a cache of photographs, videos, and written material in which Horsch depicted lifelike scenes of death and murder. The evidence was so realistic that police are still unsure which footage is fictional and which, if any, is real.
The search has continued for months, with unidentified cremated remains and human DNA discovered in the house.
In the months since Eugene’s arrest, multiple women have come forward to describe their encounters with him and his father, painting a picture of a well-planned operation that stretched back over fifteen years. Raymond targeted homeless women who were experiencing drug addiction, taking advantage of their vulnerable condition and paying them in drugs to act out ultra-violent, pornographic scenes for films and images that Raymond produced and sold. He did not hide this part about his life; he advertised it openly, appearing on podcasts to speak about his work and writing books that blurred the lines between fact and fiction. In his book Empathy, he wrote an “autobiography” from the perspective of what he called an “empathetic serial killer,” who took the lives of women who were addicted to drugs as a way of putting them out of their misery. Initially, this was seen as a twisted work of fiction, but it’s now starting to look like more of a confession.
