The suspected Philadelphia serial killer Raymond “R.C.” Horsch reportedly had deep government connections.
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.
Police are unclear about whether the depictions of death in Horsch’s videos were real or staged, which means that he could have been producing content of actual murders, often called “snuff.” Many people doubt the existence of this genre and see it as an urban legend, but for decades there have been rumors about wealthy sadists purchasing this type of content from secretive networks that would need to have protection from law enforcement, organized crime, or both. People often doubt these stories because believing them would implicate wealth and authority in a way that most people aren’t comfortable with. In the case of Raymond Horsch, it is becoming clear that he had deep connections with the local mafia, police, and even the mayor. Not only that, but there is a paper trail of them shielding him from legal consequences for the many crimes he was caught up in throughout his life.
The deal that cut Horsch’s sentence
In a recent report, the Philadelphia Inquirer revealed that Horsch received a reduced sentence on gun and drug charges that carried a twenty-year mandatory minimum. Prosecutors asked for roughly nine to eleven years after he became an informant, but Judge R. Barclay Surrick gave him just fifty-four months, going considerably further than the reduction prosecutors requested.
Horsch began cooperating shortly after entering federal custody, providing police with information about child sexual exploitation, drug trafficking, and fraud, although old information and difficulty identifying targets limited what investigators could do with it. His fraud information helped investigators handling existing cases. Prosecutors also stated that they had no information establishing his participation in the crimes against children he described, but many legal experts noted that it was strange for him to get such a reduction for information that didn’t lead to any arrests.
The sentencing transcript released on November 3 gives us more of the judge’s reasoning. Alongside the cooperation, Surrick considered Horsch’s health, family circumstances, and accounts of helping others. He believed the sixty-nine-year-old Horsch could live productively and expressed hope that the public no longer needed protection from him.
At the same time, federal prosecutors knew about a separate case in which Horsch had been accused of trying to lure a nine-year-old girl into his car. He was convicted in 2010, then sought a new trial. The newspaper reported that the child and her mother were too afraid to testify again, after which prosecutors dropped the charges.
The letter attributed to Mayor Street
That transcript also shows that attorney Jerome Brown told Judge Surrick that former Mayor John Street gave Horsch a letter asking police not to arrest him for approaching women in Kensington, because he was making a documentary about prostitution and heroin addiction. Brown did not have the letter to present as evidence in that trial, but there is another account of a letter from an official being shown in court. Former prosecutor Jill Fertel told the Inquirer that a different lawyer used a similar document at Horsch’s 2010 child-luring sentencing, attributing it to someone senior in City Hall or the police department.
What Horsch claimed about Wackenhut
Horsch’s accounts of government connections also reached much further back. In interviews recorded in 2014, he told WHYY reporter Peter Crimmins that he had installed hidden cameras and telephone bugs for Wackenhut, the private security company, including surveillance work he associated with the FBI.
In another recorded interview, released by The Rialto Report, Horsch described freelance bugging and break-ins for the company and claimed that he later realized some assignments had served the CIA. The connection between Wackenhut and the CIA is well documented. A July 1975 CIA memo states that George Wackenhut received covert security approval in November 1961, after which his company provided cover support for CIA agents in the Miami area for over five years.
A separate March 1963 memo shows George Wackenhut discussing further cover arrangements with a CIA official, including the possibility of embedding CIA agents with company teams overseas. It also lists a Philadelphia office, so Horsch’s story is plausible.
Sam the Barber and the police payoff system
Horsch was also connected with the local mafia through Salvatore “Sam the Barber” LaRussa. The Inquirer said that Horsch met the mobster at a bar called the Bag of Nails near 13th and Locust Streets. The meeting led to LaRussa funding Horsch’s 1973 film, The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig.
The Pennsylvania Crime Commission’s 1974 report said that LaRussa had the police on his payroll while managing Irvin Goltzer’s Why Not Lounge. It also described an officer warning LaRussa about upcoming raids. Goltzer was also cooperating with the Commission, supplying information and recording police payments.
In 1974, LaRussa refused to answer a grand jury’s questions about alleged police bribes even after receiving immunity and an order to testify, leading to a contempt charge that reached the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Why now?
Raymond Horsch preyed on vulnerable women in Philadelphia for decades and was well-known among the homeless community in Kensington. Many of them even reported him to police and were ignored. It’s highly likely that much of this is because police don’t care about that population, but there is a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing to police protection. The timing of this all unraveling lines up with that as well. Raymond Horsch died last year, and it seems that his son intended to follow in his footsteps, potentially leveraging many of the same connections and techniques that his father did. However, Eugene was not his father. Raymond used drugs as a way to control people, but he did not do any himself. He wanted to maintain complete control at all times. Eugene, on the other hand, was not as meticulous as his father. He was clearly on drugs at the time of his arrest, judging from his mugshot and his behavior at the time of his arrest.
Police need to explain what they knew about Horsch, what they did when women reported him, and whether his connections had anything to do with how long this went on.
Article posted with permission from John Vibes
