FBI Begins New Search in Missing Women Case

PHOTO CAPTION: Law enforcement personnel work outside the West Chew Avenue home in Philadelphia’s Olney neighborhood during a renewed FBI and Philadelphia police search on Sept. 28, 2026. Investigators are preparing for an expanded forensic examination of the property.

FBI agents and Philadelphia police have returned to a home linked to seven missing women as investigators begin a new forensic phase that will include removing portions of flooring, drywall and plaster.
Investigators arrived Monday at the property on West Chew Avenue in Philadelphia’s Olney neighborhood, established a perimeter and began creating a 3D photographic record of the house from top to bottom.
The more intensive forensic processing is scheduled to begin Oct. 5 and continue through Oct. 16, with heavy equipment, street closures and parking restrictions expected around the property.
Police sources told CBS News Philadelphia that investigators plan to examine virtually everything inside the house, including flooring, drywall and plaster.
The locations they target will be guided by what investigators have found while reviewing more than one million photographs and videos recovered from computers and other devices associated with the property.
The home has become the center of an investigation involving at least seven women who have been reported missing or otherwise linked to the property.
Philadelphia police said earlier this month that digital evidence appears to show five women deceased.
No remains belonging to those five women have been recovered, however, and the medical examiner cannot conclusively determine a cause or manner of death without physical remains.
Investigators have identified dozens of women appearing in the enormous collection of digital material.
Police said they had identified 58 people in the images and videos by mid-September. Authorities were still working to locate and interview some of them.
The investigation centers on the home owned by 44-year-old Eugene Horsch. His father, Raymond “R.C.” Horsch, lived at the property before his death in 2025.
The case began after Eugene Horsch was arrested in June following an encounter near Independence Hall.
Authorities said officers recovered guns, drugs and fraudulent federal law-enforcement credentials during that investigation. Searches of the Olney house later uncovered additional weapons, chemicals, electronic devices and other evidence.
Horsch remains in federal custody on charges accusing him of illegally possessing firearms as a convicted felon and possessing fraudulent federal identification documents.
He has not been charged with murdering or causing the disappearance of any of the women connected to the investigation.
As detectives examined the digital evidence recovered from the property, the scope of the case widened.
Philadelphia police said five women depicted in recovered material appear to be deceased. Two other women connected to the property remain missing.
Authorities have also said no human remains belonging to those women have been recovered from the home.
Investigators previously excavated around the property and removed a section of underground pipe for forensic examination.
Now, after months of reviewing the digital evidence, police and the FBI are returning to specific areas of the house that investigators believe warrant closer examination.
The new search is expected to be significantly more disruptive than the initial work.
Authorities have warned neighbors that heavy equipment will be brought to the block and that the investigation could extend beyond the currently scheduled Oct. 16 end date.
The FBI and Philadelphia police have emphasized that the investigation remains active and that their goal is to corroborate what appears in the recovered images and videos, identify possible victims and determine what actually happened inside the house.