Olney House of Horrors: The R.C. and Eugene Horsch Serial Killer Mystery

Hey, twierdos, welcome back. We have missed you. And we are so glad to be back together with a brand new episode of true weird stuff. But listen up, listen. Today's episode is about this developing case in the city of Philadelphia, that might be a truly staggering serial killer situation. And as a result, this episode contains some stuff that we want to give you a heads up about right violent descriptions of sexual violence, assault, and cannibalism to so listener discretion is advised.

It was June 19 2026 at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, the black BMW was parked in a space reserved for law enforcement. The ranger spotted the vehicle approached expecting a confused or arrogant tourist there to see the Liberty Bell. Instead, he heard a woman's voice. You're gonna hurt me. The car's occupants were a woman and a man both covered in sores and engaging in what the police report described as illegal drug activity. A search of the car turned up crack cocaine, a switchblade two guns and a cattle prod. There were also two pieces of ID in the vehicle. One was a badge with the driver's photo on it identifying him as a member of the DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration. The other ID featured the photo of the woman in the backseat, but the name when police ran it belonged to another woman named Blair Tanzelli, who'd been missing since 2023. Police arrested the driver Eugene horse. After questioning his passenger, they obtained a search warrant for Eugene's home on 417 West two Avenue in Philly's only neighborhood, a home that it once belonged to Eugene's father, the late author and photographer and pornographer Raymond Charles RC Porsche. What they found in that house just might mean that the city of brotherly love has been home to the worst serial killer in Philadelphia history. Or maybe the worst pair of serial killers. Raymond and Eugene horse, like father, like son.

And they got a small beam of light again. We've reviewed hundreds of pages of RC horses books, much of the material is graphic, violent, sexually explicit and disturbing. In one of the books horse who died last year claims to have murdered a woman then disposing of her body through a process. Outside 417 shoe Avenue flowers left for two women Maribel frescoes and Gabrielle Amarando had been missing for years.

Police a week ago said they discovered video evidence. Both women were dead inside the only home owned by the late Raymond RC horse, a self described artist, porn performer and ex convict among other things. horse wrote several books including empathy. An overview of the 2014 book says it is an autobiographical memoir of a caring, empathetic serial killer. In it horse claims to have strangled a woman. She was one of several women the book says he was involved with romantically.

Disturbingly, he writes quote, I drive to an industrial plumbing supply place off Packer Avenue and purchase 100 pound drum of sodium hydroxide horse describes placing the lifeless victim he Christa into a bathtub in the home's basement. Quote, I open the drum of lie. I use about 40 pounds to start. Soon the liquid boils the heat is good because it greatly speeds the decomposition process. In five or six hours, there will be nothing left of her.

It is all just so lurid. So obvious. The sprawling dilapidated old house, the pornographer father known for his barely dressed women in these sadomasochistic scenarios. The strung out son with a lengthy felony rap sheet. The very idea of dad and lad serial killers of a twisted multi generational crime spree. And all of it smack in the middle of one of America's biggest cities. If this was streaming on Netflix, every bloodthirsty fan of true crime would be hooked.

Police have spent hundreds of hours at the home digging up sewer lines and investigating hidden compartments for any sign of human remains. investigators last week said 50 containers of an oily substance were taken to a federal lab in Chicago. But this ain't Hollywood. This is real life. And if you're listening to this episode when it was released in September 2026, it's all unfolding right now.

44 year old Eugene horses behind bars on drug and firearms charges while investigators try to piece together what exactly he was doing with the chemicals, guns, ammo and fake IDs found inside his only home. A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police Department. There's connections to it going to waterlines. We just don't know what he's doing. If he's, he's producing something if he's making something if he's irrigating something we don't know. It's not a crime to look like a stoned weasel. He gene horse does. It's not a crime to be into some pretty dark kink. And RC horse was. It's not a crime to let your house fall apart or become run down. It's not a crime to board up a window or four to leave garbage lying wherever it drops to seem odd and weird to the neighbors.

Where you run into trouble though, is when yours is the last place a missing person was seen. And if that missing person happened to be married to RC horse, well, I starts looking bad. Amy McHale vanished in 2016. Last known location, her former home, the one she wants shared with her ex husband, Raymond horse at 417 West to Avenue in Philly. She left me a voicemail and she said she was at Ray's and that's where Ray lives and Ray even spoke with me and my grandmother and the detectives afterwards gave the same story that she was there and that when he woke up in the morning, he wasn't circumstantial. No proof of foul play. No proof of guilt on Raymond horses part. And certainly no proof of any wrongdoing by Eugene horse, who insisted to police that all those vats and barrels of chemicals belong to his now deceased father. And you can kind of find a way to believe that can't you? Eugene living in the house after his father's in May 2025. The place crammed to the ceiling with piles of stuff, things that need to be sorted and dealt with. Not something Eugene who seemingly preferred to pass his time in a pharmaceutical blur was likely to get around to doing anytime soon. There were other discoveries that were, let's say inconvenient for Eugene horse. The name Blair Tonzelli, not just the name of a missing woman being used on a fake ID. As it happened, the last place Blair Tonzelli was seen alive was at Eugene horses home in February 2023. She often stayed there for long stretches. RC horse said she worked for him as a home health aide. Blair was estranged from her family. She bounced in and out of prison. She was described as a generous, loyal soul. You can also see how someone like Blair made for an ideal victim for a predator. She was alone on the streets, struggled with addiction. And even if she was missed, no one was gonna look all that hard. It's ugly. But it's true. Now though, people were suddenly paying attention, suddenly very worried about Blair Tonzelli. By mid July 2026, the Philly police and the FBI were excavating horses home on West shoe Avenue, investigating the disappearance of at least two women. A month long search of horses property has turned up an array of evidence authorities say hidden compartments that's filled with chemicals, a 55 gallon drum with connections to water lines in the basement, and what police sources describe as a significant amount of blood. Forensic testing of the evidence found in home remains ongoing, and police have yet to confirm whether the blood is human. Now police found plenty of other concerning things in horses house, another gun, all the materials to grow marijuana, urns full of cremains, relatives, it was presumed. Then there was Blair Tonzelli's bank card, and a handful of other fake IDs using her name. When police dug in, they realized that Blair's friends when they reported her missing, had named Eugene horse. He was they told police sociopath, and they were worried something horrific had happened to Blair. Then there was this strange letter, handwritten and unsigned that described hurting people and shouted out serial killer, Ted Bundy. Eugene horses lawyer denied that his client had any connection at all to the disappearance of Amy McHale, pointing out that Eugene was actually locked up in state prison

at the time of her disappearance. And besides, he said, Amy McHale struggle with substances and her mental health. Oh, so Amy McHale's mother told the Philadelphia Inquirer that her daughter had met RC horse on the streets. She was sick with pneumonia, and horse stepped in and took care of her. They horse was 30 years older than Amy. And she thought of him according to her mother as her savior. The marriage didn't last.

But Amy McHale seemingly couldn't quit the man. Even after he moved with his son Eugene from the home he'd shared with Amy to the one at 471 West shoe Street. She just kept coming back. She was staying there on June 14 2016. When she left a voicemail for her daughter Amanda Stouffer saying all was okay. At the time, Amy McHale was a 44 year old mom and grandmother of three. And that was the last anyone heard from Amy McHale. As for the missing Blair Tonzelli, the woman with Eugene when he was arrested back in June was carrying an ID and Blair's name remember? Now she told police that she had no idea who Blair Tonzelli was. And then she told the police something else, something that helped the cops obtain that search warrant for Eugene horses home. She said he never harmed me ever. But he mentioned that he knew which chemicals were needed to dissolve a human body. Well, hello, probable cause. By the end of July 2026, detectives did not find the DNA of either woman odd items tested so far. And while preliminary tests indicated that a significant amount of blood was present in the house, subsequent forensic tests came back negative, said the sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity. RC horse, and his son Eugene are kind of terrifying to look at. But just because a person looks completely insane, and also guilty as hell of something doesn't make them a killer. The blood they found had turned out to be fake movie blood psych. But both RC and his Eugene had plenty of trouble staying on the right side of the law. The whole reason Eugene was in prison when Amy McHale disappeared. He was busted in 2013 with $1.9 million worth of cannabis piled up in the house on West show Avenue. By the time cops bagged him illegally parked at the Liberty Bell in June 2026. He'd managed to rack up a baker's dozen of other arrests, drunk driving, drug possession, marijuana and amphetamines and police arrested Eugene horse in March 2025 and charged him with aggravated assault after he allegedly exited his black BMW and stabbed a man in the stomach at eighth and market streets.

Eugene horse caught a wild stroke of good luck two months later, when those charges were dropped after a witness failed to appear in court. Eugene took after his father in some ways, though the elder horse was far more accomplished. Even if his accomplishments are the kind that make you a little uncomfortable. RC horse was born in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania in 1943. He was described in an author's biography as an artist, filmmaker, composer, writer, porn performer, drug smuggler, sometime political activist, heart forger, counterfeiter, pot grower, airshow pilot, army deserter, fugitive sociopath, ex convict and all out villain. There was our Caesar erotic photography steeped in sadomasochism. He wrote a book called empathy that he described as quote, autobiographical memoir of a caring empathetic serial killer, unquote. Here's a sample from the book horse describing how he strangled a woman named Krista. I drive to an industrial plumbing supply place off Packer Avenue and purchase a hundred pound drum of sodium hydroxide horse then details how we place Krista's body in a bathtub in the basement of his home. I opened the drum of lye I use about 40 pounds to start. Soon the liquid boils. The heat is good because it greatly speeds the decomposition process. In five or six hours, there'll be nothing left of her. It could all be an elaborate fiction, right? A writer's imagination.

You don't see Stephen King being perp walked on the news. And that's a man whose imagination has given people nightmares for decades. It'd be easy to dismiss horses writings as fantasy. You know, if it wasn't for the vats and barrels of chemicals that really existed in the real basement of the real house that really lived in. In 1973, RC horse directed his first movie, the erotic memoirs of a male chauvinist pig. From a review written by Ian Jane, the plot revolves around a man named Barney, a man with a compulsive obsession which requires him to record all of his thoughts on the fly by way of the tape recorder he seems to have on him at all times. When we meet him he explains by way of his internal narration that he's been through three wives already and is now engaged to a fourth, a woman named Alice.

This one is pretty twisted and definitely not your average 70s adult feature. Barney's narration, which is as nihilistic as it is self serving and chauvinistic, carries the film and links the sexual encounters that make up a good portion of the movie. At the same time, those scenes of copulation don't always appear to be legitimately played for the purposes of arousal. They're often quite quick and sometimes performed without any enthusiasm whatsoever. The most obvious example of that being a scene where Barney goes down on Alice while she talks and talks and talks. She's not the least bit aroused or into what's going on, but he goes at it dutifully because well, he f**ks and therefore he is. The erotic memoirs of a male chauvinist pig isn't the most arousing adult film ever made, but it definitely is one of the more atypical XXX features of its day. The performances are strong, the concept is legitimately interesting, and the movie is quite well made.

Atypical, and also A plus weird, and also bizarre as hell. But who can say how much of that was Horsch and how much of that was the 1970s? Horsch was an artist and an agitator. But damn, if he wasn't also one hell of a creepy dude. The same year the erotic memoirs of a male chauvinist pig came out, Horsch was arrested in North Carolina and pleaded guilty to check fraud. A year later, he was busted for passing fake $10 bills, and in a bit of foreshadowing, possession of phony driver's licenses, just like the phony ID using Blair Tinselli's name that had led to his son's arrest 52 years later.

R.C. Horsch fled the country for New Zealand in 1977, after police raided his home and found a meth lab. He eventually sneaked back into the country, living first in California and later in Florida. That's where they finally found him in 1985. That whole fugitive situation earned him a three year prison sentence. Then his next run in with the law came in 2009. A couple of illegal shotguns and more than 450 pot plants are enough to piss the cops off to no end. That arrest wound up netting him another prison sentence, 54 months this time. It was 2013 when Horsch finally got out and headed for Philly. Now he was Amy McHale. The missing Amy McHale was Horsch's third wife.

He'd married for the first time in 1964, his high school girlfriend. That marriage ended in 1970. Then a decade later, he married his second wife. Her name was Anna Ferkuniak. Horsch married her using a fake name, calling himself Stokowski. This was the marriage that produced Eugene, Horsch's only child. Anna died in 1989. She was just 39 years old. Her obituary politely declared she passed after a lengthy illness. That lengthy illness turned out to be an overdose, codeine, and a now discontinued sedative sold under the brand name Doridan. R.C. Horsch killed his wife, Anna, and made it look like an overdose. No proof of that. But he did do something odd about 25 years later. He published her diary. Horsch called that book Annie. And he did at least credit his late wife as his co-author. The woman had been dead a quarter century and was in no position to write her own foreword. So Horsch handled that too, in her words, so called, and here it is.

She wrote, my ex-husband R.C. is the one who got me to write this memoir. He's the one who pushed and prodded and kicked my ass. And since I'm not much of a writer, the one who actually got it all down on paper. The result, what spewed out is a sometimes painfully explicit story centered around the sex life of a young girl, me, who among other things, started having sex at 14 and stripping at 15. A story that basically can't be told because in our rational and enlightened society, it is absolutely forbidden to write about underage persons and sex in the same sentence, let alone devote an entire book to it. This is because the studied moral and political position of our society seems to be that of people under a certain age should know absolutely nothing about sex. At all costs, they must be protected from such knowledge because it is reasoned their ignorance will not only keep them from entering puberty and having sexual feelings. It will also presumably keep them from getting pregnant or contracting AIDS. My goal in writing this my raison d'etre is to help others who may be going through what I went through, to show other troubled teenagers that they are not freaks, that they are not alone, that they can survive. But that's not going to happen. Not bloody likely at best. This is an adult story that will be prescribed for adults. And if anybody is going to read this book, sadly, it will not be those who need it most. Whatever.

Okay. Okay. It's possible that no one living knows whose words those were. Honest, RCs, to quote the author, whatever. But there's an uncomfortable quality to some of those words, isn't there? This sort of hinting at pedophilia, without calling it out exactly. At this point, all we know for certain is that Ana died when her son Eugene was just nine years old. Could she have ever guessed what the future held for that little boy?

It is Wednesday night and the big story on Action News tonight is the horrific new details laid out today. Following the June arrest of Eugene Horsch, and the week's long investigation, it's set in the motion. Philadelphia police revealed today that two families have now been notified that their loved ones are believed to be dead. Video evidence, they say, showing their bodies inside Horsch's Chiu Avenue home. They also say other women linked to that property still appear missing.

Tonight, investigators are scouring mountains of physical evidence and hundreds of thousands of images as they work to find out where those women might be. Look at what we know about how serial killers operate. Statistically speaking, 92% are male. And in this country, 71% of those males are white. Check and check for Horsch's father and son. But of course, chances are that you, tweerdo, are a white American man, and you're no killer, right? You're not, right?

Here's another serial killer fun fact. The average time from that first murder to that first arrest is just a tick under nine years. Women are their most likely victims. That body count clocking in at 83% of all serial murders. Here's another little twist. A lot of these murderers are caught not by brilliant police work, but by their own carelessness. Mistakes made out of arrogance or overconfidence. Sometimes a single random mistake is all it takes to catch a killer. Something stupid like parking illegally, expired tags, speeding.

Sir, I need you to step out of the vehicle, please. And what's this? A driver's license belonging to a missing person? That's how they busted serial killer Israel Keyes, who confessed to 11 murders and died in jail by suicide. And that's how they busted Eugene Horsch and discovered the horrors awaiting in that house in North Philly.

What we saw is these two girls alive. There was a period of time and what appears to us that they're deceased. Philadelphia police describe being shaken by the images found in Horsch's home. 600,000 images and 70,000 videos found on hard drives. It's hard to rattle a Philly cop. This is a city where folks celebrate a big sports win by setting Market Street on fire. This is a city where Eagles fans once legendarily booed Santa Claus. And this is a city that's no stranger to a serial killer, serial murderer and rapist Gary Heidnik. The inspiration for Buffalo Bill in the movie Silence of the Lambs.

He called Philly home. He abducted, raped and tortured six women. He kept two chained in a pit in his basement, eventually murdering them. He butchered their bodies cooking one victim's ribs in the oven while boiling her head in a pot on the stove. His defense attorney argued that, you know, in spite of appearances, there was no evidence of cannibalism, as though not eating the woman you killed and cooked was somehow a mark in your favor. See what I mean about Philly being a tough town? Cannibal or not, Gary Heidnik was convicted and sentenced to death, becoming the last person executed by the Pennsylvania. While searching the first hard drive, homicides detectives found the images and video of what appeared to be two deceased females based on the video and photo evidence. If the images in the video are real and not altered in any way, then based on their review, the Emmy would believe the individuals depicted in the images are deceased. New names joined Amy McHale and Blair Tinselli. Maribel Fresses vanished in 2018 at 27 years old. And Gabrielle Amarando, who was just 22 when she disappeared in 2012.

What we saw is these two girls alive. There was a period of time and what appears to us that they're deceased. Hundreds of thousands of images and videos and 20 containers of an unknown substance. What was happening in that house? Investigators working at the house on the 400 block of West Chew Avenue were looking for evidence of wet cremation, which is when a mix of chemicals is used to break down human remains. Law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the case told CBS News Philadelphia.

Wet cremation? Crews excavate a part of the horse property, digging up and removing some sewer lines. Human remains have not been found according to sources. But if horse, father or son was using wet cremation to dispose of bodies, what would be left for investigators to find? Back up though, wait a minute. What exactly is wet cremation anyway?

Wet cremation is also called water cremation, aquamation, biocremation. The actual scientific term is alkaline hydrolysis. During alkaline hydrolysis, a human body is sealed in a long stainless steel chamber while a heated solution of 95% water and 5% sodium hydroxide passes over and around it. In low temperature alkaline hydrolysis, the solution reaches a temperature just below boiling. The process is performed at atmospheric pressure, and the body is reduced over the course of 14 to 16 hours. In a higher temperature version of the process where the mixture tops 300 degrees Fahrenheit and creates more pressure, the body is reduced in four to six hours.

The process dissolves the bonds in the body's tissues and eventually yields a sterile liquid combination of amino acids, peptides, salts, sugars and soaps, which is disposed of down the drain at the alkaline hydrolysis facility. It's not a common means of handling a corpse, at least not yet. Fewer than 2000 water cremations are performed a year in this country. It's legal in 26 states and it costs about the same as a traditional flame cremation. The process actually landed in the spotlight when anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu died in 2021. A passionate environmentalist, Tutu requested acclimation and the cheapest, least ostentatious funeral imaginable. And if you're thinking, yeah, but then there's nothing left for the family. No cremains for the mantelpiece or to be sneakily scattered at Disneyland. That's not true. After a water cremation, the bones are collected and ground to a fine powder. And water yields a greater amount of cremains than The resulting powder is a soft, creamy white with none of that dark gritty carbon typically found in fire-based cremation.

Let's say you're a serial killer and you're looking to dispose of bodies. There's no shortage of good dumping spots, especially in a big city that's a not too inconvenient drive to a desolate spot in the woods. Philadelphia offers everything from the Pine Barrens in Southern New Jersey to the Poconos, not to mention the Atlantic Ocean. That's just an hour or so away from Center City. Then there's the city itself, offering a dazzling array of back alleys, dumpsters, boarded up row homes and overgrown vacant lots, all available for your body hiding pleasure. And every single one of those options is risky, crazy risky. Chances are, the body will be found. And thanks to modern criminal forensics, you'll be found too, eventually. It's extra tough out there for a murderer these days. But let's say you're a very clever sort of a killer. One with a great big basement, big enough to hold as many as 50 large containers of an unknown oily liquid. If you have the stomach to kill another human being, you can probably manage to simmer that body for the afternoon. Damn things already 95% water to begin with and you're the furthest thing from squeamish. When it's time to take your victim off the heat, you'll have the bones to deal with. That's just facts.

But the rest of the evidence of your crime, alkaline hydrolysis turned that into what they call a sterile effluent, a simple broth of water, salt, sugars, amino acids and peptides. With not even a trace of human DNA. Now let's say you dump that sterile effluent down the drain. What happens? Research demonstrated in the late 90s that the liquid effluent produced through alkaline hydrolysis was safe to introduce to municipal sewer systems. In fact, waste managers often found in practice that it was beneficial to their treatment processes as it nourished the bacteria that breaks down sewage. The stuff is so benign that Oregon funeral director Morris Pearson, whose family funeral business has been performing water cremation since 2013. He declared that you could drink the stuff and be just fine. It was quick to add that he himself hadn't chugged the dead, only that you could safely do it if you wanted to. And in the basement of the house on West shoe Avenue, Eugene horses house investigators also discovered a complex setup inside the home's basement of water lines connected to a 55 gallon drum. In August 2026, Eugene horse was indicted by a federal grand jury for possession of a firearm while a felon and possession of unlawfully produced ID. That's bad news for Eugene, especially since the guns he was busted with had their serial numbers obliterated. But that's all they've got right now. Despite 600,000 images, 70,000 videos, and all those weird containers and the 55 gallon drum hooked up to the sewer lines, and the witness reports alleging that 417 West shoe Avenue was the last known location of at least two missing persons. It's all creepy. It's all concerning. It's even damning. But without a body, none of it adds up to a case, at least not a case for murder. Not yet anyway. It's hard for decent people to imagine just how indecent their neighbors might be. You can't imagine strangling or stabbing or shooting another human being.

You can't imagine dragging the body into an oversized soup pot and setting it on a low simmer. But that's you. And what seems impossible and obscene to you just ain't no thing to someone else. Lots of things, decisions, choices, actions. Lots of things feel impossible to you creep up on them. Wouldn't you bet that murder is just like that? You could never until you do. And then what? Or maybe murder is the secret desire at the dark heart of you. That might be true for Eugene Horsch. He might be a diabolical serial killer. Eugene Horsch isn't a good man. He has a history of indifference to the law, a history of violence. Yet there's something about him, a drab and cringing smallness, not to be unkind, but the man looks as much like a starving rat as anyone can. He feels less like a three dimensional person, and more like something that was hastily sketched. His father, on the other hand, R.C. Horsch, now there's a resume fit for a serial killer. You already know he was a pornographer. He had lots of other interests too. In 1974, the US Secret Service busted the homegrown counterfeiting ring R.C. Rand in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, seizing the equivalent of over $1 million in phony $10 bills. He served two years in prison.

Just because he got caught doesn't mean he didn't learn anything about counterfeiting, about crafting top quality fraudulent ID. In 1977, authorities busted him again for operating a methamphetamine lab in Philadelphia. R.C. Horsch bolted. He had no intention of going back to prison. He'd learned that right alongside the chemistry he picked up in the course of cooking meth. In fact, that hands on chemistry knowledge, it served him well during his time as a fugitive.

R.C. using a name and identity he lifted from one Dr. Stanley Stokowski boasted that he had a doctorate from Stanford University and got a job with an alternative fuels company. He launched a facility that converted way into ethanol fuel. After the death of second wife Anna, R.C. raised Eugene as a single father, a situation that left him angry and resentful.

She bailed out he said she left me with a kid to raise. He tried his hand at running a restaurant. He directed and starred in another film called Lovers. Released in 1994. That provoking dialogue, end quote. He worked as a performer in low budget pornos, most shot in alleys around Manhattan. He tried launching a website in the late 90s offering paid subscribers access to photos and videos, heavy on the violence with a running theme of young women shooting heroin. R.C. was unapologetic about exploiting drug addicted women. He likened himself to the snake in a parable about a woman who cares for a serpent only to be bitten once it reaches maturity. The woman asks why and the snake says because it is my nature.

R.C. took to hanging out on Kensington Avenue in Philly, lurking in the shadows beneath the L train tracks, offering money or drugs to women in exchange for a new film a photoshoot. And that couldn't have been easy for his son Eugene, who was a straight A student in high school. Hard to friends home. Eugene's former classmates described RC horse is creepy.

Hanging on a wall of their home was a huge photograph of Raymond with thinning hair and a ponytail receiving oral sex from a woman while she held a knife to his head. Nature nurture. Who can say which shape Eugene more. The boy shared many of his father's enthusiasms from forgery to chemistry to eluding the cops. He stole weed from his father stole groceries from the store, even though there was plenty of money for food. Despite his obvious intelligence and his good grades. He didn't graduate high school. He had a diploma though, forged, which was good enough for Drexel University, where he enrolled in 1999. It's hard to see it in the moment, the pivot points that divert and derail a life. We might not have ever even learned Eugene horses name, if he had just stayed home in front of the TV that night in 2003. Instead, was out drinking at a bar and got behind the wheel. He ran a red light and T boned another car. A driver was left with a catastrophic brain injury, surviving in a vegetative state for 16 years before dying.

Eugene pleaded guilty to DUI and aggravated assault and was sentenced to two to four years in prison. The whole next decade saw father and son serving time for their various crimes until 2013. When the pair were reunited in the house on West Chew Avenue. Now 70 years old, RC was a bitter, aging porn star. He said, I walk down the street seeing all of the beautiful breathtaking women who are totally inaccessible to me totally off limits. Now, if I stay away from mirrors, I can still convince myself that I'm 18 years old. The three were living together on West Chew Avenue in late 2024. When a chronic infection and Krista's leg put her in the hospital. The infected leg was amputated above the knee. Just a few months later, RC died. And suddenly, Krista and Eugene were left alone together in the house. They say it was a lit cigarette that started the blaze in Krista's second floor bedroom. Just three days after RC's death. The fire ripped a gash in the roof. Rain poured into Krista's room, the kitchen and the dining room. The least of Eugene's problems though, because the fire had brought police and the police found both Eugene's guns and his cannabis grow operation. Back to jail he went. And not long after in August 2025, Krista died of a drug overdose. Eugene posted on Krista's Facebook that she was gone. But the two of them were in love and planning marriage. It wasn't true. And now police are staring down a mountain of evidence, a handful of missing persons and a mystery, a rundown house with hidden compartments and vats full of chemicals. RC Horse's body of work. The man finally found an audience for his books and films. It's an audience of investigators who were combing through all of that looking for clues. In one book, they found a passage detailing a body being dissolved in a bathtub, for example. RC loved to present his work as autobiographical. And then he'd politely ask the reader, but what if I'm lying? What if he was lying? What if he wasn't? What if RC Horse figured out how to get away with murder with a little help from his son? The house in the Olney section of Philly still has secrets to spill. Eugene has secrets to spill. And the Philadelphia police are hoping that just one of those secrets leads to a body.

Next time on True Weird Stuff, let's leave murder and creepy basements full of chemicals behind because it's fair season, state fair, county fair, even strip mall parking lot carnivals are fun. And we're going to tell you the story of one of the most iconic amusement park rides in history, where it began, and why it's still the coolest ride on the Midway.

Let's get on board the Tilt-A-Whirl in the next True Weird Stuff. So Sherry, a lot of times we do stories on True Weird Stuff that are years old. This is something that is currently going on. So RC died, right? And Krista died. But where is Eugene now? So as of this moment, Eugene is in custody. Because although what they got him for was false, you know, impersonating a DEA agent and having guns with the serial numbers, you know, sanded off. And you might be able to get bail for that as a first time offender. But my man here has quite the rap sheet, right?

And the probable cause that sent police into that house is enough for them to keep him detained. So I think that I think that he's probably going to stay locked up until the Philadelphia police throw up their hands and go there's nothing, there's nothing. The guy's a freaking creepy weasel. And some nefarious shit clearly went down. But we can't prove murder. And then they have to set bail or whatever. But right now he's in custody. And you're right, we don't usually do such a contemporary story here for a lot of reasons. Um, I don't, you know, I don't want to like, you know, spend my days coming up with like a really great sentence that rips the scab off the family's pain. Do you know what I mean? So I don't like that's just not my jam. I listened to that content. I'm not judging you if you make it but it's just not what I like to do. But this is a shocking story. And you know, we're I'm a Philly girl. That's my birthplace. I went to Temple which is in North Philly, not terribly far from the only neighborhood where all this went down. And I remember I was a kid when the Gary Heidnik story broke. But it was all anybody was talking about. And my grandmother, who you know, nice little Italian grandma who was born with a spoon, a wooden spoon in one hand and a pot of sauce simmering on the stove. My grandmother was outraged that you would cook a human being on the grounds that that can't possibly be good.

Yeah, like, Oh my god, how are you? Could you possibly season it? But here's the thing that was, um, there were a lot of reasons that this story really pulled me in. And I know you've been following in this all summer to serial killers are relatively rare. I maybe they're not so rare in the wild, but it's relatively rare to catch one. And you know, that's true, right? At any given time, according to the FBI and DOJ. At any given time, there are about 2000 serial killers out there.

Some of them have never and never will be never will be because they target and it comes down to what the police call victimology. It's who you target as your victim. If you kill somebody, you know that you're pissed off at you're probably getting caught, right? Because when the way that modern criminal forensics and investigations work is, they start with the victim and work backward. Who is this person? Who did they know what was happening in their lives? What kind of relationships right sort of conflict and strife you've seen this on you know, they they've done a great job teaching America on like 2020 and Dateline. But serial killers, the difference with serial killers and regular murderers, serial killers tend to target complete strangers, and they choose victims who live on the market on the margins who are unlikely to be missed. And there's another component to they're less likely to be valued. So when you are targeting sex workers, in particular, who are working on the street, not in some high end brothel in Manhattan, when you are targeting sex workers, you are targeting a population of women typically, though not always, mostly 83% of the time it's women, you're targeting a population of women who have stepped out of their own life. They're estranged from family or they've run away or their family because of addiction and substance use has thrown in the towel on them. Okay, we this is an ancient story. And when a sex worker disappears, you know, the police make a report and they ask a few questions. And then you know, everybody moves on. And I'm not saying this to condemn anybody. It's just the way it is. It's just facts. And so RC horse had a real taste, not just for young female sex workers. But he had a real taste for young women in the sex trade, who were hooked on IV drugs. Those that was his cat nip. And so these women who disappeared 2021 2022 2023 2024 reports were filed, posters were tacked up onto telephone poles, that just kind of ended the way it always ends for those because it's not just who they are and what they do. It's they're less valued by society, as shameful as that is to say, you know, we saw example of this with the Long Island serial killer recently, and how all of these, all of these women had families who loved them, you know, and I think that that tends to get lost in the shuffle. But I can tell you it pictures of RC and Eugene, these guys look like they were cast to be serial killers. They, you know, some people they go, I'm sort of surprised and you know, not these guys.

They the boyish handsome charm of Ted Bundy, RC horse looked like he auditioned to play the devil and was cast as the understudy. Eugene horse looks literally like a naked stoned mole rat. Yeah, he does. So let me tell you, when I first sat down with this, because again, we don't usually, we don't usually do a breaking news story here. My intention was to jump off from the Eugene horse arrest arrest into the Gary Heidnik story. But then the more I dove into the horse story, and the whole idea of water cremation, and all those mysterious vats of oily liquid in the basement, the more I thought, you know what, Gary Heidnik, sit tight, we'll get you on another day. And Gary Heidnik was the inspiration for Buffalo Bill. Like you can't imagine how awful Gary Heidnik was, who he also looked like a crazed demon. But the water cremation thing, it really hooked me. Because the last thing I was expecting when I did that deep dive on that, was to learn that by the time it's all said and done, there's no DNA. There's no DNA. You could drink the stuff.

So sterile. That's one of the things that's most fascinating about this is they had the setup for that in the basement, and even hooked to the sewage system. And yet they found no DNA. I mean, this sounds it's a mastermind plan. If it's if this is what it looks like. It is. And it is you if you were to see this in a movie, you would say, well, that's, that's almost too monstrous to put on screen. And yet, that is most probably what happened in this situation.

I sat and like, because there was a part of me that argued with it the way like, if I say to my husband, look, the sky is blue, and he likes to argue with me about stuff. Like, well, it's not technically blue. Oh, okay. Okay. And I'm not technically going to touch you where you like to be touched. And this is you're going to be an asshole and argue with me about the colored sky. But, um, that I could not get my head around. What do you mean there's no DNA? How can that be? There were bones. But where's the DNA in a bone?

In the marrow. And what happened to the marrow and alkaline hydrolysis? It got simmered away and turned into salt, sugar and amino acid. It's if, if they did this, it's brilliant and breathtaking at a scale of evil that is beyond monumental. But so here's where here's where I run into. Here's where I run into like a roadblock on that. Okay. Um, alkaline hydrolysis results in this sterile effluent that you can drink. Can you imagine by the way, Chuck?

Oh, I don't when I Yeah. Oh, so that's what you get. And then the bones and the marrow has been obliterated and the and then you're just left with some very soft, creamy white powder. Okay, I hear you. There's no DNA. There's no DNA anywhere in the house. But here's where it gets brilliant for RC and Eugene. The women that were last seen at that home were last seen at that home. And that's documented by police. But there's no evidence that anything happened to those women inside the home. Right. And if, if our seahorse and his son separately are together, and I don't give Eugene a lot of credit here. I just don't. I think this I think this might be daddy's work. But if if our seahorse pulled this off, it's the perfect crime.

It is. I mean, absolutely. I mean, if you if you think about how sinister this whole thing is, he got away with murder. Yeah. And we don't know. Like there are there are four right now there are four missing women who were last seen alive at 417 West two Avenue in Philly. Now that doesn't mean that doesn't necessarily that's circumstantial. That doesn't necessarily mean anything. You know, like, the where's the last place you saw me alive at the courtyard by Marriott, I think, right?

We better explain it was in a conference room. Oh, yeah. Max and I get into some very true words. Oh my god. No, we had a meeting, we had a business meeting, and we did it. We had a bunch of people. So we were at a meeting room at the courtyard by Marriott. But that is the last place Max and I saw each other alive. Well, and, and, and here's the thing about it to get back to why a lot of these women who are drug addicted and into prostitution and are marginalized is because they disappear for long periods of time. So their families have reached a point where they kind of gave up a little bit because you can't, you can't protect somebody from themselves. And what we don't know is, did something happen to these women that had nothing to do with these two guys, and it just happened to be the last place where they saw them too. I mean, if you're, if you're a defense attorney, that's what you would say.

That's I mean, I tried to make that point in the episode, like, it could all be just, I mean, it looks bad. But something that looks bad isn't necessarily the truth. It could all be circumstantial. The thing about RC horse, and we may revisit and do do another RC horse story in the future. And where I think this one wasn't disturbing enough, I want to present I want to present a case for RC horse, as one of the great criminal masterminds of his day, who did not get his flowers for that.

And here's why RC horses work his writing in particular. If he's guilty of what the Philadelphia police think he's guilty of, he's been telling you about it for decades. It's all there. It's all there. And that film, Diary of a Male Chauvinist Pig. Oh my god, it's so bizarre and so weird. And I know that my man here in the episode, Ian Jane gave it a pretty good review. I guess if you if you have a solid working knowledge of 70s triple x pornos, you would have some context for this. It's cheap. It's grainy. And the lead character, as Ian Jane pointed out, most of the movie he spends talking into this tiny handheld tape recorder, your skin crawls. Now I have to say that, you know, as a card carrying like whatever prude like it's not my jam to watch that kind of stuff isn't my jam to watch. But it's very, very odd. And even the review pointed out that for a porno, it's not about sex. Like the sex feels like, oh, okay, at this point, I guess we have to have sex. Like it's perfunctory and uncomfortable. And it's a weird movie.

So I thought when you I mean, what was the expected audience for this movie? Or was it just to make it? What was the expected audience for anything that RC did? He, his tastes were very specific. He was very much it was very, this very specific sort of sadomasochistic exploitation of women with IV drug addiction. That's a very niche content lane. And that was kind of where he was. And it just so happened that life imitated art and vice versa for him because he was creating content, books and images and videos about these women, and also bringing them home from the street, and in some cases marrying them. So he this was his jam and wouldn't it be the damnedest thing for all of this, for RC to have been operating in plain sight for all of this time, but we, we dismissed it on the grounds that nobody will be that blatant or brazen. But when you look at RC horse, I think you have to say to yourself, somebody might be that blatant or brazen.

Well, there's a lot of people you know, there's, there were the two cops that were up in New York, who were working with the mob, and the one of them wrote a book as if it was fiction, about some situation. And what he was doing was he was telling the story. Because I imagine there is some kind of perverse satisfaction to doing something so horrific, getting away with it, and then being able to talk about it in some kind of open way later, because you feel like nobody's gonna get me.

Which is, which feeds into the whole MO of a serial killer. They fancy themselves infinitely more intelligent than the police. Look at the BTK killer. That was a great example of that. Right. Um, where they taunt the cops, there's, it's, they don't want to get caught, but they do want credit. That's what brought BTK down.

It is. He would have, he would still be added, assuming he's still alive, right? In the wild, he's alive in prison, but he would still be added. If he had been able to stifle that need for attention. Now, here's where BTK and R.C. Horsch differ. BTK was writing letters to the police taunting them. Yes. R.C. Horsch was writing books and making videos and movies.

Right. But that impulse, I think, to, to tell, to brag, look at me, look at me. And the other thing about R.C. Horsch that really stops me in my tracks is, in all of his work, there's this consistent through line of, well, this isn't real, or maybe it is. This isn't true, or maybe it is. Am I lying? Am I telling the truth? And that particular technique, that, that mechanism, a lot of artists and authors use it. But for him, it's so consistent. And it does make me wonder if he just, if he just wanted a little bit of credit for his cleverness.

Well, it's, it's not enough to do it. It's, it's important to get the credit. I think that that's true for a lot of them. I mean, Zodiac, when he was killing, of course, his was killing, just killing. But he enjoyed the fact that he was stringing them along in that kind of way. And so that's just got to be one of the components of this. But I tell you, I saw some pictures, one of the pictures that I saw is R.C., who is a balding man with a satanistic facial hair. So there's a picture of him sitting on a chair dressed all in black with a white carnation on his, on his chest, next to a woman who's, who's getting in a wedding dress. It's like, it's like something out of a horror movie.

He, I mean, he really was looking like that on purpose. These were all aesthetic style choices that he was making. And Eugene, and you know, you hate to be unkind, because none of us can help the way we look. But when you look at Eugene, and the photos that were released by the Philadelphia police when they arrested him, if you look at him, he looks like, well, he but he also looks like his head was somehow put into a vise and clamped until it became misshapen. Like there's something wrong there. But don't for a second think that Eugene is in some way, cognitively impaired. He was a brilliant student. He was a really bright kid. And Drexel University is not an easy school to get into or stay in. And he did. I feel I don't know what to think about Eugene, there's a part of me that's like, shit, the sins of the father, you know, and he may he may be caught up in things be that are beyond him. But I he himself is guilty of many things. He's a criminal case.

Yeah, bad person. He, but Philly, my God, what a town, he jumps out of his car, he stabbed somebody on Market Street, which if you don't know, Philadelphia, it's one of the main thoroughfares in the city. There's like Broad Street, Market Street, it's called Market Street, because there's a lot of retail businesses on it. Hence market. It is. It's the it's the one you see on the national news. If the Phillies win the World Series or the Eagles win the Super Bowl, because that's where the riding is. The cars are on fire. Yeah, they set the cars on Market Street on fire, my people. But he leaps out of his car, stab somebody gets arrested. And then you know, the case is dismissed because the witness fails to show in court for their own, deeply Philadelphia reasons, whatever those might be. I feel like Max, if you jumped out of your car and stab somebody, there's no scenario where you just walk on that. No, no. But you know, this is Eugene horse.

He, he was, he was awful to women. He was a drug dealer. He was, you know, all kinds of like illegal weapons and, you know, fraud. He's not a good guy. But I think maybe he never had a chance. Is what I'm saying? Yeah. Look at the social worker in you. Yeah, well, that may be true. But he's either he and his father are both either sociopath, psychopath, because people are props in their show. They're not equals, you know, and, and the other part of that is from sociopaths, especially they do like that I'm smarter than you. That's going on. But when Eugene Yeah, you know, he didn't have a chance. I'll agree with you there. He was raised in that situation. And I don't know what he's guilty of regarding, you know, the possibility of serial murder. He's guilty of plenty of things, which is why he's still in custody. But I don't think he had a chance on his mother. I'm not sure she her death was natural. Her her life with RC couldn't have been any great shakes. And he was only nine years old when he lost his mom.

And then you know, our season and out of prison. He's cooking meth. He's kiting checks. He's fleeing to New Zealand. You want to tell me what chance that kid had? So let's take a look at this thing. He goes to New Zealand. And he works for it. Was it an ethanol plant? Well, he hides in New Zealand for a while. And then he comes back to the United States. This is all pre 911. So it was a little bit easier for him to get back into the country. Um, he comes back to the States, and he assumes another man's identity. And that man is a PhD at Stanford Stokowski. So he took a real person's identity. And he started applying for jobs and he got hired at this plant that turns way as in, you know, little Miss Muffet sat on her coffee eating her curves and way that turns way which is a dairy byproduct into ethanol, which is a fuel. So when I tell you that that RC, Eugene, I think is pitiful, but it was a brilliant student. You think RC is stupid? Think?

Well, that was the point that I was going to make out of this because you I mean, you get into the job, you have to be able to do the job. And you have to have a certain amount of intellect to do that kind of a job if you're going to have it for any period of time. Because if you have no earthly idea what to do, they're going to figure that out pretty quickly. So he pulled that off for a period of time in New Zealand. So that's, that's kind of amazing.

And, you know, maybe if he'd stayed in California, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But he came back to Florida, and that's where they got him. And then after Florida, he did his time. He came back to Philly, and he and his son took up residence in North Philly on West two Avenue. And the house looks like a murder house. Chris can't judge you can't judge a book by its cover, but it do look like a murder house.

Those two guys come out of that house like, Oh, yeah, they're killing people. Yeah, well, the neighbors were like, damn. But you know, these are Philly neighbors. So the threshold for tolerance is higher. Philly neighbors, this might have gotten attention a little sooner in a different place. But that part of you know, it's a big gritty urban area. And the only neighborhood is up in Northeast Philly. So you know, it's about I don't know, five miles maybe from Center City. But it's, you know, it's a very gritty urban environment. And the houses are you know, kind of close together. Eugene and RC's house is like a what we would call a duplex. They call them twin homes and various things in Philly. And the neighbors were like, Eugene was a nervous wreck. Like he you couldn't even talk to him. And when you look at his when you look at still photographs of the man, you're like, Oh, that looks like a doesn't it, Max? Yes, very nervously. So I think, like on the one hand, RC's whole life could be an elaborate piece of performance art, where he cast himself because he called himself a villain, like he loved being known as this, you know, evil sort of person. It could all be one big performance, where he enjoyed jerking you around. He enjoyed letting you think that this is true, when it was not. All of that is possible. Well, and and the fact that we have a basement full of vats and chemicals and a 55 gallon drum connected to the sewer lines. That could be part of that. It could. But Occam's razor tells you, yeah, something actually happened. I mean, that is possible. I, the interesting little detail that you had was the fact that it was blood that was used like performance blood and like movies that they found there. And I'm just wondering whether that was done purposely to try to hide, sort of as a red herring for what really happened there.

Well, um, and keep in mind that RC made films and videos. And everything was very, very steeped in violence. So having a barrel of fake movie blood, and having fake blood around where he'd been filming, that that explains itself, doesn't it? It does. Oh, officer, I'm a filmmaker. That's just fake blood. So that's kind of handy. Again, that's like a little bit of hiding in plain sight. I think the problem here for Eugene, because his father's dead and toasting marshmallows in hell, one would presume if he's as guilty as he looks. But the problem for Eugene is that you can explain a lot of this away. Like for example, the boarded up windows, Eugene never got around to repairing the house after the fire that killed Krista. So the windows got boarded up, and a lot of damage, you know, fire causes a lot of damage. And then the water to put out the fire causes a lot of damage. And Eugene just it's that happened in 2024. Eugene hasn't gotten around to making those repairs. And I don't know how much money they had. I don't know how he I don't know how they made a living. He, of course, RC was a pornography. I don't know. Well, I mean, they kept getting caught. But they were also drug dealers, meth cooks, they had a grow operation, Eugene had a grow operation in the house. But I, I was wondering if it troubled you at all, the way that three days after our seahorse died, there was a lit cigarette that caught Krista's bedroom on fire.

Well, I bet that's not a coincidence. It can't that's Yeah. And especially because she was afraid of Eugene, and she thought he was gross, and creepy, and he made her uncomfortable. But no sooner does she die than Eugene's on Facebook telling anybody that'll listen that the two were in love and planning a wedding. When, when he did that, I was like, that's some bitch set that fire. That's when I was like, oh, he burned that he set that fire. He burned that house down, or tried to with her in it. If he had not done that on her Facebook, I might have been willing to go with Okay, well, it's a lit cigarette. What are your thoughts?

Are you not surprised? Eugene Horsch at a Facebook page? I mean, it just seems like an odd. I know, but you know, it's a normal thing. It's a different world. You know that Jack the Ripper would be on Tick Tock if he were around today. You know, Ted Bundy would have an Instagram. He's too pretty to not be posting all sorts of reels, right? Yeah, it, you know, some of these really notorious individuals existed at a time when these things didn't exist with them. But yeah, Eugene, Krista had a pretty active Facebook and Eugene, that's what he used to tell the people who loved her that she was gone. Amy McHale, R.C. Horsch's late wife, whose death I think is also, she's missing.

So I suspect that her death is also not of natural causes. Her mother and daughter have been relentless in trying to get answers. Adamant that this is not, Amy would just not disappear. Because sometimes when a woman goes missing, the story that you get, and you've seen this a million times on the state line, the story that you get is maybe she ran away.

Maybe she just needed to clear her head. Oh, so she ran away without her shoes, handbag, car keys or phone. She's clearing her head in February in Minnesota with no shoes. But how many times have you heard that? It, you know, and that happens a lot of times. And of course, that's what happens when you're kind of living on the margins.

But I, I have to believe that as sinister as they were, and the way they operated towards these women, that killing them was not that far from that. You said something about something about the first murder. And we've heard people say, and I think Jeffrey Dahmer said this, it was like the idea of, well, the after the first one, it was easy. It was like, once you did that, then it was easier to go on killing other people.

Well, you broke the seal. You broke the seal. Because if you think about it, and we're all you know, we're all different. Everyone has different value systems and morality and faith practice and all of that. But for those of us in in the Judeo Christian universe, we're taught from childhood that if you murder somebody, that's, you're going to hell for that, if not prison, right? Yeah, isn't that what you were taught? Now, not everyone believes anything. You know, there are plenty of people that just are like, well, here we are, we're talking meat, and now we're dust. And that's, you know, as it is, or some sort of weird goo.

Some sort of weird goo that you can drink. Um, but that first murder, I don't care who you are, I think that there's something inside us, most of us, hopefully, the majority of us, there's a barrier against taking a life. So that first one's real, real hard. But once you do the first one, you're already condemned, you're doomed, you're damned.

Yeah, I think so. And then after that, it just gets it gets easier, because it's, it's kind of like the last, it was like the last refuge of your morality. Well, you know, that old expression, nothing succeeds, like success. If you kill someone, and you get away with it, that gives you some confidence that perhaps you could do it again, and then maybe another time. And with serial killers, like there's the crime of passion. There's the self defense. There's there's so many scenarios under which you might take a human life. But for serial killers, it's not a crime of passion. It's not a crime of self defense. No serial killers are predators. They are hunters. They hunt, they circle, they stalk, they isolate. And then they take down their prey. It's a different game, I think, altogether, for a serial killer.

And these guys probably were serial killers. But what's a little different is these are women they had some connection to, you know, a lot of times serial killers kill people they have no connection to. There's an there's an extra level of horror to that, isn't there? To take someone who's really vulnerable, and really, really struggling, really in trouble, to take them into your home and show them kindness, and then to take their life. So there's, um, in the Amy McHale case, who you'll remember was our seahorses, last third and final life. So over the years that she bounced in and out of that house and that relationship. It was well known to her daughter, who's an adult, and her mother, that, um, Amy, when the going got tough, would go back to our seahorse. And he was communicative with them, they could call him and say, we Where's Amy? Oh, I haven't seen her or she's here from last night, right. So hear this because what's coming is going to make you think this bastard is so guilty. And, and there was a lot of, you know, maybe warmth isn't the right word, but he was available and accessible to them. And then Amy disappeared. And they reached out looking for her because they had spoken to her and she was in his home. And then that was it. They couldn't find her again. He said, she's gone on to where she is. And then he would not take any more calls. He completely cut them off like they didn't exist. And that screams guilty of something to me. Yeah. Because his behavior changed. Yeah, that's right. Prior to this, he was Oh, yeah, hang on, let me get her. After her disappearance.

He's like, and that's it. He no longer would respond. They were no longer able to get an answer out of him. That is concerning. I think that behavior change. So if you like if I'm, you know, if my life depends on it, and I have to tell you what I think happened here. I think that RC horse was a killer. And I think Eugene was an accomplice. I'm not sure Eugene had the necessary anything to follow in his father's footsteps. But he could keep his mouth shut. Yeah, he could look the other way. Because everything Eugene did, he got caught everything. You want to talk about a hapless criminal. He everything he did ended up with him in handcuffs, everything. If he got away, we'll find out when this comes to trial. If they're able to bring this to trial. We'll find out if Eugene ever got away with a single damn thing. But you get the feeling that the more time you spend with this, and the more time you look at what the cops are finding and not finding, and the more you dig into who RC horse was and who Eugene horse is, I can't help but feel like, damn, your father was a monster. He was a monster.

And I believe that RC was a killer. And I just believe that Eugene was daddy's best helper, daddy's best psychopathic helper, but not necessarily a murderer himself. Yeah, it's, it's hard to, it's hard to it's hard to, you know, what's the expression cops on TV shows do? They say, Eugene looks good to me for this gene doesn't look good to me for that.

Sherry, 600,000 images, 70,000 videos. Good Lord. And the thing to remember, again, these are Philadelphia cops. I cannot tell you how hard it is to even get a Philadelphia cop to blink. These, this is not, this is a town where, you know, the mob was in operation still is. There's, this is a big, gritty city with its own history. Like how many Philadelphia episodes have we done where it's circled back to, you know, this, that or the other. I love the place. It's my birthplace. But you don't mess with that. You don't mess with And Philly cops, this ain't Mayberry. So when Philly cops are like, uh, the, the images that we're looking at, I mean, these, these are like cops in their 50s that are struggling at the podium to speak. But again, remember, what RC was into was heavy, heavy S&M, which is not illegal, and not necessarily violent in nature as so much as it is an appearance. Like people that are into that kind of play, that kind of sex play are not criminals. And they're not, you know, they have safe words and agreed upon practices, right? I'm not trying to kink shame anyone. I'm not into it. But I'm not trying to kink shame you if you're into it. It's not a crime. And it's also not a crime.

I'm not into your S&M, because I'll get a DM like, hey, girl, I know I'd like to take you and tie you up. Thank you. Yeah, I don't want to be tied up and beaten with a hammer. But, but hear me. I'm consuming that content is not a crime. Being turned on by that content is not a crime. Creating that content is not a crime. The problem that we run into is when you're the guy who creates that content. And you have the track record Horst and Eugene Horst do. And you have 600,000 images, and all that weird wet cremation shit going on in your basement. Now, you know, like if I find like some kinky S&M stuff in your bathroom, I'm like, Oh, I had no idea. But add all that other stuff to it. And I'm like, dude, are you a murderer? Because it doesn't look good. So you take all of that together, none of it separately. And right now it's all circumstantial. None of it separately. But 600,000 really violent images, a history of stalking young sex, female sex workers on the streets of Philly, a history of women who the last known place they were seen alive is your house. And then the weird cremation set up in the basement. And the cops are tearing their hair out.

Because they need to find habeas corpus, right? You need to find something to hang a case on. And they may not be able to hang any of this on Eugene. Now, maybe they could with his father. The bad news for Eugene is, if he's innocent of murder, he's guilty of so many other things. And he has such a long felony rap sheet already. And I don't think Pennsylvania has a three given his existing record of priors. He could go away for a long, long time, the equivalent of a life sentence. He's just based on he's at 44. Now, somewhere around there. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, he doesn't need they give him 2530 years he's done. I have to believe that if you are the kind of person who goes looking for desperate drug addicted sex workers, and using them for whatever your manipulation is, and not seeing them as humans, that it's not too far of a stretch to say, you could rationalize killing them if you felt that they threatened you in some sort of way with exposure.

Well, and he, he made no secret of any of that. Um, you know, his film slave, his documentary horror, the empathy, the story of an empathetic serial killer, like, Hello, this was not a guy writing, you know, goodnight moon, like, at some point, aren't you are what you eat, right? Like, at some point, you are, I have to look at your entire body of work and your creepy murder house, and your naked mole rat weasel kid and go, I don't know, but I think you guilty of something, which is not how our system is meant to work. And so I would like to know what you think, because Max has been following this case all summer to starting in that, with that arrest at the Liberty Bell in June. What has been until today, prior to sitting down and talking about it? What did you think? What do you think was going on there?

I don't know. I mean, there, it seemed like there were so many illegal activities that were going on there. You know, when you're using other people's identities and stuff that you're hiding, you're hiding stuff, you really are. Hey, did you when this for this story first broke, is Philadelphia harboring a serial killer was your first thought?

Probably. Now, that was not a surprise. Yeah. I was just glad we could talk about Gary Heidnik again, you know, the Gary Heidnik case. So it had been a minute since I really dove into the Gary Heidnik case. And I'll be honest with you, time had softened some of those horrors. If you thought this was uncomfortable to listen to, I don't know that we could get through a Gary Heidnik.

Listen, if you saw Silence of the Lambs, you only scratched the surface on how awful he was, how cruel, how sinister. What he did it when police uncovered the basement and the pit, I can remember and you can find them you can, I'm sure you can find like the original local TV news coverage on YouTube for Gary Heidnik. Photographs of his kitchen. First of all, he did not keep a tidy house, the place was filthy and chaotic. And there, you know, the refrigerator doors open, and there's stuff in the refrigerator, you're not sure what it is, but you think you know what it is. And there's stuff dripping and the pot on the stove with his victim's head. Like, it's so horrifying, that you can't bear that it's real. And so I had originally thought, let's let's do a let's tell Gary Heidnik story on true weird stuff. And that was this was the door that I went through on my way to die. And then was like, Oh, I don't know. Even by my standards, this is a lot. Like we put a disclaimer on the beginning of this episode, because this can be very triggering for people that have found themselves, you know, being hunted by a predator like this, or people that have delicate sensibilities. And this is too horrifying to hear. We get it. Yeah, get it. Yeah. And the thing about Buffalo Bill and Silence of the Lambs, you know, he's become a meme in some ways. Yeah. And a lot of people don't realize that that was based on an actual person. They don't committing those actual crimes. You think you hope, like, I know when I see a movie like that, I'm hoping it's fiction. And it's, it's bad enough that somebody's imagination could create that. But it's so much worse when you learn that nobody imagined it. They just changed the names. Yeah. So I struggle to watch some of them.

The movie. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Silence of the Lambs. I sure what kind of weirdo am I? I love the real story. I struggle to the Hollywood version, the fiction version. Well, because, you know, here's why I am a serial killer. I have 55 gallon bodies decaying in my basement. Are you drinking it? It's sterile and delicious. Um, no, no. Here's why I think that is. Tell me if you agree. So here's what I think that is because I think about this kind of stuff a lot. I think that the fictional version of these people, whether it's Silence of the Lambs, or, you know, Mindhunter, or any, any fictional version of a horrific criminal, think about what Mindhunter did with Edwin Kemper. That was that was the stuff in nightmares. I think the reason the fiction scares you more is because they flesh out the story and you can't help it is the most human impulse to insert yourself into the story.

Yes. And so in and because you're not a monster, you become the victim of the monster. It's very interesting to watch one of those movies with a person who slides into the role of the predator and not the prey because that does happen. But that's not you. So you're terrified by those movies because you have identified you have empathized with the prey and not the predator. When we and so it's immersive. And you've you've had all these emotional responses. You've been jumping and maybe you've even let out a scream or closed your mouth at some point. And that's not how you engage with a news story, is it?

No, there's this there's distance between you and the news. And that distance comes from, you're not being asked to join in and be part of the story. You're just, you're passively receiving this news and it's horrible. And maybe it makes you sick and upset and, and grievously sad. But then when the story goes to the next one, or the commercial comes on, or they wrap up with an otter bouncing a ball on its nose, it's all good. You're equilibrium again. But when it's fiction, in a movie or a novel, yeah, you've entered into a relationship with that content.

I never thought about that before. But yes. Yeah. So you're not a baby or a serial killer. You're a human being who is empathetic. And there is no greater empathetic journey than movies and literature, because it really does let you live inside another person's skin. And when that person, you're in that skin, and they're being skinned alive by Buffalo Bill. You know, that's gonna be hard. So we're gonna keep an eye on this one. It's gonna be very interesting to see. I think we are, I'm gonna say, optimistically, I think we're about three years away from this story being concluded.

Because there's going to be this lengthy investigation. And we're, we're nowhere near through all of the photographic evidence that police have pulled. And not with 600,000 images. Good Lord. And they haven't combed every inch of that creepy house. And and they and the problem, okay, here's the other thing where RC horse was brilliant. If they find Amy McHale, or Blair Tanzelli, or any of the women's DNA in the home, BFD, they lived here for a while.

Yeah, that's, of course, that is true. But I would say that where they find it might carry some weight. And that's what the cops are hoping. I mean, they're on that place with q-tips and magnifying glasses. But RC horse did a very fun if he is a serial killer. He did a very fine, fine job. It's his masterpiece, I would argue. Because he has, he has created all the reasonable doubt for himself that you could want to create. So we're going to see what happens. But we're going to dramatically and follow this case, but we're going to change gears next week. And we're going to tell you the story of the Tilt-A-Whirl. And ladies and gentlemen, it's got it all. It's the American dream. It's a family business. It's, it's a person who was born into one life, but had a talent for something that back in the day didn't even exist. And that was amusement park rides before there was even an amusement park in existence. The Tilt-A-Whirl is still one of the most popular carnival and fair rides, not just in America, but in the entire world. And it is the simplest and most humble thing when you compare it to roller coasters that spin you backwards upside down and drop you and all these like crazy 50 G lifts and all this insane, like digitally enhanced, I'm sorry, digitally enhanced things that you see that pass for amusement rides.

And yet, the Tilt-A-Whirl of all the simple things is still the daddy. And, and the story of how it came to be and how it almost ceased to be is a great American story. And we're going to do that next time on True Weird Stuff. And if you listen to us on Apple Podcasts, hit the plus button in the top right corner. Now it helps an independent podcast like ours to get discovered. And we really appreciate it if you subscribe, rate and review True Weird Stuff.

Hit our website TrueWeirdStuff.com for show notes and photos and videos when we have it and bonus content. Everything True Weird is waiting for you at TrueWeirdStuff.com And follow True Weird Stuff on Instagram. True Weird Stuff is a Now! Media production. Our executive producer is Anthony Garcia. The show is written and hosted by me Sheri Lynch, along with my deeply weird director, Max Sweeten. Our equally odd producer is Kary Bowser. Additional production by the mysterious Stephen Call. Our digital witch and social media cult leader is Heather Furr. Original graphics by Kevin Nash. Original artworks by Olivia Axland. True Weird original music composed and performed by Jack Griffin and Zane Nash.

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