About a year before police raided a crumbling Olney twin in connection to a missing woman last month, Philadelphia narcotics officers scoured Eugene Horsch’s basement and found telltale signs of a drug dealer.
Firefighters had responded to a small blaze on the second floor of the property on May 18, 2025, alerting police to what they said was a sprawling marijuana grow operation. And when narcotics cops searched the home later that morning, court records show they recovered a modified fully automatic assault rifle with an obliterated serial number, a sawed-off shotgun, a pistol, and ammunition.
The top floor was filled with cannabis plants, tents, and UV lights, with exposed wires running between the floors and into the basement, where vats of chemicals were stored, apparently to “cultivate marijuana,” the records said.
The police report detailing the drug bust at the Olney house made no mention of missing women, despite the fact that concerned relatives and friends had told police years earlier that at least two women who stayed at the house had vanished.
Now, the disappearance of one of those women, Blair Tonzelli, is central to an ongoing search at the property, where police found fake IDs and bank cards in her name, among other disturbing evidence.
That law enforcement did not appear to connect the missing women to the search for drugs at the same address raises questions about whether the officers who searched the property last summer were aware of the two missing persons cases. The Philadelphia Police Department declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.
Police began reexamining Tonzelli’s disappearance on June 19 after arresting Horsch, whose companion had a fake ID in her name. Investigators reinterviewed witnesses and viewed footage of a statement given in February 2023 by Tonzelli’s friend, who told officers Tonzelli was last seen at 417 W. Chew Ave. Police have also revisited the 2016 disappearance of Amy McHale — the ex-wife of Horsch’s father, erotic filmmaker Raymond C. Horsch — whose mother said she vanished from the Olney home.
Gloria McHale, Amy’s mother, said she was surprised to learn that police had searched the property for drugs in 2025.
“I wish they would have looked deeper,” she said.
Police have not charged Horsch with any crimes linked to missing women. He has been jailed since his arrest last month on $500,000 bail for gun and drug charges, as federal and local police prepare to excavate the property in search of more evidence.
His attorney, Jerome Brown, declined comment. Brown has previously said police had interviewed Raymond Horsch several times over the years about McHale’s disappearance.
When local and federal law enforcement officers searched Horsch’s home last month in connection to the missing women, police said they again found guns, ammo, and drugs. More troubling, according to police records, is that they also found a “significant amount” of blood, a handwritten letter referencing serial killer Ted Bundy, and fake IDs and bank cards in Tonzelli’s name.
The latest search began after police arrested Horsch in his black BMW with an array of weapons, drugs, and a woman donning a fake ID in Tonzelli’s name. A sworn affidavit to initiate the search includes witness testimony that suggested Horsch was a “sociopath” who knew how to dispose of human remains.
But it was a fire that brought police to Horsch’s property one morning in May 2025.
Eugene had been living in the twin with two other women, including his father’s longtime companion, Krista M. Killen. City firefighters said the small blaze was started by “careless smoking” on the second floor, according to Horsch’s arrest report. While extinguishing the fire, a fire marshal and police patrolman on the scene discovered a “marijuana grow operation” on the home’s third floor and basement.
Officers with the PPD Narcotics Strike Force later searched the home and seized 26 pounds of marijuana, 131 grams of dried mushrooms, $1,200 worth of methamphetamine, $800 cash, and “numerous gold colored and silver” coins in a safe, records show.
Police also recovered a BCI Defense AR-15 style rifle modified to be fully automatic, a 12-gauge Stevens Model 67 pump-action shotgun with a sawed-off barrel, a 9mm Girsan MC28 pistol and more than a hundred rounds of ammunition. The serial numbers had been destroyed on all three firearms, according to records.
Horsch had previous felony convictions for drug manufacturing charges and was not legally allowed to own firearms. He was arrested and held on $750,000 bail for manufacturing drugs, illegal gun possession, and related crimes.
Brown, the family attorney, told a judge that the weapons belonged to Horsch’s father, who had died just three days before the drug raid. Brown said Eugene Horsch was planning to properly dispose of the firearms, according to a spokesperson for District Attorney Larry Krasner.
His health became a factor in determining an appropriate resolution to the case. Sources familiar with the case, who were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the details publicly, said Horsch appeared frail at the time of his 2025 arrest and could barely walk into court.
Horsch pled guilty to manufacturing drugs, and prosecutors withdrew the additional gun charges. He received three years probation.
Within months of his release from jail, Horsch would be locked up again.
In March, police arrested Horsch and charged him with stabbing a man at Eighth and Market Streets. Prosecutors dropped the charges after a witness failed to appear in court, records show, and he was released from lockup in May.
Three weeks later, U.S. Park Police stopped him in his car near Independence Mall, where they recovered a fake ID in Tonzelli’s name.
The search of the Olney property continued Wednesday.
