PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A man has been arrested and charged after Philadelphia police and federal authorities made a “very strange discovery” inside an Olney home.
On Friday, June 19, around 9 a.m., police said extra officers were out because of the World Cup match in South Philly. A park ranger who was on duty spotted a black BMW parked with a man and woman inside along the 600 block of Market Street. The ranger detected a disturbance and approached the car, where the man — 44-year-old Eugene Horsch — was in a heated argument with the woman.
The ranger believed he heard the woman say, “You’re going to hurt me.” The car was then searched. Police said Horsch had a switchblade in his pocket, fake DEA credentials and two guns with obliterated serial numbers.
When he asked the woman for identification, she handed over an ID with her picture on it, but the name of a person who had been reported missing for a few years.
That led investigators to Horsch’s home along the 400 block of Chew Avenue. The windows are boarded up in the front and back. Neighbors said there was a fire there last year. Officials presented a search warrant and found another gun, about 120 pieces of ammunition, drugs and chemicals.
“From what I have been told, if some of those chemical materials were to be put together, they would have been explosive,” said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.
They also discovered a 55-gallon drum that was connected to water lines.
“We just don’t know what he’s doing — if he’s producing something, making something, irrigating something, we just don’t know,” Vanore said.
Eugene HorschPhiladelphia Police Department
Homicide detectives and other investigators spent hours on the scene on Thursday, June 25, and the following morning. Vanore said they also found urns inside the home. At least one is believed to be that of a family member who recently died.
A man who lives in the neighborhood said he has heard rustling noises coming from the house at odd hours of the day.
“Four to 5 a.m., sometimes you hear strange things coming from behind that area,” he said. “You never know what’s going on in your neighborhood.”
Vanore said that despite reports, and homicide detectives handling the case because they are most experienced, they have not found any human remains inside the home. Special federal investigators will be assisting police as they comb through the home.
Horsch has a lengthy criminal history, including several drug charges, and was arrested earlier this year, accused of stabbing a man in the stomach. He was charged, but the District Attorney’s Office withdrew the case because a witness failed to appear in court.
Horsch’s attorney, Jerome Brown, said the cops are barking up the wrong tree, and that he’s known his client since he was a child, that his father, R.C. Horsch, has a colorful past, which included forgery and other issues, and that all of this may be linked to his now-deceased father.
Horsch is being charged with possession, possession with the intent to deliver, and multiple VUFA violations.
