Investigators excavating a Philadelphia property tied to seven missing women have found bones in the backyard, adding a chilling new development to a case already involving more than a million recovered images and videos.
The investigation into Philadelphia’s so-called “House of Horrors” was already one of the strangest missing-person cases in the country. Then investigators digging through the backyard found bones.
People reported Thursday that human bones were uncovered at the Chew Avenue property while police and FBI teams excavated the yard. NBC10, citing a law-enforcement source, reported that bones were found but said the medical examiner was still determining whether they were human or animal.
That distinction is critical, and authorities have not publicly announced a final identification. Investigators have previously found animal bones on the property, so the discovery is significant without yet being definitive.
The home once belonged to Raymond “R.C.” Horsch, an erotic photographer and filmmaker who died in 2025. It is now owned by his son Eugene Horsch, whose June arrest on unrelated drug and weapons charges opened the door to a much larger investigation.
Police say evidence recovered from the property includes more than one million images and videos. Investigators have connected seven missing women to material found in those files and believe five of them may be dead.
Some of the women appear injured or lifeless in the recovered imagery, according to reporting from People and NBC10. Authorities are working to determine whether those images depict staged material, criminal acts or evidence of actual deaths.
The case began in an almost absurdly ordinary way: a parking-related encounter and a fake federal credential. Investigators then found identification belonging to a woman who had been missing for years, and the inquiry rapidly expanded.
Since then, police and FBI teams have searched the home repeatedly, removed chemicals and laboratory equipment from the basement and used forensic testing throughout the property. Investigators have also detected DNA, though they have not publicly identified whose DNA it is.
The backyard excavation has involved heavy equipment, removal of a shed and large sections of earth being dug up and sifted. The property has been under around-the-clock surveillance while the search continues.
No homicide charges have been filed against Eugene Horsch in connection with the missing women. His father is dead and was never charged in connection with their disappearances.
Women who previously modeled for R.C. Horsch have described being photographed inside the home and have offered investigators additional context about how he found subjects. Some said they never felt threatened, while another woman alleged Horsch targeted vulnerable women in nearby Camden, New Jersey.
That creates the central problem investigators are trying to solve. Horsch’s work involved disturbing imagery by design, but police now have to determine where performance ended and possible real-world violence began.
The discovery of bones raises the stakes because physical evidence could finally answer questions the digital files cannot. If the remains are human — and especially if they can be linked to one of the missing women — the case changes immediately.
For now, the medical examiner’s work matters more than the nickname attached to the house. The evidence is already bizarre enough without getting ahead of the forensic results.
But after months of million-file searches, DNA testing, missing women and a backyard excavation, investigators may finally be approaching the part of the case that turns a horrifying mystery into something much more concrete.
