From 8451058549d528b65555aed27eb06bd35c4b0380 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "disinfo.zone" Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2026 12:58:21 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] vault backup: 2026-09-23 12:58:21 --- 00 - META/CHANGELOG.md | 14 +-- 10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Myroslawa Ferkuniak.md | 32 +++-- 10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Albert Hoersch.md | 6 +- 10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/R.C. Horsch.md | 109 +++++++++--------- 10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Raymond C. Hoersch.md | 51 ++++---- .../John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer).md | 13 ++- .../PRIVATE/Chemical Technology Limited.md | 31 +++-- 7 files changed, 146 insertions(+), 110 deletions(-) diff --git a/00 - META/CHANGELOG.md b/00 - META/CHANGELOG.md index edfd6a17..78f1611a 100644 --- a/00 - META/CHANGELOG.md +++ b/00 - META/CHANGELOG.md @@ -1,4 +1,10 @@ -- 2026-09-23T1248 · [[R.C. Horsch]] +- 2026-09-23T1254 · [[R.C. Horsch]] +- 2026-09-23T1254 · [[John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer)]] +- 2026-09-23T1254 · [[Chemical Technology Limited]] +- 2026-09-23T1254 · [[Myroslawa Ferkuniak]] +- 2026-09-23T1254 · [[Albert Hoersch]] +- 2026-09-23T1254 · [[Raymond C. Hoersch]] +- 2026-09-23T1251 · [[_manifest]] - 2026-09-23T1235 · [[_NOTES_PapersPast]] - 2026-09-23T1229 · [[Jerome Brown]] - 2026-09-23T1229 · [[Wackenhut Corporation]] @@ -9,8 +15,6 @@ - 2026-09-23T1229 · [[John Butterworth]] - 2026-09-23T1229 · [[The Erotic Memoirs of a Male Chauvinist Pig]] - 2026-09-23T1229 · [[Black Mass (1975 film)]] -- 2026-09-23T1229 · [[Raymond C. Hoersch]] -- 2026-09-23T1222 · [[_manifest]] - 2026-09-23T1222 · [[Helen M. Hoersch]] - 2026-09-23T1222 · [[Olney House Investigation]] - 2026-09-23T1221 · [[Charles B. Flack Jr.]] @@ -28,17 +32,13 @@ - 2026-09-23T1216 · [[_NOTES_Newspapers_com]] - 2026-09-23T1212 · [[_NOTES_People_women]] - 2026-09-23T1212 · [[_NOTES_People]] -- 2026-09-23T1211 · [[Albert Hoersch]] - 2026-09-23T1208 · [[_NOTES_People_LE]] - 2026-09-23T1207 · [[_NOTES_People_legal]] - 2026-09-23T1204 · [[_NOTES_Family]] - 2026-09-23T1200 · [[_NOTES_Film]] - 2026-09-23T1158 · [[George R. Wackenhut]] - 2026-09-23T1156 · [[Underground Cinema 16]] -- 2026-09-23T1156 · [[John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer)]] -- 2026-09-23T1156 · [[Chemical Technology Limited]] - 2026-09-23T1156 · [[Charles Griffith]] -- 2026-09-23T1156 · [[Myroslawa Ferkuniak]] - 2026-09-23T1156 · [[Cecilia T. Hagerty]] - 2026-09-23T1156 · [[Clara Hoersch]] - 2026-09-23T1156 · [[Helen E. Hoersch]] diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Myroslawa Ferkuniak.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Myroslawa Ferkuniak.md index bd03c547..b03af7c7 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Myroslawa Ferkuniak.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(A-G)/Myroslawa Ferkuniak.md @@ -10,15 +10,16 @@ alias: - Anna Ferkuniak - Anna M. Horsch - Myroslawa Anna Ferkuniak -summary: "Welsh-born wife of the fugitive R.C. Horsch, whom she married in Nevada under his stolen name and accompanied to New Zealand, and mother of Eugene Horsch." +summary: "Welsh-born wife of the fugitive R.C. Horsch, whom she married in Reno in 1980 under his stolen name and accompanied to New Zealand, and mother of Eugene Horsch." +born: 1949-10-07 died: 1989-07-28 location: "Philadelphia, Pennsylvania" relations: - type: spouse_of with: "[[R.C. Horsch]]" - start: 1980 + start: 1980-09-12 end: 1989 - fn: 1 + fn: 5 - type: relative_of with: "[[Eugene Horsch]]" role: "mother" @@ -27,26 +28,35 @@ created: 2026-09-23 updated: 2026-09-23 --- -Myroslawa "Anna" Ferkuniak (about 1950 to July 28, 1989), known after her marriage as Anna M. Horsch, was the second wife of the [[Philadelphia]] pornographer and counterfeiter [[R.C. Horsch]] and the mother of [[Eugene Horsch]]. She married Horsch in [[Nevada]] in 1980 while he was a fugitive using the stolen identity of a [[California]] chemist, Dr. Stanley Eugene Stokowski, and lived with him in [[New Zealand]] until he fled the country in 1984.[^1][^2] +Myroslawa "Anna" Ferkuniak (October 7, 1949, to July 28, 1989), known after her marriage as Anna M. Horsch, was the second wife of the [[Philadelphia]] pornographer and counterfeiter [[R.C. Horsch]] and the mother of [[Eugene Horsch]]. She married Horsch in [[Reno, Nevada|Reno]] on September 12, 1980, while he was a fugitive using the stolen identity of a [[California]] chemist, Dr. Stanley Eugene Stokowski, and lived with him in [[New Zealand]] until he fled the country in 1984.[^1][^2] ### Family -She was born in [[Nantymoel]], [[Wales]], a daughter of Michael and Maria (Perwiczko) Ferkuniak, and her parents later lived on a rural route outside [[Lehighton, Pennsylvania|Lehighton]] in [[Carbon County, Pennsylvania|Carbon County]]. She had one sister.[^2] +She was born in [[Nantymoel]], [[Wales]], a daughter of Michael and Maria (Perwiczko) Ferkuniak, and her parents later lived on a rural route outside [[Lehighton, Pennsylvania|Lehighton]] in [[Carbon County, Pennsylvania|Carbon County]]. She had one sister. Her birth was registered in the Bridgend district of [[Glamorgan]] in the last quarter of 1949, and she arrived in [[New York City|New York]] on March 2, 1961, at 11. Her Social Security record also carries the names Myroslawa Anna Hoersch and M Horsch.[^2][^3][^4] ### With Horsch -According to the *[[The Philadelphia Inquirer|Philadelphia Inquirer]]*, she met Horsch at some point after her arrest in an [[LSD]] raid on a house near [[Temple University]]. After Horsch was arrested by the [[Drug Enforcement Administration]] for manufacturing methamphetamine in February 1977 and jumped bail, she went with him to the West Coast, where he took the identity of Stokowski, a chemist with a doctorate from [[Stanford University]]. They married in Nevada in 1980 under that name and flew to New Zealand.[^1] *[[The Press]]* of [[Christchurch]] reported in 1984 that "Stokowski" had arrived in [[Canterbury, New Zealand|Canterbury]] in 1980 with his "wife Anna and 18-month-old son"; the *Inquirer* gives her son Eugene's birth as 1981, in New Zealand.[^1][^3] The family lived near [[Timaru]], where Horsch worked with [[Chemical Technology Limited]] at [[Clandeboye, New Zealand|Clandeboye]] on a whey-to-ethanol plant, and the company's founder, [[John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer)|John Rutherford]], described Horsch to *The Press* as "an excellent family man."[^1][^3] When Horsch left New Zealand on March 17, 1984, on a passport that police believed had been stolen in a burglary at [[Temuka]], he left his wife and son behind, and they returned to the [[United States]] later.[^1][^3] +According to the *[[The Philadelphia Inquirer|Philadelphia Inquirer]]*, she met Horsch at some point after her arrest in an [[LSD]] raid on a house near [[Temple University]]. After Horsch was arrested by the [[Drug Enforcement Administration]] for manufacturing methamphetamine in February 1977 and jumped bail, she went with him to the West Coast, where he took the identity of Stokowski, a chemist with a doctorate from [[Stanford University]]. They married in Reno on September 12, 1980, before a religious celebrant, he as Stanley E. Stokowski; the marriage was recorded on September 16, and both gave their residence as [[Florida]]. It was the opening day of the 1980 [[Reno Air Races]], where Horsch later claimed to have flown a jet. Horsch said in 2013 that they had been together five or six years and married "specifically because we needed a marriage license to get into New Zealand."[^1][^5][^6] The New Zealand Minister of Immigration said in 1984 that her husband had entered the country in 1980.[^7] *[[The Press]]* of [[Christchurch]] reported in June 1984 that "Stokowski" had come to New Zealand "with his wife, Anna, and 18-month-old son," and in April 1985 that he had fled "with his wife and 18-month-old son"; the *Inquirer* gives her son Eugene's birth as 1981, in New Zealand.[^1][^8][^9][^10] The family lived at [[Hadlow, New Zealand|Hadlow]], near Timaru, until March 1984.[^11] The family lived near [[Timaru]], where Horsch worked with [[Chemical Technology Limited]] at [[Clandeboye, New Zealand|Clandeboye]] on a whey-to-ethanol plant, and the company's founder, [[John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer)|John Rutherford]], described Horsch to *The Press* as "an excellent family man."[^1][^8] When Horsch left New Zealand on March 17, 1984, on a passport that police believed had been stolen in a burglary at [[Temuka]], he left his wife and son behind, and they returned to the [[United States]] later. Detective Superintendent [[R.N. MacDonald]] told *The Press* that the family had left "soon after," and in mid-June police said they were looking for the wife and child, having searched properties at Clandeboye and Hadlow. Horsch said in 2013 that he got his wife and son out first, on their own passports, before leaving himself.[^1][^6][^8][^9][^12] -The psychologist [[Don Seraydarian]], who examined Horsch in 1985 before his federal sentencing, recorded that his only real support at the time was his wife, who had a "therapeutic and rehabilitative effect" on him. Horsch was released from federal prison in 1987.[^4] +The psychologist [[Don Seraydarian]], who examined Horsch in 1985 before his federal sentencing, recorded that his only real support at the time was his wife, who had a "therapeutic and rehabilitative effect" on him. Horsch was released from federal prison in 1987.[^13] ### Death -She died at the family's house at 1101 Devereaux Avenue in Philadelphia on Friday, July 28, 1989, at 39. Her obituary in *[[The Morning Call]]* of [[Allentown, Pennsylvania|Allentown]] said that she died "after a lengthy illness"; the *Inquirer* reported in 2026 that she died of an accidental overdose of glutethimide and codeine while sitting in the living room. Her funeral was held from the Andrew P. Ovsak Funeral Home in Lehighton, with a Divine Liturgy at [[St. Vladimir Ukrainian Catholic Church (Lehighton)|St. Vladimir's Ukrainian Catholic Church]]. The following month Horsch bought a house in [[New Britain Township, Pennsylvania|New Britain Township]], where their son grew up.[^1][^2][^5] +She died at the family's house at 1101 Devereaux Avenue in Philadelphia on Friday, July 28, 1989, at 39. Her obituary in *[[The Morning Call]]* of [[Allentown, Pennsylvania|Allentown]] said that she died "after a lengthy illness"; the *Inquirer* reported in 2026 that she died of an accidental overdose of glutethimide and codeine while sitting in the living room. Her funeral was held from the Andrew P. Ovsak Funeral Home in Lehighton, with a Divine Liturgy at [[St. Vladimir Ukrainian Catholic Church (Lehighton)|St. Vladimir's Ukrainian Catholic Church]]. The following month Horsch bought a house in [[New Britain Township, Pennsylvania|New Britain Township]], where their son grew up.[^1][^2][^14] ### Footnotes [^1]: "How a pornographer's violent fantasies blurred fact and fiction as cops searched Olney house for missing women," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 2, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/a/raymond-eugene-horsch-olney-philadelphia-missing-women-history-20260802.html [^2]: "Anna M. Horsch," obituary, *The Morning Call,* August 1, 1989, p. 18 ("Born in Nantymoel, England [sic], she was a daughter of Michael and Maria (Perwiczko) Ferkuniak of Lehighton R.2."; survivors include "son Eugene, at home"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/283766965/ Death notices ran in the same paper on August 1, 1989, p. 30, and August 2, 1989, p. 37. -[^3]: Leask, Anna. "Man linked to multiple missing women in US had fled NZ 40 years ago after posing as scientist," *The New Zealand Herald,* September 23, 2026 (quoting *The Press* of 1984). https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/raymond-horsch-man-linked-to-philadelphia-house-of-horrors-lived-near-timaru-under-stolen-name/BVQSWBL3LZDL3GIXFEHHBFY6RY/ -[^4]: Marin, Max, Ryan W. Briggs, and Ellie Rushing. "'Consumed by anger': Inside the 1985 psych profile of Raymond Horsch," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* September 3, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/raymond-horsch-olney-missing-women-psych-exam-20260903.html -[^5]: [Bucks County real-estate transfers], *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* October 29, 1989, p. 480 ("520 Airy Ave. ... to Raymond C. Horsch"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/177531276/ +[^3]: England and Wales Civil Registration Birth Index, fourth quarter 1949, Bridgend registration district, Glamorgan, "Myroslawa A Ferkuniak"; U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index, "Anna Ferkuniak," also recorded as Myroslawa Anna Hoersch and M Horsch, born October 7, 1949, Nantymoel, died July 1989 (both via Ancestry.com), accessed September 23, 2026. https://www.ancestry.com/ +[^4]: New York State, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1917-1967, "Myroslawa A Ferkuniak," arrival March 2, 1961, New York (Ancestry.com), accessed September 23, 2026. https://www.ancestry.com/ +[^5]: Nevada Marriage Index, 1956-2005, record for Myroslawa Anna Ferkuniak, spouse Stanley E Stokowski, marriage date September 12, 1980, Reno, officiant a religious celebrant, recorded September 16, 1980, Book 722, page 654, instrument number 4784, both parties residing in Florida (Ancestry.com, collection 1100), accessed September 23, 2026. https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1100/ +[^6]: West, Ashley. "Ray Horsch: Sociopathic Villain," *The Rialto Report,* Podcast 27, 2013, audio at 1:05:45 to 1:09:27 (audio preserved in a Wayback Machine capture of March 31, 2019). https://web.archive.org/web/20190331064614/http://traffic.libsyn.com/therialtoreport/27_Rialto_Report_027_-_Ray_Horsch__Sociopathic_Villain.mp3 +[^7]: "Impostor: immigration cleared of blame," *The Press* (Christchurch), October 3, 1984. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19841003.2.23 +[^8]: Leask, Anna. "Man linked to multiple missing women in US had fled NZ 40 years ago after posing as scientist," *The New Zealand Herald,* September 23, 2026 (quoting *The Press* of 1984). https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/raymond-horsch-man-linked-to-philadelphia-house-of-horrors-lived-near-timaru-under-stolen-name/BVQSWBL3LZDL3GIXFEHHBFY6RY/ +[^9]: "Where has 'Dr Stokowski' gone?," *The Press* (Christchurch), June 9, 1984. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19840609.2.9 +[^10]: "Ethanol 'scientist' jailed for drug offences," *The Press* (Christchurch), April 27, 1985 (Press Association). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19850427.2.26 +[^11]: "Police look for U.S. chemist," *The Press* (Christchurch), June 6, 1984 (Press Association, Timaru). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19840606.2.48 +[^12]: "Police seek wife, child," *The Press* (Christchurch), June 13, 1984 (Press Association, Timaru). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19840613.2.7 +[^13]: Marin, Max, Ryan W. Briggs, and Ellie Rushing. "'Consumed by anger': Inside the 1985 psych profile of Raymond Horsch," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* September 3, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/raymond-horsch-olney-missing-women-psych-exam-20260903.html +[^14]: [Bucks County real-estate transfers], *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* October 29, 1989, p. 480 ("520 Airy Ave. ... to Raymond C. Horsch"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/177531276/ diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Albert Hoersch.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Albert Hoersch.md index d210c8fe..d5921cd3 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Albert Hoersch.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Albert Hoersch.md @@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ created: 2026-09-23 updated: 2026-09-23 --- -Albert Hoersch (died July 1, 1972, aged 81) lived at 417 West Chew Street in the [[Olney, Philadelphia|Olney]] section of [[Philadelphia]], the house later owned by his grandson, the pornographer and fugitive [[R.C. Horsch]], and from 2006 by his great-grandson [[Eugene Horsch]], and searched by the [[Philadelphia Police Department]] and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] in the [[Olney House Investigation]] of 2026.[^1][^2][^3] +Albert Hoersch (died July 1, 1972, aged 81) lived at 417 West Chew Street in the [[Olney, Philadelphia|Olney]] section of [[Philadelphia]], the house later owned by his grandson, the pornographer and fugitive [[R.C. Horsch]], and from 2007 by his great-grandson [[Eugene Horsch]], and searched by the [[Philadelphia Police Department]] and the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] in the [[Olney House Investigation]] of 2026.[^1][^2][^3] ### Family @@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ He was married to [[Helen E. Hoersch|Helen E. Wissman]], who died at the Chew St ### Death -He died on July 1, 1972. His funeral service was held at the Schneider Funeral Home, 617-619 West Olney Avenue, and he was buried in [[Hillside Cemetery]], as his wife had been. The *[[The Philadelphia Inquirer|Philadelphia Inquirer]]* reported in 2026 that Eugene Horsch acquired the Chew Avenue house from his father in 2006.[^1][^2][^3] +He died on July 1, 1972. His funeral service was held at the Schneider Funeral Home, 617-619 West Olney Avenue, and he was buried in [[Hillside Cemetery]], as his wife had been. The city's deed index records a deed of October 1, 2007, naming his daughter Helen M. Hoersch, who had died in 2004, as grantor ("Hoersch Helen M") and Eugene A. Horsch as grantee.[^1][^2][^3][^7] His grandson said in 2013 that he had suffered from depression all his life and added, "I think my grandfather, my paternal grandfather, died of it."[^8] ### Footnotes @@ -45,3 +45,5 @@ He died on July 1, 1972. His funeral service was held at the Schneider Funeral H [^4]: "Hoersch, Helen M.," death notice, *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* April 7, 2004, p. B12. https://www.newspapers.com/image/201102740/ [^5]: Find a Grave memorial 25275352, "Albert Hoersch Jr.," headstone inscription "LT US Navy WWII," St. Mark's Episcopal Church Cemetery, West Nantmeal Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/25275352/albert-hoersch [^6]: [Social column], *The Daily Intelligencer* (Doylestown), January 10, 1955, p. 2. https://www.newspapers.com/image/40163522/ +[^7]: City of Philadelphia, Department of Records, real estate transfer index, 417 W. Chew Ave., deed document 51798675, executed October 1, 2007, recorded October 26, 2007, grantor "Hoersch Helen M," grantee "Horsch Eugene A"; later mortgages of 2007 and 2009 and satisfaction of 2025, via the city's open data (rtt_summary). https://phl.carto.com/api/v2/sql?q=SELECT%20*%20FROM%20rtt_summary%20WHERE%20street_address%20=%20%27417%20W%20CHEW%20AVE%27 +[^8]: West, Ashley. "Ray Horsch: Sociopathic Villain," *The Rialto Report,* Podcast 27, 2013, audio at 1:29:47 to 1:29:57 (depression; audio preserved in a Wayback Machine capture of March 31, 2019). https://web.archive.org/web/20190331064614/http://traffic.libsyn.com/therialtoreport/27_Rialto_Report_027_-_Ray_Horsch__Sociopathic_Villain.mp3 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/R.C. Horsch.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/R.C. Horsch.md index c72b8afe..1ddfc37b 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/R.C. Horsch.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/R.C. Horsch.md @@ -46,9 +46,9 @@ relations: fn: 11 - type: spouse_of with: "[[Myroslawa Ferkuniak]]" - start: 1980 + start: 1980-09-12 end: 1989 - fn: 1 + fn: 30 - type: spouse_of with: "[[Amy McHale]]" start: 2004 @@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ relations: role: "chemist, as Stanley Stokowski" start: 1981 end: 1984 - fn: 44 + fn: 45 - type: investigated with: "[[United States Secret Service]]" reverse: true @@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ relations: with: "[[Drug Enforcement Administration]]" reverse: true start: 1977 - fn: 41 + fn: 42 - type: investigated with: "[[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]" reverse: true @@ -117,7 +117,7 @@ Horsch described three jobs. At the [[Fairchild Hiller]] aircraft plant in [[Hag Horsch received a draft notice at 18 and obtained a series of occupational deferments, then a marriage deferment when he married his 19-year-old high school girlfriend in 1964. They lived on [[Rittenhouse Square]], where he took commercial film and photography work and she taught in the public schools; she left him in 1970, and told the *Inquirer* in 2026, speaking on condition of anonymity, that he had never been violent but was an "emotionally abusive" philanderer.[^24] He enlisted in the [[Pennsylvania Army National Guard]] on October 17, 1965. After unexcused absences from unit training in late 1969 and early 1970, one of them after he reported with a dirty uniform and long hair, he was ordered to active duty as an Army reservist, reporting on July 19, 1970. He did not report, and on July 29, 1970, his wife was told that he was absent without leave from [[Fort Dix]]. He continued to live and work in Philadelphia. He said a [[New Jersey State Police|New Jersey state trooper]] who found him asleep at a turnpike rest stop ran his name and delivered him to the provost marshal at Fort Dix; the court record shows that he returned to military control there on April 5, 1972, and left again the next day. In December 1972, giving his address as 523 North Main Street, Chalfont, his parents' house, he sued Secretary of the Army [[Robert F. Froehlke]] in federal court, seeking a declaration that his involuntary call to active duty was invalid. He surrendered to the [[United States Marshals Service|U.S. Marshal]] on May 10, 1974, and was released on 500 dollars bond, and Judge [[John B. Hannum]] ruled against him on October 11, 1974. Horsch said he held two dishonorable discharges and was later pardoned under President [[Jimmy Carter]]'s amnesty.[^3][^6][^18] -He said that in the early 1970s he taught himself to fly in a Cessna 152 bought for 5,700 dollars and flew marijuana from [[Mexico]] through the mountain passes south of [[El Paso, Texas|El Paso]], dropping loads to trucks waiting in the desert of [[Texas]], [[New Mexico]], and [[Arizona]] without landing. He said he knew the smuggler [[George Jung]] before Jung moved into cocaine, that federal agents dismantled two of his aircraft without finding anything, and that he stopped when a man with an M16 rifle motioned him down from a pursuing helicopter.[^6] The [[Federal Aviation Administration]]'s file of deregistered aircraft lists one aircraft under the family name, a Cessna 210A, registration N1437J, registered on August 20, 1973, to Raymond C. Hoersch at 523 North Main Street, Chalfont, and cancelled on July 11, 1984. On July 26, 1981, while Horsch was in New Zealand, the aircraft lost power on its initial climb from [[Doylestown Airport]] and made a wheels-up landing; the [[National Transportation Safety Board]] recorded the pilot as 62 years old, an engineer holding a commercial certificate. No airman certificate under the names Hoersch, Horsch, or Stokowski appears in the agency's releasable airmen file.[^25][^26][^27] His later online biography called him an "air show pilot" and stated that during his years as a fugitive he "somehow managed to fly a BD5-J micro-jet aircraft in various U.S. air shows, boldly (and foolishly) appearing on ABC's 'Wide World of Sports' during the 1980 Reno Air Races."[^1][^28] The official program of the 1980 [[Reno Air Races]] listed the daily BD-5J demonstration as flown by George Marshall. The races ran from Friday, September 12, to Sunday, September 14, 1980, and on the opening day Horsch was married in [[Reno, Nevada|Reno]] under the name Stanley E. Stokowski.[^29][^30] He said in 2013 that at the end of the 1970s he delivered much of his methamphetamine himself, "because I used to just love flying back and forth over the country, about 50 or 100 feet off the ground, waving to the farmers," and he counted "flying and risky occupations" among the pursuits of "a total adrenaline junkie."[^31][^32] In New Zealand, the Christchurch lawyer [[John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer)|John Rutherford]] told *[[The Press]]* in June 1984, Horsch had the use of an amphibian aircraft that Rutherford had transferred to their company to increase its assets; Rutherford had flown with him once to [[Lake Tekapo|Tekapo]], "but the man did not have a licence rating that allowed him to make solo landings on water. 'He didn't have enough hours.'"[^33] +He said that in the early 1970s he taught himself to fly in a Cessna 152 bought for 5,700 dollars and flew marijuana from [[Mexico]] through the mountain passes south of [[El Paso, Texas|El Paso]], dropping loads to trucks waiting in the desert of [[Texas]], [[New Mexico]], and [[Arizona]] without landing. He said he knew the smuggler [[George Jung]] before Jung moved into cocaine, that federal agents dismantled two of his aircraft without finding anything, and that he stopped when a man with an M16 rifle motioned him down from a pursuing helicopter.[^6] The [[Federal Aviation Administration]]'s file of deregistered aircraft lists one aircraft under the family name, a Cessna 210A, registration N1437J, registered on August 20, 1973, to Raymond C. Hoersch at 523 North Main Street, Chalfont, and cancelled on July 11, 1984. On July 26, 1981, while Horsch was in New Zealand, the aircraft lost power on its initial climb from [[Doylestown Airport]] and made a wheels-up landing; the [[National Transportation Safety Board]] recorded the pilot as 62 years old, an engineer holding a commercial certificate. No airman certificate under the names Hoersch, Horsch, or Stokowski appears in the agency's releasable airmen file.[^25][^26][^27] His later online biography called him an "air show pilot" and stated that during his years as a fugitive he "somehow managed to fly a BD5-J micro-jet aircraft in various U.S. air shows, boldly (and foolishly) appearing on ABC's 'Wide World of Sports' during the 1980 Reno Air Races."[^1][^28] The official program of the 1980 [[Reno Air Races]] listed the daily BD-5J demonstration as flown by [[George Marshall (pilot)|George Marshall]]. The races ran from Friday, September 12, to Sunday, September 14, 1980, and on the opening day Horsch was married in [[Reno, Nevada|Reno]] under the name Stanley E. Stokowski.[^29][^30] He said in 2013 that at the end of the 1970s he delivered much of his methamphetamine himself, "because I used to just love flying back and forth over the country, about 50 or 100 feet off the ground, waving to the farmers," and he counted "flying and risky occupations" among the pursuits of "a total adrenaline junkie."[^31][^32] In New Zealand, the Christchurch lawyer [[John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer)|John Rutherford]] told *[[The Press]]* in June 1984, Horsch had the use of an amphibian aircraft that Rutherford had transferred to their company to increase its assets; Rutherford had flown with him once to [[Lake Tekapo|Tekapo]], "but the man did not have a licence rating that allowed him to make solo landings on water. 'He didn't have enough hours.'"[^33] ### Times Square and the 1973 Film @@ -131,43 +131,43 @@ In February 1975, eleven weeks after the counterfeiting arrest, "Chestnut Hill f In December 1972 "Raymond C. Hoersch Jr., Philadelphia, Pa." was listed for trial in [[Mecklenburg County Superior Court]] in [[Charlotte, North Carolina]], on a charge of uttering a forged check; the conviction for forging checks in [[North Carolina]] dates from 1972.[^16][^38] On December 10, 1974, the Hatboro Card Shop on Old York Road in [[Hatboro, Pennsylvania|Hatboro]] reported a suspicious ten-dollar bill, and Hatboro police detained Horsch, then 31. [[United States Secret Service|Secret Service]] agents under [[James D'Amelio]] found 630 dollars in counterfeit ten-dollar notes in his car and a counterfeit driver's license and vehicle registration in his name, and seized the printing equipment in a small building on Taylor Street in [[Doylestown, Pennsylvania|Doylestown]], where they arrested [[Charles Griffith]], 39, of [[Wallingford, Pennsylvania|Wallingford]]. The operation had also been printing counterfeit operator's cards and vehicle registration certificates. Authorities described Horsch as unemployed and quoted him as saying that he "hadn't worked for 11 years" and "traveled consistently"; the Chalfont address he gave was his parents' house. Both men were committed to the [[Philadelphia Detention Center]] in default of bail. Accounts of the face value seized range from 180,000 dollars to more than one million dollars. He served two years.[^1][^18][^39] -In his 2013 account Horsch said that before the counterfeiting he had spent about a year in deep depression editing a pennysaver magazine called *Wisdom's Child*. He said he reproduced automobile titles and registrations that he sold "through local organized crime outlet," which used them to ship stolen cars "to South America or wherever they were going," and forged [[Pablo Picasso|Picasso]] etchings that he took to [[Christie's]], [[Sotheby's]], and [[Freeman's|Freeman Fine Arts]] in Philadelphia, saying he had found them in "my grandmother's attic or something like that"; the auction houses, he said, "were the ones who authenticated them and declared them to be genuine and sold them." He described his arrest as a traffic stop with about 10,000 dollars in the car, after which Secret Service agents questioned him overnight in Center City and offered immunity if he gave up the printer; a judge was woken "at three o'clock in the morning" to sign the agreement, "and I said, I'm the printer." He said he received a 24-month sentence and served 18 months, partly at [[Allenwood Federal Prison Camp|Allenwood]] and partly at the prison camp on [[Eglin Air Force Base]] in the Florida Panhandle, where, he said, "One of the inmates was H.L. Hunt," the Mr. Smith of his Wackenhut years, "sitting in the back, writing spy novels." Horsch said he smuggled liquor to him from a job on the base, and that when he described their earlier dealings Hunt "gave me a blank look and said something about never having worked for the CIA."[^40] +In his 2013 account Horsch said that before the counterfeiting he had spent about a year in deep depression editing a pennysaver magazine called *Wisdom's Child*. He said he reproduced automobile titles and registrations that he sold "through local organized crime outlet," which used them to ship stolen cars "to [[South America]] or wherever they were going," and forged [[Pablo Picasso|Picasso]] etchings that he took to [[Christie's]], [[Sotheby's]], and [[Freeman's|Freeman Fine Arts]] in Philadelphia, saying he had found them in "my grandmother's attic or something like that"; the auction houses, he said, "were the ones who authenticated them and declared them to be genuine and sold them." He described his arrest as a traffic stop with about 10,000 dollars in the car, after which Secret Service agents questioned him overnight in Center City and offered immunity if he gave up the printer; a judge was woken "at three o'clock in the morning" to sign the agreement, "and I said, I'm the printer." He said he received a 24-month sentence and served 18 months, partly at [[Allenwood Federal Prison Camp|Allenwood]] and partly at the prison camp on [[Eglin Air Force Base]] in the Florida Panhandle, where, he said, "One of the inmates was H.L. Hunt" [sic; E. Howard Hunt], the Mr. Smith of his Wackenhut years, "sitting in the back, writing spy novels." Horsch said he smuggled liquor to him from a job on the base, and that when he described their earlier dealings Hunt "gave me a blank look and said something about never having worked for the CIA."[^40] ### Methamphetamine and New Zealand -On February 4, 1977, agents of the [[Drug Enforcement Administration]] arrested Horsch, then 32, in Philadelphia and charged him with manufacturing and conspiring to distribute methamphetamine, seizing laboratory equipment. He posted bail and went first to California with Myroslawa "Anna" Ferkuniak, whom he had met after her arrest in an [[LSD]] raid on a house near [[Temple University]], and took the identity of Stanley Eugene Stokowski, a chemist with a doctorate from [[Stanford University]]. He said in 2013 that the 1977 charge arose from an attempt to make an unscheduled analog of amphetamine, of which his process had produced some of the real drug as a side reaction, and that he had been out of prison "four or five months" when he was arrested. "I became a fugitive in 76, actually on my birthday," he said; the arrest on which he jumped bail was in February 1977, and public records indexes give his month of birth as May. He said that between 1979 and early 1980 he supplied "well over half of all the amphetamine" in the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Maryland area, subcontracting parts of the process to legitimate chemical companies and selling to two men only, one "connected with the mafia in Philadelphia" and one "who had an in with the [[Pagans Motorcycle Club|Pagans]] and the [[Warlocks Motorcycle Club|Warlocks]]," that he was paid in paper grocery sacks at a family dinner in [[Voorhees Township, New Jersey|Voorhees]], that he produced the drug at a house he built "on top of a mountain in the Sierra foothills," and that "I bought a jet aircraft." He said FBI agents obtained his father's telephone records once a year to trace calls to him, and that "a couple other sources, not exactly from within the FBI itself, but along the edges," told him at the end of 1979 that agents were getting close.[^31] On September 12, 1980, he married [[Myroslawa Ferkuniak|Ferkuniak]] in Reno as Stanley E. Stokowski, before a religious celebrant; the marriage was recorded on September 16, and both parties gave their residence as Florida.[^1][^16][^30][^41] They married, he said, "specifically because we needed a marriage license to get into New Zealand," and he chose the country because its cheese industry produced whey, from which he proposed to distill alcohol, having written in 1977 or 1978 a book on alcohol fuel production that he sold by mail order "through ads in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics." The Minister of Immigration, [[Kerry Burke]], said in October 1984 that Hoersch "entered New Zealand in 1980"; Horsch put his stay at "just about exactly four years."[^42][^43] The Christchurch lawyer John Rutherford, who told *The Press* in 1984 that he had contacted Horsch "after reading American advertisements about new technology," set up [[Chemical Technology Limited]] with him at [[Clandeboye, New Zealand|Clandeboye]], near [[Timaru]], a company working on byproducts of milk; Horsch launched its plant for converting whey into ethanol, having obtained the work with a forged Stanford transcript in Stokowski's name. His son Eugene was born in 1981.[^1][^44] The company was "formed earlier this year," *The Press* reported in July 1981; the companies register records its incorporation on May 26, 1981. On July 14, 1981, the Minister of Customs, [[Hugh Templeton]], and the Minister of Energy, [[Bill Birch]], announced a licence for its distillery at [[Temuka]], the first commercial one in the South Island, to make industrial ethanol mainly from whey and beet crops. "Dr Stanly Stokowski, the director," said the 1.5 million dollar plant would produce one million litres a year from 22 to 27 million litres of whey from the neighbouring dairy factory, and that gasohol fuels were being studied. Two regional development suspensory loans totalling 120,235 dollars were approved for the company in 1981 on the recommendation of the South Canterbury Regional Development Council, and the [[Development Finance Corporation]] reported favourably on the project. The Minister of Science and Technology, [[Ian Shearer]], opened the plant in April 1982. In December 1981 Rutherford, as a director, asked the Canterbury United Council to back ethanol in place of tetraethyl lead as an octane booster.[^43][^45][^46][^47][^48] Horsch lived at [[Hadlow, New Zealand|Hadlow]], near Timaru, and ran a mail-order computer software exchange at [[Washdyke]]; the March 1984 issue of the Christchurch microcomputer magazine *Bits & Bytes* carried an article by him, and its partners recalled that "He said at least five times in two minutes that he had a doctorate." He trained unskilled local men as welders and in other trades, and about eight jobs were created.[^33][^49] The *Philadelphia Daily News* reported in 1985 that while he was a fugitive he had "operated three successful businesses, wrote and published a book on producing alcohol fuel for homes and farms, and helped design and build an ethanol plant for the New Zealand government."[^16] A New Zealand government investigation later found that his immigration papers, in the stolen name, included a university transcript, that the [[New Zealand Department of Immigration|Department of Immigration]] had been "under some pressure" from his "proposed employer" to "make an early decision," and that no checks had been made with the [[New Zealand Ministry of Energy|Ministry of Energy]] or other departments; the real Stokowski confirmed that the transcript was his. *The Press*'s San Francisco correspondent, John Hutchison, reached the chemist, whom the paper named as Dr Stanley Edward Stokowski, 42, a 1968 Stanford doctorate working at the [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory|Lawrence Livermore Laboratory]]; he said he was unaware that anyone had used his name and had never lost his passport.[^33][^43] He was also named in a civil case in the [[High Court of New Zealand|High Court]] at [[Wellington]] over a credit card debt of about 18,000 dollars.[^44] +On February 4, 1977, agents of the [[Drug Enforcement Administration]] arrested Horsch, then 32, in Philadelphia and charged him with manufacturing and conspiring to distribute methamphetamine, seizing laboratory equipment. He posted bail and went first to California with Myroslawa "Anna" Ferkuniak, whom he had met after her arrest in an [[LSD]] raid on a house near [[Temple University]], and took the identity of Stanley Eugene Stokowski, a chemist with a doctorate from [[Stanford University]]. He said in 2013 that the 1977 charge arose from an attempt to make an unscheduled analog of amphetamine, of which his process had produced some of the real drug as a side reaction, and that he had been out of prison "four or five months" when he was arrested. "I became a fugitive in 76, actually on my birthday," he said; the arrest on which he jumped bail was in February 1977, and public records indexes give his month of birth as May.[^41] He said that between 1979 and early 1980 he supplied "well over half of all the amphetamine" in the Pennsylvania, [[New Jersey]], and Maryland area, subcontracting parts of the process to legitimate chemical companies and selling to two men only, one "connected with the mafia in Philadelphia" and one "who had an in with the [[Pagans Motorcycle Club|Pagans]] and the [[Warlocks Motorcycle Club|Warlocks]]," that he was paid in paper grocery sacks at a family dinner in [[Voorhees Township, New Jersey|Voorhees]], that he produced the drug at a house he built "on top of a mountain in the Sierra foothills," and that "I bought a jet aircraft." He said FBI agents obtained his father's telephone records once a year to trace calls to him, and that "a couple other sources, not exactly from within the FBI itself, but along the edges," told him at the end of 1979 that agents were getting close.[^31] On September 12, 1980, he married [[Myroslawa Ferkuniak|Ferkuniak]] in Reno as Stanley E. Stokowski, before a religious celebrant; the marriage was recorded on September 16, and both parties gave their residence as Florida.[^1][^16][^30][^42] They married, he said, "specifically because we needed a marriage license to get into New Zealand," and he chose the country because its cheese industry produced whey, from which he proposed to distill alcohol, having written in 1977 or 1978 a book on alcohol fuel production that he sold by mail order "through ads in Popular Science and Popular Mechanics." The Minister of Immigration, [[Kerry Burke]], said in October 1984 that Hoersch "entered New Zealand in 1980"; Horsch put his stay at "just about exactly four years."[^43][^44] The Christchurch lawyer John Rutherford, who told *The Press* in 1984 that he had contacted Horsch "after reading American advertisements about new technology," set up [[Chemical Technology Limited]] with him at [[Clandeboye, New Zealand|Clandeboye]], near [[Timaru]], a company working on byproducts of milk; Horsch launched its plant for converting whey into ethanol, having obtained the work with a forged Stanford transcript in Stokowski's name. His son Eugene was born in 1981.[^1][^45] The company was "formed earlier this year," *The Press* reported in July 1981; the companies register records its incorporation on May 26, 1981. On July 14, 1981, the Minister of Customs, [[Hugh Templeton]], and the Minister of Energy, [[Bill Birch]], announced a licence for its distillery at [[Temuka]], the first commercial one in the South Island, to make industrial ethanol mainly from whey and beet crops. "Dr Stanly Stokowski, the director," said the 1.5 million dollar plant would produce one million litres a year from 22 to 27 million litres of whey from the neighbouring dairy factory, and that gasohol fuels were being studied. Two regional development suspensory loans totalling 120,235 dollars were approved for the company in 1981 on the recommendation of the South Canterbury Regional Development Council, and the [[Development Finance Corporation]] reported favourably on the project. The Minister of Science and Technology, [[Ian Shearer]], opened the plant in April 1982. In December 1981 Rutherford, as a director, asked the Canterbury United Council to back ethanol in place of tetraethyl lead as an octane booster.[^44][^46][^47][^48][^49] Horsch lived at [[Hadlow, New Zealand|Hadlow]], near Timaru, and ran a mail-order computer software exchange at [[Washdyke]]; the March 1984 issue of the Christchurch microcomputer magazine *Bits & Bytes* carried an article by him, and its partners recalled that "He said at least five times in two minutes that he had a doctorate." He trained unskilled local men as welders and in other trades, and about eight jobs were created.[^33][^50] The *Philadelphia Daily News* reported in 1985 that while he was a fugitive he had "operated three successful businesses, wrote and published a book on producing alcohol fuel for homes and farms, and helped design and build an ethanol plant for the New Zealand government."[^16] A New Zealand government investigation later found that his immigration papers, in the stolen name, included a university transcript, that the [[New Zealand Department of Immigration|Department of Immigration]] had been "under some pressure" from his "proposed employer" to "make an early decision," and that no checks had been made with the [[New Zealand Ministry of Energy|Ministry of Energy]] or other departments; the real Stokowski confirmed that the transcript was his. *The Press*'s [[San Francisco]] correspondent, [[John Hutchison (journalist)|John Hutchison]], reached the chemist, whom the paper named as Dr Stanley Edward Stokowski, 42, a 1968 Stanford doctorate working at the [[Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory|Lawrence Livermore Laboratory]]; he said he was unaware that anyone had used his name and had never lost his passport.[^33][^44] He was also named in a civil case in the [[High Court of New Zealand|High Court]] at [[Wellington]] over a credit card debt of about 18,000 dollars.[^45] -In March 1984, returning from a trip to the [[United States]], he was held up by Customs over a microcomputer he had with him and was found to be carrying several passports, five according to later accounts. Customs, he said in 2013, "took my passport to examine it and didn't give it back," and he reckoned he had "about three or four days before the proverbial shit hit the fan."[^33][^42] He left New Zealand on March 17 on another passport, which police believed had been stolen in a burglary of a house at Temuka, leaving his wife and son behind, and the New Zealand police, American authorities, and [[Interpol]] searched for him. Rumors circulated in New Zealand that he was a Soviet or Bulgarian spy or was wanted by the CIA. Rutherford told *The Press* that his partner was "a particularly smart fellow, a real toiler and an excellent family man," that he might have had trouble in the United States on the scale of draft evasion, and dismissed the suggestion that he was a spy.[^1][^44] Detective Superintendent R.N. MacDonald, director of drug enforcement and intelligence at police headquarters, said police were liaising with overseas agencies, and the director of the [[New Zealand Security Intelligence Service|Security Intelligence Service]], Brigadier [[Lindsay Smith]], said only that it was "a matter for the police and for customs." Police searched properties at Clandeboye and Hadlow, and at their request the Fire Service drained a well at the ethanol plant; MacDonald would not comment on reports that firearms and drugs had been found in it. [[Westpac]] put the company into receivership on May 22, 1984, with K.N. Curnow of [[Deloitte Haskins & Sells]] as receiver, and Rutherford arranged to pay the bank about 170,000 dollars. Horsch said he had owned 80 percent of the distillery and signed his share over. In October 1984 Rutherford told *The Press* that business at the plant was booming and that Horsch "had trained everybody up before he left ... he did everything he said he was going to accomplish."[^50] The plant was still turning whey into alcohol in 1986.[^33][^42][^49][^51][^52] The *Inquirer* reported in 2026 that after New Zealand he returned to California and used the name Richard Harris.[^53] He said he settled in [[Orlando, Florida|Orlando]], started a computer business, programmed computer games, and arranged through a Philadelphia lawyer to surrender, and that FBI agents arrested him at 4 a.m. on the Monday he was to do so; he said he served about 33 months.[^42] The FBI arrested him in Orlando; the Associated Press reported in April 1985 that he had left New Zealand in June 1984 and was arrested in Florida that October.[^1][^16][^44] Reporting the sentence, *The Press* quoted Joanne Epps, identified as a Philadelphia assistant district attorney, as saying he had pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing methamphetamine for supply and to running a methamphetamine laboratory, and New Zealand police said extradition had been unlikely because they "did not normally extradite persons for passport offences."[^54] +In March 1984, returning from a trip to the [[United States]], he was held up by Customs over a microcomputer he had with him and was found to be carrying several passports, five according to later accounts. Customs, he said in 2013, "took my passport to examine it and didn't give it back," and he reckoned he had "about three or four days before the proverbial shit hit the fan."[^33][^43] He left New Zealand on March 17 on another passport, which police believed had been stolen in a burglary of a house at Temuka, leaving his wife and son behind, and the New Zealand police, American authorities, and [[Interpol]] searched for him. Rumors circulated in New Zealand that he was a Soviet or Bulgarian spy or was wanted by the CIA. Rutherford told *The Press* that his partner was "a particularly smart fellow, a real toiler and an excellent family man," that he might have had trouble in the United States on the scale of draft evasion, and dismissed the suggestion that he was a spy.[^1][^45] Detective Superintendent [[R.N. MacDonald]], director of drug enforcement and intelligence at police headquarters, said police were liaising with overseas agencies, and the director of the [[New Zealand Security Intelligence Service|Security Intelligence Service]], Brigadier [[Lindsay Smith]], said only that it was "a matter for the police and for customs." Police searched properties at Clandeboye and Hadlow, and at their request the Fire Service drained a well at the ethanol plant; MacDonald would not comment on reports that firearms and drugs had been found in it. [[Westpac]] put the company into receivership on May 22, 1984, with [[K.N. Curnow]] of [[Deloitte Haskins & Sells]] as receiver, and Rutherford arranged to pay the bank about 170,000 dollars. Horsch said he had owned 80 percent of the distillery and signed his share over. In October 1984 Rutherford told *The Press* that business at the plant was booming and that Horsch "had trained everybody up before he left ... he did everything he said he was going to accomplish."[^51] The plant was still turning whey into alcohol in 1986.[^33][^43][^50][^52][^53] The *Inquirer* reported in 2026 that after New Zealand he returned to California and used the name Richard Harris.[^54] He said he settled in [[Orlando, Florida|Orlando]], started a computer business, programmed computer games, and arranged through a Philadelphia lawyer to surrender, and that FBI agents arrested him at 4 a.m. on the Monday he was to do so; he said he served about 33 months.[^43] The FBI arrested him in Orlando; the Associated Press reported in April 1985 that he had left New Zealand in June 1984 and was arrested in Florida that October.[^1][^16][^45] Reporting the sentence, *The Press* quoted [[Joanne Epps]], identified as a Philadelphia assistant district attorney, as saying he had pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing methamphetamine for supply and to running a methamphetamine laboratory, and New Zealand police said extradition had been unlikely because they "did not normally extradite persons for passport offences."[^55] -From the Philadelphia Detention Center he wrote letters to the *Philadelphia Daily News* in January 1985 as public relations officer of the Inmate Betterment Committee, one reporting that inmates had raised money for [[1983-1985 famine in Ethiopia|famine relief in Ethiopia]], and on April 2, 1985, the paper published his guest opinion column arguing that harsher sentences did not reduce crime.[^55][^56][^57] Before his sentencing on the drug-manufacturing charge, the psychologist [[Don Seraydarian]] examined him for four hours at the request of his lawyers and wrote that he was "grandiose, mistrustful, suspicious, and excessively controlling," was "consumed by anger," and had "great concern about 'losing control' over himself." Horsch told him: "I go from job to job because once I learn something, I want to go to something else." He listed his occupations as chemist, computer analyst, and photographer.[^5] A sentencing memorandum filed by the federal defender [[Sally A. Kocher]] described "deep-rooted emotional problems" and quoted a psychologist's finding that he had "a very superior intellect exceeding that of 99 percent of the people" but was "severely limited emotionally and is driven by unconscious destructive patterns." Judge [[Joseph L. McGlynn Jr.]] sentenced him to three years for manufacturing methamphetamine, saying that "anybody who has a speed lab ought to know he's going to jail," and Judge [[Donald W. Van Artsdalen]] added a year and a day for bail-jumping, saying that fugitives must be punished "no matter how exemplary a life they may have lived" while at large. He was released in 1987 and became the information technology director of a company in [[Northeast Philadelphia]].[^1][^5][^16] "I loved being a fugitive," he later said. "It was always exciting, always thinking, 'Who am I going to be today?'"[^1] +From the Philadelphia Detention Center he wrote letters to the *Philadelphia Daily News* in January 1985 as public relations officer of the Inmate Betterment Committee, one reporting that inmates had raised money for [[1983-1985 famine in Ethiopia|famine relief in Ethiopia]], and on April 2, 1985, the paper published his guest opinion column arguing that harsher sentences did not reduce crime.[^56][^57][^58] Before his sentencing on the drug-manufacturing charge, the psychologist [[Don Seraydarian]] examined him for four hours at the request of his lawyers and wrote that he was "grandiose, mistrustful, suspicious, and excessively controlling," was "consumed by anger," and had "great concern about 'losing control' over himself." Horsch told him: "I go from job to job because once I learn something, I want to go to something else." He listed his occupations as chemist, computer analyst, and photographer.[^5] A sentencing memorandum filed by the federal defender [[Sally A. Kocher]] described "deep-rooted emotional problems" and quoted a psychologist's finding that he had "a very superior intellect exceeding that of 99 percent of the people" but was "severely limited emotionally and is driven by unconscious destructive patterns." Judge [[Joseph L. McGlynn Jr.]] sentenced him to three years for manufacturing methamphetamine, saying that "anybody who has a speed lab ought to know he's going to jail," and Judge [[Donald W. Van Artsdalen]] added a year and a day for bail-jumping, saying that fugitives must be punished "no matter how exemplary a life they may have lived" while at large. He was released in 1987 and became the information technology director of a company in [[Northeast Philadelphia]].[^1][^5][^16] "I loved being a fugitive," he later said. "It was always exciting, always thinking, 'Who am I going to be today?'"[^1] ### New Britain Township -Ferkuniak died at their house at 1101 Devereaux Avenue, Philadelphia, on July 28, 1989, at 39; her obituary in *[[The Morning Call]]* gave the cause as "a lengthy illness," and the *Inquirer* reported in 2026 that she died of an accidental overdose of glutethimide and codeine. The following month Horsch bought a house at 520 Airy Avenue in [[New Britain Township, Pennsylvania|New Britain Township]] for 137,500 dollars. In 1991 he and John R. Butterworth registered the trade name Butterworth's Hickory Pit, a barbecue restaurant in [[North Wales, Pennsylvania|North Wales]], and on August 27, 1993, he filed a Chapter 13 petition in the [[United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania|federal bankruptcy court]] in Philadelphia, No. 93-22545, listing the restaurant as a trade name; his 60-month plan was confirmed, and he was discharged in December 1998.[^58] In 1997 township police charged him with cashing 187.19 dollars in paychecks made out to his dead nephew. Around 1999 he was briefly engaged to a teenage housekeeper. In the 1990s and 2000s he produced a series of pornographic videos with amateur couples and then films of staged violence against women, many of whom he recruited with cash and drugs on the streets of [[Kensington, Philadelphia|Kensington]]. In September 2004 he married [[Amy McHale]], thirty years his junior, beside a greenhouse behind his Chalfont house; they divorced in 2008, and she continued to visit him after he moved to Olney.[^1][^24][^35][^59][^60][^61][^62] +Ferkuniak died at their house at 1101 Devereaux Avenue, Philadelphia, on July 28, 1989, at 39; her obituary in *[[The Morning Call]]* gave the cause as "a lengthy illness," and the *Inquirer* reported in 2026 that she died of an accidental overdose of glutethimide and codeine. The following month Horsch bought a house at 520 Airy Avenue in [[New Britain Township, Pennsylvania|New Britain Township]] for 137,500 dollars. In 1991 he and John R. Butterworth registered the trade name Butterworth's Hickory Pit, a barbecue restaurant in [[North Wales, Pennsylvania|North Wales]], and on August 27, 1993, he filed a Chapter 13 petition in the [[United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania|federal bankruptcy court]] in Philadelphia, No. 93-22545, listing the restaurant as a trade name; his 60-month plan was confirmed, and he was discharged in December 1998.[^59] In 1997 township police charged him with cashing 187.19 dollars in paychecks made out to his dead nephew. Around 1999 he was briefly engaged to a teenage housekeeper. In the 1990s and 2000s he produced a series of pornographic videos with amateur couples and then films of staged violence against women, many of whom he recruited with cash and drugs on the streets of [[Kensington, Philadelphia|Kensington]]. In September 2004 he married [[Amy McHale]], thirty years his junior, beside a greenhouse behind his Chalfont house; they divorced in 2008, and she continued to visit him after he moved to Olney.[^1][^24][^35][^60][^61][^62][^63] -In 2009 a woman at the house called township police to report noises. Officers under Chief [[Robert Scafidi]] found marijuana plants in the basement, 455 by one press account and "nearly 200" by Scafidi's recollection in 2026, firearms including an M1 carbine, 25 pounds of gunpowder, bondage devices, pornography showing women who appeared to be bleeding, and identification cards belonging to several different women. Horsch ran into the surrounding fields and was caught. Horsch said in 2013 that the operation had been discovered by "a fluke" when a young woman living in the house, who knew nothing of the basement, called police about a prowler; he said he grew marijuana to support his art and that most of it "went through two oncology groups to cancer patients, although I made a comfortable living from it."[^32] Scafidi said the district attorney's office took the identification cards for follow-up. "I really don't know what happened after that," he said. "He always got light sentences for some reason," Scafidi said in 2026. "He was a person who worked at being evil."[^13] On March 20, 2009, on Ontario Street in Kensington, Horsch slowed his green Jeep beside a nine-year-old girl, called to her, got out and approached her; she ran home, and police found him nearby with binoculars, a camera with a telephoto lens, an eye patch and condoms in the Jeep. In 2010 he was convicted in Municipal Court of luring a child into a motor vehicle and corrupting the morals of a minor, and Judge Roger Gordon sentenced him to two and a half to five years, a conviction that would have required registration under Megan's Law. The prosecutor, Jill Fertel, had asked for the maximum after learning what the New Britain police had found. Horsch appealed for a new trial in the Common Pleas Court; the girl and her mother were too afraid to testify again, the charges were dropped, the conviction was vacated, and in 2015 a Common Pleas judge granted his petition to expunge the case. In September 2026 a court clerk refused *The Philadelphia Inquirer* access to the file on the ground that expunged records should have been destroyed. "No one was getting arrested for what Raymond Horsch was doing," Fertel said.[^63] In his 2013 interview Horsch said the girl had stepped out from between parked cars, that the story "was made up and augmented by her mother" because the girl was not allowed to cross the street, and that "the charges were dropped, expunged, and I was exonerated."[^32] The federal case, United States v. Horsch, No. 2:09-cr-00794 in the [[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania|Eastern District of Pennsylvania]], was filed on December 15, 2009, before Judge [[Richard Barclay Surrick]], charging him with manufacturing 100 or more marijuana plants; a bench warrant issued the same day, and [[Jerome Brown]], later counsel to his son, entered his appearance for the defense in January 2010.[^64] The prosecutor was Assistant United States Attorney [[Elizabeth F. Abrams]], and the government filed notice of his prior drug convictions to enhance the sentence. On January 10, 2011, he pleaded guilty to possessing 100 or more marijuana plants with intent to distribute, possessing a short-barreled shotgun in furtherance of drug trafficking, and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. Surrick sentenced him on June 28, 2012, and resentenced him on July 3 to 53 months on the drug and felon-in-possession counts and one consecutive month on the shotgun count, a total of 54 months, with credit for time served in the Bucks County jail, and ordered the Airy Avenue house forfeited; the final order of forfeiture was entered on October 22, 2012.[^65] He was released in June 2013. He said he had written four or five books in prison, among them a memoir written with one of his former wives about her adolescence, including stripping at 14, which prison authorities banned for its content.[^32] The bank repossessed the [[New Britain, Pennsylvania|New Britain]] house the same year.[^13][^15][^59][^66] +In 2009 a woman at the house called township police to report noises. Officers under Chief [[Robert Scafidi]] found marijuana plants in the basement, 455 by one press account and "nearly 200" by Scafidi's recollection in 2026, firearms including an M1 carbine, 25 pounds of gunpowder, bondage devices, pornography showing women who appeared to be bleeding, and identification cards belonging to several different women. Horsch ran into the surrounding fields and was caught. Horsch said in 2013 that the operation had been discovered by "a fluke" when a young woman living in the house, who knew nothing of the basement, called police about a prowler; he said he grew marijuana to support his art and that most of it "went through two oncology groups to cancer patients, although I made a comfortable living from it."[^32] Scafidi said the district attorney's office took the identification cards for follow-up. "I really don't know what happened after that," he said. "He always got light sentences for some reason," Scafidi said in 2026. "He was a person who worked at being evil."[^13] On March 20, 2009, on Ontario Street in Kensington, Horsch slowed his green Jeep beside a nine-year-old girl, called to her, got out and approached her; she ran home, and police found him nearby with binoculars, a camera with a telephoto lens, an eye patch and condoms in the Jeep. In 2010 he was convicted in Municipal Court of luring a child into a motor vehicle and corrupting the morals of a minor, and Judge Roger Gordon sentenced him to two and a half to five years, a conviction that would have required registration under Megan's Law. The prosecutor, [[Jill Fertel]], had asked for the maximum after learning what the New Britain police had found. Horsch appealed for a new trial in the Common Pleas Court; the girl and her mother were too afraid to testify again, the charges were dropped, the conviction was vacated, and in 2015 a Common Pleas judge granted his petition to expunge the case. In September 2026 a court clerk refused *The Philadelphia Inquirer* access to the file on the ground that expunged records should have been destroyed. "No one was getting arrested for what Raymond Horsch was doing," Fertel said.[^64] In his 2013 interview Horsch said the girl had stepped out from between parked cars, that the story "was made up and augmented by her mother" because the girl was not allowed to cross the street, and that "the charges were dropped, expunged, and I was exonerated."[^32] The federal case, United States v. Horsch, No. 2:09-cr-00794 in the [[United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania|Eastern District of Pennsylvania]], was filed on December 15, 2009, before Judge [[Richard Barclay Surrick]], charging him with manufacturing 100 or more marijuana plants; a bench warrant issued the same day, and [[Jerome Brown]], later counsel to his son, entered his appearance for the defense in January 2010.[^65] The prosecutor was Assistant United States Attorney [[Elizabeth F. Abrams]], and the government filed notice of his prior drug convictions to enhance the sentence. On January 10, 2011, he pleaded guilty to possessing 100 or more marijuana plants with intent to distribute, possessing a short-barreled shotgun in furtherance of drug trafficking, and possessing a firearm as a convicted felon. Surrick sentenced him on June 28, 2012, and resentenced him on July 3 to 53 months on the drug and felon-in-possession counts and one consecutive month on the shotgun count, a total of 54 months, with credit for time served in the Bucks County jail, and ordered the Airy Avenue house forfeited; the final order of forfeiture was entered on October 22, 2012.[^66] He was released in June 2013. He said he had written four or five books in prison, among them a memoir written with one of his former wives about her adolescence, including stripping at 14, which, he said, was banned for its content.[^32] The bank repossessed the [[New Britain, Pennsylvania|New Britain]] house the same year.[^13][^15][^60][^67] ### The Olney House -Eugene Horsch, then a [[Drexel University]] student, caused a drunk-driving crash in 2003 that left the other driver in a vegetative state until his death sixteen years later. He pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was released in 2006. His great-aunt [[Helen M. Hoersch]], the last of Albert Hoersch's children, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a senior editor at the [[American Society for Testing and Materials]], died on April 5, 2004, at 83, "at the home of her nephew," Ray Horsch.[^67] The *Inquirer* reported in 2026 that Horsch acquired the Chew Avenue house after her death and in 2007 used a power of attorney to transfer it to his son for one dollar; the city's deed index records a deed executed on October 1, 2007, with "Hoersch Helen M" as grantor and Eugene A. Horsch as grantee. Horsch moved into the house with his son.[^68][^69][^70] In 2013 police found about 1.9 million dollars' worth of marijuana in the house, and Eugene was sentenced to four to eight years.[^1][^71] +Eugene Horsch, then a [[Drexel University]] student, caused a drunk-driving crash in 2003 that left the other driver in a vegetative state until his death sixteen years later. He pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and was released in 2006. His great-aunt [[Helen M. Hoersch]], the last of Albert Hoersch's children, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and a senior editor at the [[American Society for Testing and Materials]], died on April 5, 2004, at 83, "at the home of her nephew," Ray Horsch.[^68] The *Inquirer* reported in 2026 that Horsch acquired the Chew Avenue house after her death and in 2007 used a power of attorney to transfer it to his son for one dollar; the city's deed index records a deed executed on October 1, 2007, with "Hoersch Helen M" as grantor and Eugene A. Horsch as grantee. Horsch moved into the house with his son.[^69][^70][^71] In 2013 police found about 1.9 million dollars' worth of marijuana in the house, and Eugene was sentenced to four to eight years.[^1][^72] -From about 2017 to 2021 Horsch's website, rchorsch.com, advertised an escort service whose client reviews describe visits to the Olney house. Its motto was "I fear what I love." In 2014 he self-published Empathy: The Memoir of an Empathetic Serial Killer, in which the narrator strangles a woman named Krista and dissolves her body with sodium hydroxide in a basement bathtub; the publisher's description calls the book fiction. In 2016 he released Deleted Scenes: A Serial Killer's Video Journal, filmed over twelve years under the name Ich Bin Niemand, about a man who selects victims among addicts, prostitutes, and runaways. A woman named [[Krista Killen]] lived in the house for years and appeared in his films. His online biography described him as an "artist, filmmaker, composer, writer, porn performer, drug smuggler, some-time political activist, art forger, counterfeiter, pot grower, air show pilot, army deserter, fugitive, sociopath, ex-convict and all-out villain." In 2014 a [[Wikipedia]] user named "S.E. Stokowski" created an article about him and made more than 150 edits to it over the following years. [[Amazon (company)|Amazon]] sold his books until the third week of September 2026.[^1][^5][^35][^59][^72] +From about 2017 to 2021 Horsch's website, rchorsch.com, advertised an escort service whose client reviews describe visits to the Olney house. Its motto was "I fear what I love." In 2014 he self-published Empathy: The Memoir of an Empathetic Serial Killer, in which the narrator strangles a woman named Krista and dissolves her body with sodium hydroxide in a basement bathtub; the publisher's description calls the book fiction. In 2016 he released Deleted Scenes: A Serial Killer's Video Journal, filmed over twelve years under the name Ich Bin Niemand, about a man who selects victims among addicts, prostitutes, and runaways. A woman named [[Krista Killen]] lived in the house for years and appeared in his films. His online biography described him as an "artist, filmmaker, composer, writer, porn performer, drug smuggler, some-time political activist, art forger, counterfeiter, pot grower, air show pilot, army deserter, fugitive, sociopath, ex-convict and all-out villain." In 2014 a [[Wikipedia]] user named "S.E. Stokowski" created an article about him and made more than 150 edits to it over the following years. [[Amazon (company)|Amazon]] sold his books until the third week of September 2026.[^1][^5][^35][^60][^73] ### The Kensington Crematorium -At a 2014 exhibition in a Kensington gallery, Horsch showed what appeared to be autopsy photographs of an unidentified woman, ending with video of her body being loaded into an incinerator. He said the footage was shot at "a Kensington warehouse where the city morgue would send unidentified remains." His release for the show read: "The Medical Examiner totally botched the autopsy and didn't even bother to sew her up properly. My horrible photograph is all that is left of her, the only trace of her short, sad existence. She has nothing else, not even a name." He later posted a series that intercut women acting out their own deaths with images of people dead of overdoses, which he described as made in "unknowing collaboration with the Philadelphia Medical Examiner" and city paramedics.[^73] +At a 2014 exhibition in a Kensington gallery, Horsch showed what appeared to be autopsy photographs of an unidentified woman, ending with video of her body being loaded into an incinerator. He said the footage was shot at "a Kensington warehouse where the city morgue would send unidentified remains." His release for the show read: "The Medical Examiner totally botched the autopsy and didn't even bother to sew her up properly. My horrible photograph is all that is left of her, the only trace of her short, sad existence. She has nothing else, not even a name." He later posted a series that intercut women acting out their own deaths with images of people dead of overdoses, which he described as made in "unknowing collaboration with the Philadelphia Medical Examiner" and city paramedics.[^74] -A law enforcement official and people who knew Horsch in the period have said he paid an employee in drugs and cash for access to the crematorium attached to the [[Garzone Funeral Home]] in Kensington. The brothers [[Louis Garzone|Louis]] and [[Gerald Garzone]], who operated it as [[Liberty Cremations]], pleaded guilty in 2008 to selling more than 240 corpses to a New York tissue-recovery company whose cutters removed bone, tendon, and organs for resale to hospitals. Some of the tissue was diseased and was implanted in patients who were not told of its origin. The business closed in 2007. A woman who worked on Horsch's films from 2003 said he told her his contact was an employee named George. Four people identified the man as [[George Newsome]], who lived on Ruth Street a block from the crematorium, was arrested for heroin possession in 2011 and cocaine possession in 2013, and died in 2014. Gerald Garzone said he had never heard of Horsch. He acknowledged knowing a man named George from the neighborhood and declined to say whether he had employed him. The [[Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office]] declined to say whether the city sent unclaimed bodies to the Garzones. Horsch was not named in the 2007 case.[^73] +A law enforcement official and people who knew Horsch in the period have said he paid an employee in drugs and cash for access to the crematorium attached to the [[Garzone Funeral Home]] in Kensington. The brothers [[Louis Garzone|Louis]] and [[Gerald Garzone]], who operated it as [[Liberty Cremations]], pleaded guilty in 2008 to selling more than 240 corpses to a New York tissue-recovery company whose cutters removed bone, tendon, and organs for resale to hospitals. Some of the tissue was diseased and was implanted in patients who were not told of its origin. The business closed in 2007. A woman who worked on Horsch's films from 2003 said he told her his contact was an employee named George. Four people identified the man as [[George Newsome]], who lived on Ruth Street a block from the crematorium, was arrested for heroin possession in 2011 and cocaine possession in 2013, and died in 2014. Gerald Garzone said he had never heard of Horsch. He acknowledged knowing a man named George from the neighborhood and declined to say whether he had employed him. The [[Philadelphia Medical Examiner's Office]] declined to say whether the city sent unclaimed bodies to the Garzones. Horsch was not named in the 2007 case.[^74] ### The 2026 Investigation -In May 2025 a fire at the Chew Avenue house brought narcotics officers, who found marijuana plants, firearms, and containers of chemicals. Horsch died the same month and was cremated. Killen died of drug intoxication some months later.[^35][^72] +In May 2025 a fire at the Chew Avenue house brought narcotics officers, who found marijuana plants, firearms, and containers of chemicals. Horsch died the same month and was cremated. Killen died of drug intoxication some months later.[^35][^73] -On June 19, 2026, a federal park ranger stopped Eugene Horsch's car beside [[Independence National Historical Park]]. His passenger carried an identification card in the name of [[Blair Tonzelli]], who was reported missing in February 2023. A photograph of Tonzelli, nude, with an apparent black eye and blood near her mouth, had been in rotation as the lead image on Horsch's website from about 2020 until at least September 2023, seven months after the missing-person report. The search of the Olney house that followed, and its results, are set out under [[Olney House Investigation]].[^59][^71] +On June 19, 2026, a federal park ranger stopped Eugene Horsch's car beside [[Independence National Historical Park]]. His passenger carried an identification card in the name of [[Blair Tonzelli]], who was reported missing in February 2023. A photograph of Tonzelli, nude, with an apparent black eye and blood near her mouth, had been in rotation as the lead image on Horsch's website from about 2020 until at least September 2023, seven months after the missing-person report. The search of the Olney house that followed, and its results, are set out under [[Olney House Investigation]].[^60][^72] -On September 16, 2026, Deputy Police Commissioner [[Frank Vanore]] said that investigators had reviewed about 30 percent of more than 600,000 images and 70,000 videos from the house, had identified 58 people in them, and believed five of the women shown to be dead. He described a video in which Horsch gives a woman drugs and money, handcuffs her to a bed, and tightens a zip tie around her neck with pliers until she stops moving. Her family identified her as [[Nicole Fusaro]], 27, last seen in Kensington on July 19, 2018. Amy McHale, last seen at the house in 2016, and Tonzelli remain missing. "We did never recover a body here," Vanore said.[^2][^72][^73][^74] +On September 16, 2026, Deputy Police Commissioner [[Frank Vanore]] said that investigators had reviewed about 30 percent of more than 600,000 images and 70,000 videos from the house, had identified 58 people in them, and believed five of the women shown to be dead. He described a video in which Horsch gives a woman drugs and money, handcuffs her to a bed, and tightens a zip tie around her neck with pliers until she stops moving. Her family identified her as [[Nicole Fusaro]], 27, last seen in Kensington on July 19, 2018. Amy McHale, last seen at the house in 2016, and Tonzelli remain missing. "We did never recover a body here," Vanore said.[^2][^73][^74][^75] -[[J.J. Klaver]], a retired FBI agent with no role in the case, told *Newsweek*: "Obviously, this guy's a serial killer." [[Michael Yoder]], a retired FBI profiler who reviewed the 1985 evaluation, said it described "a potential serial killer." The police department has not used the term. Horsch was never charged with a homicide.[^5][^75] +[[J.J. Klaver]], a retired FBI agent with no role in the case, told *Newsweek*: "Obviously, this guy's a serial killer." [[Michael Yoder]], a retired FBI profiler who reviewed the 1985 evaluation, said it described "a potential serial killer." The police department has not used the term. Horsch was never charged with a homicide.[^5][^76] ### Footnotes @@ -211,38 +211,39 @@ On September 16, 2026, Deputy Police Commissioner [[Frank Vanore]] said that inv [^38]: [Superior Court trial calendar for the week of December 4], *The Charlotte News,* December 1, 1972, p. 33. https://www.newspapers.com/image/621947721/ [^39]: The *Inquirer* of August 2, 2026, gives the value seized as the equivalent of over one million dollars; the Associated Press and *The Morning Call* in December 1974 gave 180,000 dollars. [^40]: West, Ashley. "Ray Horsch: Sociopathic Villain," *The Rialto Report,* Podcast 27, 2013, audio at 47:46 to 55:11 (Wisdom's Child, title documents, etchings, the counterfeiting arrest, Eglin; audio preserved in a Wayback Machine capture of March 31, 2019). https://web.archive.org/web/20190331064614/http://traffic.libsyn.com/therialtoreport/27_Rialto_Report_027_-_Ray_Horsch__Sociopathic_Villain.mp3 -[^41]: "A Philadelphia man is arrested on drug charges," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* February 5, 1977, p. 10. https://www.newspapers.com/image/172176774/ -[^42]: West, Ashley. "Ray Horsch: Sociopathic Villain," *The Rialto Report,* Podcast 27, 2013, audio at 1:05:45 to 1:09:27 (New Zealand, the Orlando arrest, time served; audio preserved in a Wayback Machine capture of March 31, 2019). https://web.archive.org/web/20190331064614/http://traffic.libsyn.com/therialtoreport/27_Rialto_Report_027_-_Ray_Horsch__Sociopathic_Villain.mp3 -[^43]: "Impostor: immigration cleared of blame," *The Press* (Christchurch), October 3, 1984. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19841003.2.23 -[^44]: Leask, Anna. "Man linked to multiple missing women in US had fled NZ 40 years ago after posing as scientist," *The New Zealand Herald,* September 23, 2026 (quoting *The Press* of 1984, the New Zealand immigration investigation report, and a 1985 Associated Press report). *The Press* reported in June 1984 that he came to New Zealand with his "wife, Anna, and 18-month-old son," and in April 1985 that he fled "with his wife and 18-month-old son," which would place the birth about late 1982 against the 1981 New Zealand birth of Eugene given by the *Inquirer*; Horsch said in 2013 that his son was three years old at the time of his Orlando arrest; the Associated Press gave June 1984 as the month he left New Zealand, against the March 17 date reported in New Zealand. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/raymond-horsch-man-linked-to-philadelphia-house-of-horrors-lived-near-timaru-under-stolen-name/BVQSWBL3LZDL3GIXFEHHBFY6RY/ -[^45]: "Ethanol plant at Temuka," *The Press* (Christchurch), July 15, 1981. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19810715.2.31 -[^46]: "Ethanol by September," *The Press* (Christchurch), July 20, 1981 (Press Association, Wellington). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19810720.2.23 -[^47]: "Ethanol study beyond council," *The Press* (Christchurch), December 11, 1981. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19811211.2.98 -[^48]: "Dr Shearer wants extra effort in biotechnology," *The Press* (Christchurch), April 23, 1982. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19820423.2.96.9 -[^49]: "Police look for U.S. chemist," *The Press* (Christchurch), June 6, 1984 (Press Association, Timaru). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19840606.2.48 -[^50]: "Ethanol plant's business booms," *The Press* (Christchurch), October 4, 1984. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19841004.2.21 -[^51]: "Police seek wife, child," *The Press* (Christchurch), June 13, 1984 (Press Association, Timaru). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19840613.2.7 -[^52]: "Jerusalem artichokes as dual-purpose crop?," *The Press* (Christchurch), February 14, 1986. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19860214.2.93.1 -[^53]: "Olney investigation: What we know about Eugene Horsch, missing women, and the search," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* June 27, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/olney-investigation-eugene-horsch-missing-women-20260627.html -[^54]: "Ethanol 'scientist' jailed for drug offences," *The Press* (Christchurch), April 27, 1985 (Press Association). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19850427.2.26 -[^55]: Hoersch, Raymond C. "Detention Center Deserves Praise, Not Rebuke," letter, *Philadelphia Daily News,* January 8, 1985, p. 32. https://www.newspapers.com/image/185932354/ -[^56]: Hoersch, Raymond C. "Inmates Aid Ethiopians," letter, *Philadelphia Daily News,* January 14, 1985, p. 24. https://www.newspapers.com/image/185937892/ -[^57]: Hoersch, Raymond C. "...And Throw Away the Key? It Doesn't Work," guest opinion, *Philadelphia Daily News,* April 2, 1985, p. 34. https://www.newspapers.com/image/185922416/ -[^58]: *In re Horsch,* No. 93-22545 (Bankr. E.D. Pa.), filed August 27, 1993, closed December 22, 1998, docket via CourtListener. https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=Horsch&type=r -[^59]: "Bucks County connection with Philly 'house of horror' case," *Yahoo News* (syndicated), 2026. https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/bucks-county-connection-philly-house-091634860.html -[^60]: "Anna M. Horsch," obituary, *The Morning Call,* August 1, 1989, p. 18. https://www.newspapers.com/image/283766965/ -[^61]: [Bucks County real-estate transfers], *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* October 29, 1989, p. 480 ("520 Airy Ave. ... to Raymond C. Horsch"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/177531276/ -[^62]: [Fictitious name registrations], *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* September 16, 1991, p. 28 ("Butterworth's Hickory Pit, North Wales; Raymond C. Horsch ... Butterworth"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/175247169/ -[^63]: Rushing, Ellie, Barbara Laker, Ryan W. Briggs, and Max Marin. "Raymond Horsch was convicted of luring a 9-year-old girl to his car in 2009. Now those court records could be destroyed." *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* September 22, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/crime/raymond-horsch-child-luring-kensington-records-expunged-20260922.html -[^64]: *United States v. Horsch,* No. 2:09-cr-00794-RBS (E.D. Pa.), filed December 15, 2009, terminated July 5, 2012; indictment (Doc. 1), motion and order for bench warrant signed by Magistrate Judge Elizabeth T. Hey (Doc. 2), notices of appearance of Jerome M. Brown (Docs. 5 and 7), docket via CourtListener RECAP. https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=Horsch&type=r&court=paed -[^65]: *United States v. Horsch,* No. 2:09-cr-00794-RBS (E.D. Pa.), superseding indictment of January 26, 2010, information under 21 U.S.C. sec. 851 of December 23, 2010, change of plea of January 10, 2011, judgments of June 28 and July 3, 2012, and final order of forfeiture of October 22, 2012, docket via CourtListener RECAP. https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=Horsch&type=r&court=paed -[^66]: The Inquirer article of September 22, 2026, and WPVI both give the federal sentence as 54 months; earlier sources give 53 months. The docket entries were not examined. -[^67]: "Hoersch, Helen M.," death notice, *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* April 7, 2004, p. B12. https://www.newspapers.com/image/201102740/ -[^68]: "A woman missing since 2016 had close ties to the Olney house that's now the target of a massive investigation," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* June 27, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/olney-raid-missing-women-mystery-drugs-20260627.html -[^69]: "What we know about the Olney investigation into missing women," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* June 27, 2026 (which calls Helen M. Hoersch his sister; her 1991 and 2004 notices make her his aunt). https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/olney-investigation-eugene-horsch-missing-women-20260627.html -[^70]: City of Philadelphia, Department of Records, real estate transfer index, 417 W. Chew Ave., deed document 51798675, executed October 1, 2007, recorded October 26, 2007, grantor "Hoersch Helen M," grantee "Horsch Eugene A"; later mortgages of 2007 and 2009 and satisfaction of 2025, via the city's open data (rtt_summary). https://phl.carto.com/api/v2/sql?q=SELECT%20*%20FROM%20rtt_summary%20WHERE%20street_address%20=%20%27417%20W%20CHEW%20AVE%27 -[^71]: "Who is Eugene Horsch? Man at Center of Philadelphia 'House of Horrors,'" *Newsweek,* 2026. https://www.newsweek.com/who-is-eugene-horsch-man-at-center-of-philadelphia-house-of-horrors-12459693 -[^72]: Cuffe, Davis. "Philadelphia's 'house of horrors' investigation: All that we know," *Billy Penn,* September 18, 2026. https://billypenn.com/2026/09/18/philadelphia-house-of-horrors-police-investigation-olney-update/ -[^73]: Briggs, Ryan W., Max Marin, Barbara Laker, and Ellie Rushing. "Raymond Horsch had access to a Kensington crematorium linked to illegal body parts sales, years before missing persons investigation," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* September 21, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/raymond-horsch-missing-women-kensington-bodies-crematorium-20260921.html -[^74]: "Philadelphia police identify 58 people in images from investigation into Olney house," *CBS News Philadelphia,* September 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/horsch-investigation-chew-avenue-olney-philadelphia/ -[^75]: "Eugene Horsch Denies He's a Serial Killer as Philadelphia Cops Hunt for Missing Women," *Newsweek,* 2026. https://www.newsweek.com/philadelphia-obviously-serial-killer-former-fbi-agent-12457175 +[^41]: U.S. Index to Public Records, 1994-2019, "Raymond C Horsch" [Raymond C Hoersch], birth May 1943, residence 1989-2013 Chalfont, Pennsylvania (Ancestry.com), accessed September 23, 2026. https://www.ancestry.com/ +[^42]: "A Philadelphia man is arrested on drug charges," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* February 5, 1977, p. 10. https://www.newspapers.com/image/172176774/ +[^43]: West, Ashley. "Ray Horsch: Sociopathic Villain," *The Rialto Report,* Podcast 27, 2013, audio at 1:05:45 to 1:09:27 (New Zealand, the Orlando arrest, time served; audio preserved in a Wayback Machine capture of March 31, 2019). https://web.archive.org/web/20190331064614/http://traffic.libsyn.com/therialtoreport/27_Rialto_Report_027_-_Ray_Horsch__Sociopathic_Villain.mp3 +[^44]: "Impostor: immigration cleared of blame," *The Press* (Christchurch), October 3, 1984. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19841003.2.23 +[^45]: Leask, Anna. "Man linked to multiple missing women in US had fled NZ 40 years ago after posing as scientist," *The New Zealand Herald,* September 23, 2026 (quoting *The Press* of 1984, the New Zealand immigration investigation report, and a 1985 Associated Press report). *The Press* reported in June 1984 that he came to New Zealand with his "wife, Anna, and 18-month-old son," and in April 1985 that he fled "with his wife and 18-month-old son," which would place the birth about late 1982 against the 1981 New Zealand birth of Eugene given by the *Inquirer*; Horsch said in 2013 that his son was three years old at the time of his Orlando arrest; the Associated Press gave June 1984 as the month he left New Zealand, against the March 17 date reported in New Zealand. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/raymond-horsch-man-linked-to-philadelphia-house-of-horrors-lived-near-timaru-under-stolen-name/BVQSWBL3LZDL3GIXFEHHBFY6RY/ +[^46]: "Ethanol plant at Temuka," *The Press* (Christchurch), July 15, 1981. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19810715.2.31 +[^47]: "Ethanol by September," *The Press* (Christchurch), July 20, 1981 (Press Association, Wellington). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19810720.2.23 +[^48]: "Ethanol study beyond council," *The Press* (Christchurch), December 11, 1981. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19811211.2.98 +[^49]: "Dr Shearer wants extra effort in biotechnology," *The Press* (Christchurch), April 23, 1982. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19820423.2.96.9 +[^50]: "Police look for U.S. chemist," *The Press* (Christchurch), June 6, 1984 (Press Association, Timaru). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19840606.2.48 +[^51]: "Ethanol plant's business booms," *The Press* (Christchurch), October 4, 1984. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19841004.2.21 +[^52]: "Police seek wife, child," *The Press* (Christchurch), June 13, 1984 (Press Association, Timaru). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19840613.2.7 +[^53]: "Jerusalem artichokes as dual-purpose crop?," *The Press* (Christchurch), February 14, 1986. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19860214.2.93.1 +[^54]: "Olney investigation: What we know about Eugene Horsch, missing women, and the search," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* June 27, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/olney-investigation-eugene-horsch-missing-women-20260627.html +[^55]: "Ethanol 'scientist' jailed for drug offences," *The Press* (Christchurch), April 27, 1985 (Press Association). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19850427.2.26 +[^56]: Hoersch, Raymond C. "Detention Center Deserves Praise, Not Rebuke," letter, *Philadelphia Daily News,* January 8, 1985, p. 32. https://www.newspapers.com/image/185932354/ +[^57]: Hoersch, Raymond C. "Inmates Aid Ethiopians," letter, *Philadelphia Daily News,* January 14, 1985, p. 24. https://www.newspapers.com/image/185937892/ +[^58]: Hoersch, Raymond C. "...And Throw Away the Key? It Doesn't Work," guest opinion, *Philadelphia Daily News,* April 2, 1985, p. 34. https://www.newspapers.com/image/185922416/ +[^59]: *In re Horsch,* No. 93-22545 (Bankr. E.D. Pa.), filed August 27, 1993, closed December 22, 1998, docket via CourtListener. https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=Horsch&type=r +[^60]: "Bucks County connection with Philly 'house of horror' case," *Yahoo News* (syndicated), 2026. https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/bucks-county-connection-philly-house-091634860.html +[^61]: "Anna M. Horsch," obituary, *The Morning Call,* August 1, 1989, p. 18. https://www.newspapers.com/image/283766965/ +[^62]: [Bucks County real-estate transfers], *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* October 29, 1989, p. 480 ("520 Airy Ave. ... to Raymond C. Horsch"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/177531276/ +[^63]: [Fictitious name registrations], *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* September 16, 1991, p. 28 ("Butterworth's Hickory Pit, North Wales; Raymond C. Horsch ... Butterworth"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/175247169/ +[^64]: Rushing, Ellie, Barbara Laker, Ryan W. Briggs, and Max Marin. "Raymond Horsch was convicted of luring a 9-year-old girl to his car in 2009. Now those court records could be destroyed." *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* September 22, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/crime/raymond-horsch-child-luring-kensington-records-expunged-20260922.html +[^65]: *United States v. Horsch,* No. 2:09-cr-00794-RBS (E.D. Pa.), filed December 15, 2009, terminated July 5, 2012; indictment (Doc. 1), motion and order for bench warrant signed by Magistrate Judge Elizabeth T. Hey (Doc. 2), notices of appearance of Jerome M. Brown (Docs. 5 and 7), docket via CourtListener RECAP. https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=Horsch&type=r&court=paed +[^66]: *United States v. Horsch,* No. 2:09-cr-00794-RBS (E.D. Pa.), superseding indictment of January 26, 2010, information under 21 U.S.C. sec. 851 of December 23, 2010, change of plea of January 10, 2011, judgments of June 28 and July 3, 2012, and final order of forfeiture of October 22, 2012, docket via CourtListener RECAP. https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=Horsch&type=r&court=paed +[^67]: The Inquirer article of September 22, 2026, and WPVI both give the federal sentence as 54 months; earlier sources give 53 months. The docket entries were not examined. +[^68]: "Hoersch, Helen M.," death notice, *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* April 7, 2004, p. B12. https://www.newspapers.com/image/201102740/ +[^69]: "A woman missing since 2016 had close ties to the Olney house that's now the target of a massive investigation," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* June 27, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/olney-raid-missing-women-mystery-drugs-20260627.html +[^70]: "What we know about the Olney investigation into missing women," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* June 27, 2026 (which calls Helen M. Hoersch his sister; her 1991 and 2004 notices make her his aunt). https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/olney-investigation-eugene-horsch-missing-women-20260627.html +[^71]: City of Philadelphia, Department of Records, real estate transfer index, 417 W. Chew Ave., deed document 51798675, executed October 1, 2007, recorded October 26, 2007, grantor "Hoersch Helen M," grantee "Horsch Eugene A"; later mortgages of 2007 and 2009 and satisfaction of 2025, via the city's open data (rtt_summary). https://phl.carto.com/api/v2/sql?q=SELECT%20*%20FROM%20rtt_summary%20WHERE%20street_address%20=%20%27417%20W%20CHEW%20AVE%27 +[^72]: "Who is Eugene Horsch? Man at Center of Philadelphia 'House of Horrors,'" *Newsweek,* 2026. https://www.newsweek.com/who-is-eugene-horsch-man-at-center-of-philadelphia-house-of-horrors-12459693 +[^73]: Cuffe, Davis. "Philadelphia's 'house of horrors' investigation: All that we know," *Billy Penn,* September 18, 2026. https://billypenn.com/2026/09/18/philadelphia-house-of-horrors-police-investigation-olney-update/ +[^74]: Briggs, Ryan W., Max Marin, Barbara Laker, and Ellie Rushing. "Raymond Horsch had access to a Kensington crematorium linked to illegal body parts sales, years before missing persons investigation," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* September 21, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/raymond-horsch-missing-women-kensington-bodies-crematorium-20260921.html +[^75]: "Philadelphia police identify 58 people in images from investigation into Olney house," *CBS News Philadelphia,* September 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/horsch-investigation-chew-avenue-olney-philadelphia/ +[^76]: "Eugene Horsch Denies He's a Serial Killer as Philadelphia Cops Hunt for Missing Women," *Newsweek,* 2026. https://www.newsweek.com/philadelphia-obviously-serial-killer-former-fbi-agent-12457175 diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Raymond C. Hoersch.md b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Raymond C. Hoersch.md index 8577c493..969c76bd 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Raymond C. Hoersch.md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(H-M)/Raymond C. Hoersch.md @@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ alias: - Raymond Hoersch - Ray Hoersch Sr. summary: "Bucks County engineer and Second World War glider pilot, father of the pornographer and fugitive R.C. Horsch, whose Chalfont house and aircraft registration were tied to his son's cases." +born: 1918-08-17 died: 1991-11-20 location: "Chalfont, Pennsylvania" relations: @@ -25,47 +26,49 @@ relations: fn: 2 - type: spouse_of with: "[[Clara Hoersch]]" - fn: 6 + fn: 7 created: 2026-09-23 updated: 2026-09-23 --- -Raymond C. Hoersch was a [[Bucks County, Pennsylvania|Bucks County]] mechanical engineer and a glider pilot of the [[United States Army Air Forces]] in the [[World War II|Second World War]], the father of the [[Philadelphia]] pornographer, counterfeiter, and fugitive [[R.C. Horsch]], who was born Raymond Charles Hoersch Jr. in 1943. He was a son of [[Albert Hoersch]] and [[Helen E. Hoersch]] of 417 West Chew Street in the [[Olney, Philadelphia|Olney]] section of Philadelphia, the house that his grandson [[Eugene Horsch]] acquired from R.C. Horsch in 2006 and that was searched in the [[Olney House Investigation]] of 2026.[^1][^2][^3] +Raymond C. Hoersch was a [[Bucks County, Pennsylvania|Bucks County]] mechanical engineer and a glider pilot of the [[United States Army Air Forces]] in the [[World War II|Second World War]], the father of the [[Philadelphia]] pornographer, counterfeiter, and fugitive [[R.C. Horsch]], who was born Raymond Charles Hoersch Jr. in 1943. He was born in Philadelphia on August 17, 1918, a son of [[Albert Hoersch]] and [[Helen E. Hoersch]] of 417 West Chew Street in the [[Olney, Philadelphia|Olney]] section of Philadelphia, the house deeded to his grandson [[Eugene Horsch]] in 2007 and searched in the [[Olney House Investigation]] of 2026.[^1][^2][^3][^4] ### Glider Pilot -His son said in a 2013 interview, rebroadcast in 2026, that he flew cargo gliders for the Army Air Corps and was stationed in [[London]]: large plywood aircraft, towed aloft six or eight at a time behind a [[Douglas DC-3|DC-3]], each able to carry a jeep or twelve to sixteen troops, which landed once behind enemy lines by crashing in a controlled way. "My father said generally, you pick two trees and you went between them to shear the wings off," he said, and added that his father's war stories concerned "slipping across the [[English Channel]] and smuggling back a plane load of wine." In January 1979 a notice in [[Luzerne County, Pennsylvania|Luzerne County]] newspapers asked former World War II glider pilots living in the area to contact "State Commander Raymond Hoersch, 523 N. Main St., Chalfont."[^1][^4] +His son said in a 2013 interview, rebroadcast in 2026, that he flew cargo gliders for the Army Air Corps and was stationed in [[London]]: large plywood aircraft, towed aloft six or eight at a time behind a [[Douglas DC-3|DC-3]], each able to carry a jeep or twelve to sixteen troops, which landed once behind enemy lines by crashing in a controlled way. "My father said generally, you pick two trees and you went between them to shear the wings off," he said, and added that his father's war stories concerned "slipping across the [[English Channel]] and smuggling back a plane load of wine." In January 1979 a notice in [[Luzerne County, Pennsylvania|Luzerne County]] newspapers asked former World War II glider pilots living in the area to contact "State Commander Raymond Hoersch, 523 N. Main St., Chalfont."[^1][^5] ### Bucks County -He married [[Clara Hoersch|Clara Hagerty]], a daughter of [[Eugene D. Hagerty]] and [[Cecilia T. Hagerty]] of [[Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania|Stroudsburg]].[^5] In January 1955 a Bucks County social column reported that Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Hoersch had been entertained at a New Year's Eve party in [[Paoli, Pennsylvania|Paoli]] in honor of their thirteenth wedding anniversary, and that Mr. and Mrs. Albert Hoersch of Philadelphia and Mr. and Mrs. Elwood Hagerty of [[Reading, Pennsylvania|Reading]] had been their guests.[^6][^7] His son described a childhood on a farm near Stroudsburg, a one-room schoolhouse, and a father with whom he "never, ever agreed about anything," especially about the Second World War and the [[Vietnam War]], but who "would always stand up for me and pretty much get me out of whatever trouble I was in with the authorities."[^1][^3] +He married [[Clara Hoersch|Clara Hagerty]], a daughter of [[Eugene D. Hagerty]] and [[Cecilia T. Hagerty]] of [[Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania|Stroudsburg]].[^6] In January 1955 a Bucks County social column reported that Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Hoersch had been entertained at a New Year's Eve party in [[Paoli, Pennsylvania|Paoli]] in honor of their thirteenth wedding anniversary, and that Mr. and Mrs. Albert Hoersch of Philadelphia and Mr. and Mrs. Elwood Hagerty of [[Reading, Pennsylvania|Reading]] had been their guests.[^7][^8] His son described a childhood on a farm near Stroudsburg, a one-room schoolhouse, and a father with whom he "never, ever agreed about anything," especially about the Second World War and the [[Vietnam War]], but who "would always stand up for me and pretty much get me out of whatever trouble I was in with the authorities."[^1][^3] -In May 1964 a firm named R. C. Hoersch & Associates, at Rural Delivery 1, [[Doylestown, Pennsylvania|Doylestown]], advertised in *[[The Philadelphia Inquirer]]* for a mechanical design draftsman.[^8] In September 1969 Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Hoersch "of Doylestown" attended the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Clara's parents in Stroudsburg with their daughter Helen; the son's wife attended separately, listed as Mrs. Raymond Hoersch Jr., of Philadelphia.[^9] The following month Raymond C. Hoersch and his wife sold a property on Gayman Road in [[Plumstead Township, Pennsylvania|Plumstead Township]] for 48,000 dollars.[^10] In July 1971, when a car he owned crashed into a tree on South York Road in [[Hatboro, Pennsylvania|Hatboro]] with his daughter, then Mrs. Bowers, in it, he was living at the English Village Apartments in [[Horsham Township, Pennsylvania|Horsham]]; in September 1971 he bought a property in [[Chalfont, Pennsylvania|Chalfont]] from Karl R. Zuch for 36,400 dollars, and in July 1973 the Chalfont borough council approved the division of land he owned on Oak Avenue into three lots.[^11][^12][^13] +In May 1964 a firm named R. C. Hoersch & Associates, at Rural Delivery 1, [[Doylestown, Pennsylvania|Doylestown]], advertised in *[[The Philadelphia Inquirer]]* for a mechanical design draftsman.[^9] In September 1969 Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Hoersch "of Doylestown" attended the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Clara's parents in Stroudsburg with their daughter Helen; the son's wife attended separately, listed as Mrs. Raymond Hoersch Jr., of Philadelphia.[^10] The following month Raymond C. Hoersch and his wife sold a property on Gayman Road in [[Plumstead Township, Pennsylvania|Plumstead Township]] for 48,000 dollars.[^11] In July 1971, when a car he owned crashed into a tree on South York Road in [[Hatboro, Pennsylvania|Hatboro]] with his daughter, then Mrs. Bowers, in it, he was living at the English Village Apartments in [[Horsham Township, Pennsylvania|Horsham]]; in September 1971 he bought a property in [[Chalfont, Pennsylvania|Chalfont]] from Karl R. Zuch for 36,400 dollars, and in July 1973 the Chalfont borough council approved the division of land he owned on Oak Avenue into three lots.[^12][^13][^14] ### 523 North Main Street -The house at 523 North Main Street, Chalfont, was the address his son gave in December 1972 when, as "Raymond C. Hoersch, Jr.," he sued the Secretary of the Army to void his call to active duty, and in December 1974, when the [[United States Secret Service]] arrested the son for counterfeiting, officials described it as his parents' home, where he had been living recently.[^14][^15] On August 20, 1973, a Cessna 210A, registration N1437J, was registered to "Hoersch Raymond C" at that address; the registration was cancelled on July 11, 1984. On July 26, 1981, while the son was living in [[New Zealand]] under a false identity, the aircraft lost power in its initial climb from [[Doylestown Airport]] and was brought back for a wheels-up landing; the [[National Transportation Safety Board]] recorded the pilot in command as 62 years old, an engineer holding a commercial certificate, with a minor injury.[^16][^17] At 7:50 p.m. on November 19, 1991, walking home in dark clothing along a dimly lit stretch of Main Street near Peace Valley Road in Chalfont, he was struck by a car; borough police said he was hearing-impaired and "technically" jaywalking. He was flown by helicopter to [[Hahnemann University Hospital]] with head injuries and two broken legs and was pronounced dead at 5 a.m. on November 20, at 73. His death notice names his wife Clara, his son Raymond of Chalfont, his daughters Helen M. Mitchell of Chalfont and Virginia E. of [[Souderton, Pennsylvania|Souderton]], his sister [[Helen M. Hoersch|Helen M.]] of Philadelphia, and four grandchildren, and asked for remembrances to [[Doylestown Hospital]]; the funeral was held at the Decker Funeral Home in [[Warminster, Pennsylvania|Warminster]], with interment at [[Hillside Cemetery]].[^18][^19] In June 2026 the *Inquirer* reported that investigators searching the Olney house had found what appeared to be urns holding remains, "one set of which was apparently his father's."[^20] In September police said they believed three of the five urns found in the house held the ashes of R.C. Horsch, his sister, and a friend, and that two were unidentified.[^21] +The house at 523 North Main Street, Chalfont, was the address his son gave in December 1972 when, as "Raymond C. Hoersch, Jr.," he sued the Secretary of the Army to void his call to active duty, and in December 1974, when the [[United States Secret Service]] arrested the son for counterfeiting, officials described it as his parents' home, where he had been living recently.[^15][^16] On August 20, 1973, a Cessna 210A, registration N1437J, was registered to "Hoersch Raymond C" at that address; the registration was cancelled on July 11, 1984. On July 26, 1981, while the son was living in [[New Zealand]] under a false identity, the aircraft lost power in its initial climb from [[Doylestown Airport]] and was brought back for a wheels-up landing; the [[National Transportation Safety Board]] recorded the pilot in command as 62 years old, an engineer holding a commercial certificate, with a minor injury.[^17][^18] His son said in 2013 that while he was a fugitive [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]] agents obtained his father's telephone records about once a year and traced every long-distance call, "which it never was, even though I was in pretty good contact with my father the whole time," and that the father was notified after each search, which let the son track the investigation. R.C. Horsch also said that his own son, then three, "was missing seeing his grandparents" when he decided to surrender in 1984.[^19] At 7:50 p.m. on November 19, 1991, walking home in dark clothing along a dimly lit stretch of Main Street near Peace Valley Road in Chalfont, he was struck by a car; borough police said he was hearing-impaired and "technically" jaywalking. He was flown by helicopter to [[Hahnemann University Hospital]] with head injuries and two broken legs and was pronounced dead at 5 a.m. on November 20, at 73. His death notice names his wife Clara, his son Raymond of Chalfont, his daughters Helen M. Mitchell of Chalfont and Virginia E. of [[Souderton, Pennsylvania|Souderton]], his sister [[Helen M. Hoersch|Helen M.]] of Philadelphia, and four grandchildren, and asked for remembrances to [[Doylestown Hospital]]; the funeral was held at the Decker Funeral Home in [[Warminster, Pennsylvania|Warminster]], with interment at [[Hillside Cemetery]].[^20][^21] In June 2026 the *Inquirer* reported that investigators searching the Olney house had found what appeared to be urns holding remains, "one set of which was apparently his father's."[^22] In September police said they believed three of the five urns found in the house held the ashes of R.C. Horsch, his sister, and a friend, and that two were unidentified.[^23] ### Footnotes [^1]: West, Ashley. "Unknowing Ray Horsch, Episode 1: Youth," *The Rialto Report,* Podcast 171, September 13, 2026, audio at 08:39 to 10:20 and 26:01 to 27:14. https://www.therialtoreport.com/2026/09/13/ray-horsch-2/ [^2]: "Hoersch, Albert," death notice, *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* July 3, 1972, p. 10 ("father of Albert Jr., Raymond C., Helen M Hoersch, 417 W. Chew st."). https://www.newspapers.com/image/180006503/ [^3]: "How a pornographer's violent fantasies blurred fact and fiction as cops searched Olney house for missing women," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 2, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/a/raymond-eugene-horsch-olney-philadelphia-missing-women-history-20260802.html -[^4]: [Notice seeking former World War II glider pilots], *The Times Leader* (Wilkes-Barre), January 29, 1979, p. 36; the same notice ran in *The Mountaintop Eagle* and *The Miner* (Carbondale) in January and February 1979. https://www.newspapers.com/image/407620980/ -[^5]: The marriage is inferred rather than stated in any one document: Cecilia T. Hagerty's obituary of 1991 names her daughter "Clara Hoersch of Chalfont"; he bought property in Chalfont in 1971 and lived at 523 North Main Street there; and the *Pocono Record* in 1969 listed "Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Hoersch" among the Hagerty children and grandchildren. "Cecilia T. Hagerty," obituary, *The Morning Call,* October 26, 1991, p. 115, https://www.newspapers.com/image/283774999/; *Pocono Record,* September 26, 1969, p. 6, https://www.newspapers.com/image/40464241/ -[^6]: "Cecilia T. Hagerty," obituary, *The Morning Call,* October 26, 1991, p. 115 ("Daughter, Clara Hoersch of Chalfont, Bucks County"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/283774999/ -[^7]: [Social column], *The Daily Intelligencer* (Doylestown), January 10, 1955, p. 2. https://www.newspapers.com/image/40163522/ -[^8]: [Classified advertisement, "Draftsman, Mechanical Design"], *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* May 12, 1964, p. 42. Whether the firm was the father's or the son's is not stated. https://www.newspapers.com/image/180608119/ -[^9]: [Report of the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Hagerty], *Pocono Record* (Stroudsburg), September 26, 1969, p. 6. https://www.newspapers.com/image/40464241/ -[^10]: [Bucks County real-estate transfers], *News Herald* (Perkasie), October 29, 1969, p. 29 ("Plumstead ... Raymond C. Hoersch ux to John W. Richards ux $48,000 ... Gayman Rd."). https://www.newspapers.com/image/540614261/ -[^11]: [Report of a car crash on South York Road], *The Daily Intelligencer,* July 21, 1971, p. 25 ("The car is owned by Raymond Hoersch, English Village Apartments, Horsham. Hoersch is the father of Mrs. Bowers."). https://www.newspapers.com/image/47541500/ -[^12]: [Bucks County real-estate transfers], *The Daily Intelligencer,* September 10, 1971, p. 8 ("Chalfont: ... Karl R. Zuch to Raymond C. Hoersch, $36,400"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/47552873/ -[^13]: [Chalfont borough council report], *The Reporter* (Lansdale), July 19, 1973, p. 4 ("A subdivision of land owned by Raymond C. Hoersch, located at Oak ave., was approved"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/1034188168/ -[^14]: Hoersch v. Froehlke, 382 F. Supp. 1235 (E.D. Pa. 1974). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2596970/hoersch-v-froehlke/ -[^15]: "[...] bogus $180,000 in Bucks raid," *The Morning Call* (Allentown), December 11, 1974, p. 5 ("The Chalfont address was identified as Hoersch's parents' home where he had been living recently"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/275702319/ -[^16]: Federal Aviation Administration, Aircraft Registry, Aircraft Deregistered File, record for N1437J, downloaded September 23, 2026. https://registry.faa.gov/database/ReleasableAircraft.zip -[^17]: National Transportation Safety Board, pre-1982 aviation accident database, record for N1437J, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, July 26, 1981. https://data.ntsb.gov/avdata -[^18]: "Chalfont man, 73, struck by auto, dies in hospital," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* November 21, 1991, p. 19. https://www.newspapers.com/image/176160072/ -[^19]: "Hoersch, Raymond C.," death notice, *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* November 22, 1991, as reproduced in Find a Grave memorial 233455054. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/233455054/raymond-c-hoersch/photo -[^20]: "A woman missing since 2016 had close ties to the Olney house that's now the target of a massive investigation," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* June 27, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/olney-raid-missing-women-mystery-drugs-20260627.html -[^21]: Sharber, Cory. "Police, FBI provide updates on Horsch missing women case," *WHYY,* September 16, 2026. https://whyy.org/articles/olney-home-investigation-abuse/ +[^4]: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File and Social Security Death Index, "Raymond Hoersch," born August 17, 1918, died November 20, 1991; World War II draft registration card, Raymond Charles Hoersch, born August 17, 1918, Philadelphia (all via Ancestry.com), accessed September 23, 2026. https://www.ancestry.com/ +[^5]: [Notice seeking former World War II glider pilots], *The Times Leader* (Wilkes-Barre), January 29, 1979, p. 36; the same notice ran in *The Mountaintop Eagle* and *The Miner* (Carbondale) in January and February 1979. https://www.newspapers.com/image/407620980/ +[^6]: The marriage is inferred rather than stated in any one document: Cecilia T. Hagerty's obituary of 1991 names her daughter "Clara Hoersch of Chalfont"; he bought property in Chalfont in 1971 and lived at 523 North Main Street there; and the *Pocono Record* in 1969 listed "Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Hoersch" among the Hagerty children and grandchildren. "Cecilia T. Hagerty," obituary, *The Morning Call,* October 26, 1991, p. 115, https://www.newspapers.com/image/283774999/; *Pocono Record,* September 26, 1969, p. 6, https://www.newspapers.com/image/40464241/ +[^7]: "Cecilia T. Hagerty," obituary, *The Morning Call,* October 26, 1991, p. 115 ("Daughter, Clara Hoersch of Chalfont, Bucks County"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/283774999/ +[^8]: [Social column], *The Daily Intelligencer* (Doylestown), January 10, 1955, p. 2. https://www.newspapers.com/image/40163522/ +[^9]: [Classified advertisement, "Draftsman, Mechanical Design"], *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* May 12, 1964, p. 42. Whether the firm was the father's or the son's is not stated. https://www.newspapers.com/image/180608119/ +[^10]: [Report of the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Hagerty], *Pocono Record* (Stroudsburg), September 26, 1969, p. 6. https://www.newspapers.com/image/40464241/ +[^11]: [Bucks County real-estate transfers], *News Herald* (Perkasie), October 29, 1969, p. 29 ("Plumstead ... Raymond C. Hoersch ux to John W. Richards ux $48,000 ... Gayman Rd."). https://www.newspapers.com/image/540614261/ +[^12]: [Report of a car crash on South York Road], *The Daily Intelligencer,* July 21, 1971, p. 25 ("The car is owned by Raymond Hoersch, English Village Apartments, Horsham. Hoersch is the father of Mrs. Bowers."). https://www.newspapers.com/image/47541500/ +[^13]: [Bucks County real-estate transfers], *The Daily Intelligencer,* September 10, 1971, p. 8 ("Chalfont: ... Karl R. Zuch to Raymond C. Hoersch, $36,400"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/47552873/ +[^14]: [Chalfont borough council report], *The Reporter* (Lansdale), July 19, 1973, p. 4 ("A subdivision of land owned by Raymond C. Hoersch, located at Oak ave., was approved"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/1034188168/ +[^15]: Hoersch v. Froehlke, 382 F. Supp. 1235 (E.D. Pa. 1974). https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2596970/hoersch-v-froehlke/ +[^16]: "[...] bogus $180,000 in Bucks raid," *The Morning Call* (Allentown), December 11, 1974, p. 5 ("The Chalfont address was identified as Hoersch's parents' home where he had been living recently"). https://www.newspapers.com/image/275702319/ +[^17]: Federal Aviation Administration, Aircraft Registry, Aircraft Deregistered File, record for N1437J, downloaded September 23, 2026. https://registry.faa.gov/database/ReleasableAircraft.zip +[^18]: National Transportation Safety Board, pre-1982 aviation accident database, record for N1437J, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, July 26, 1981. https://data.ntsb.gov/avdata +[^19]: West, Ashley. "Ray Horsch: Sociopathic Villain," *The Rialto Report,* Podcast 27, 2013, audio at 1:04:22 to 1:05:28 and 1:08:14 to 1:08:40 (the FBI searches and the decision to surrender; audio preserved in a Wayback Machine capture of March 31, 2019). https://web.archive.org/web/20190331064614/http://traffic.libsyn.com/therialtoreport/27_Rialto_Report_027_-_Ray_Horsch__Sociopathic_Villain.mp3 +[^20]: "Chalfont man, 73, struck by auto, dies in hospital," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* November 21, 1991, p. 19. https://www.newspapers.com/image/176160072/ +[^21]: "Hoersch, Raymond C.," death notice, *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* November 22, 1991, as reproduced in Find a Grave memorial 233455054. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/233455054/raymond-c-hoersch/photo +[^22]: "A woman missing since 2016 had close ties to the Olney house that's now the target of a massive investigation," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* June 27, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/olney-raid-missing-women-mystery-drugs-20260627.html +[^23]: Sharber, Cory. "Police, FBI provide updates on Horsch missing women case," *WHYY,* September 16, 2026. https://whyy.org/articles/olney-home-investigation-abuse/ diff --git a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer).md b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer).md index e8d691f1..21bccfcb 100644 --- a/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer).md +++ b/10 - PEOPLE/(N-S)/John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer).md @@ -29,15 +29,22 @@ John Gordon Rutherford was a [[Christchurch]] lawyer who set up [[Chemical Techn ### Stokowski -The company was incorporated on May 26, 1981, with Rutherford and [[Dorothy Verna Rutherford]], who shared his Christchurch address, as its directors, and its registered office at Ibis House, 183 Hereford Street, Christchurch.[^3] - +The company was incorporated on May 26, 1981, with Rutherford and [[Dorothy Verna Rutherford]], who shared his Christchurch address, as its directors, and its registered office at Ibis House, 183 Hereford Street, Christchurch.[^3] In July 1981 the government approved a licence for its whey distillery, the first commercial one in the South Island, and two regional development suspensory loans totalling 120,235 dollars were approved for it the same year.[^4][^5] In December 1981, as a director, Rutherford asked the Canterbury United Council to support ethanol as a replacement for tetraethyl lead in petrol and to seek removal of the tax on ethanol used as an octane booster.[^6] The plant was opened by the Minister of Science and Technology, [[Ian Shearer]], in April 1982.[^7] Rutherford told *[[The Press]]* in 1984 that he had contacted Stokowski "after reading American advertisements about new technology." A later [[New Zealand]] government investigation found that the [[New Zealand Department of Immigration|Department of Immigration]] had been "under some pressure" from the man's "proposed employer" to "make an early decision" on his application.[^1] -After Horsch left New Zealand on March 17, 1984, on a passport that police believed had been stolen in a burglary at [[Temuka]], Rutherford described him to *The Press* as "brilliant and hard working," "a brilliant chap" who "knew what he was about," and "a particularly smart fellow, a real toiler and an excellent family man." He conceded that his partner might have been living under a false identity and, according to the paper, believed that he "had had some sort of trouble in the [[United States]]; perhaps of the scale of being a draft dodger during the [[Vietnam War]]," while dismissing any suggestion that he was a spy. He said he had not heard from Horsch since his departure and that his business had not suffered: "As far as I am concerned, it is business as usual."[^1] +After Horsch left New Zealand on March 17, 1984, on a passport that police believed had been stolen in a burglary at [[Temuka]], Rutherford described him to *The Press* as "brilliant and hard working," "a brilliant chap" who "knew what he was about," and "a particularly smart fellow, a real toiler and an excellent family man." He conceded that his partner might have been living under a false identity and, according to the paper, believed that he "had had some sort of trouble in the [[United States]]; perhaps of the scale of being a draft dodger during the [[Vietnam War]]," while dismissing any suggestion that he was a spy. He said he had not heard from Horsch since his departure and that his business had not suffered: "As far as I am concerned, it is business as usual." He called the spy story "a romantic tale," said the [[New Zealand Security Intelligence Service|Security Intelligence Service]] had never approached him, and said he had last seen Horsch in early March, when the man had talked of leaving "for some months" and told him "his shares were worth nothing." Horsch, he said, "had a lot of trouble getting a beverage alcohol licence ... like a lot of Americans he did not appreciate the time things take here."[^1][^8] He told *The Press* that he had transferred an amphibian aircraft to the company to increase its assets and had flown once with Horsch to [[Lake Tekapo|Tekapo]], but that Horsch lacked the rating for solo landings on water: "He didn't have enough hours." [[Westpac]] put the company into receivership on May 22, 1984, and Rutherford arranged to pay the bank about 170,000 dollars.[^9] In October 1984 he said business was booming and that Horsch "did everything he said he was going to accomplish."[^10] By 1986 he was growing Jerusalem artichokes under quarantine on his farm at Moncks Spur on the [[Port Hills]] as a feedstock for the company.[^11] ### Footnotes [^1]: Leask, Anna. "Man linked to multiple missing women in US had fled NZ 40 years ago after posing as scientist," *The New Zealand Herald,* September 23, 2026 (quoting *The Press* of 1984 and the New Zealand immigration investigation report). https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/raymond-horsch-man-linked-to-philadelphia-house-of-horrors-lived-near-timaru-under-stolen-name/BVQSWBL3LZDL3GIXFEHHBFY6RY/ [^2]: "How a pornographer's violent fantasies blurred fact and fiction as cops searched Olney house for missing women," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 2, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/a/raymond-eugene-horsch-olney-philadelphia-missing-women-history-20260802.html [^3]: New Zealand Companies Office, Companies Register, "Chemical Technology Ltd," company number 141090, accessed September 23, 2026. https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/141090 +[^4]: "Ethanol plant at Temuka," *The Press* (Christchurch), July 15, 1981. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19810715.2.31 +[^5]: "Impostor: immigration cleared of blame," *The Press* (Christchurch), October 3, 1984. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19841003.2.23 +[^6]: "Ethanol study beyond council," *The Press* (Christchurch), December 11, 1981. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19811211.2.98 +[^7]: "Dr Shearer wants extra effort in biotechnology," *The Press* (Christchurch), April 23, 1982. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19820423.2.96.9 +[^8]: "Police look for U.S. chemist," *The Press* (Christchurch), June 6, 1984 (Press Association, Timaru). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19840606.2.48 +[^9]: "Where has 'Dr Stokowski' gone?," *The Press* (Christchurch), June 9, 1984. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19840609.2.9 +[^10]: "Ethanol plant's business booms," *The Press* (Christchurch), October 4, 1984. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19841004.2.21 +[^11]: "Jerusalem artichokes as dual-purpose crop?," *The Press* (Christchurch), February 14, 1986. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19860214.2.93.1 diff --git a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Chemical Technology Limited.md b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Chemical Technology Limited.md index e019f14e..17f89da7 100644 --- a/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Chemical Technology Limited.md +++ b/20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Chemical Technology Limited.md @@ -17,29 +17,42 @@ relations: - type: director_of with: "[[Dorothy Verna Rutherford]]" reverse: true - fn: 3 + fn: 4 created: 2026-09-23 updated: 2026-09-23 --- -Chemical Technology Limited was a [[New Zealand]] company at [[Clandeboye, New Zealand|Clandeboye]], near [[Timaru]] in South [[Canterbury, New Zealand|Canterbury]], set up by the [[Christchurch]] lawyer [[John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer)|John Rutherford]] to work on byproducts of milk. From about 1980 to 1984 its plant for converting whey into ethanol fuel was built and run by [[R.C. Horsch]], an American fugitive from a [[Philadelphia]] methamphetamine charge who was working under the stolen identity of Dr. Stanley Eugene Stokowski, a [[California]] chemist.[^1][^2] +Chemical Technology Limited was a [[New Zealand]] company at [[Clandeboye, New Zealand|Clandeboye]], near [[Timaru]] in South [[Canterbury, New Zealand|Canterbury]], set up by the [[Christchurch]] lawyer [[John Rutherford (New Zealand lawyer)|John Rutherford]] to work on byproducts of milk. From about 1980 to 1984 its plant for converting whey into ethanol fuel was built and run by [[R.C. Horsch]], an American fugitive from a [[Philadelphia]] methamphetamine charge who was working under the stolen identity of Dr. Stanley Stokowski, a [[California]] chemist, whose middle name the 1984 *Press* gives as Edward and the 2026 *Inquirer* as Eugene.[^1][^2][^3] ### Registration -The company, registered as Chemical Technology Ltd, company number 141090, was incorporated on May 26, 1981, with its registered office at Ibis House, 183 Hereford Street, Christchurch. The register lists two directors, John Gordon Rutherford and [[Dorothy Verna Rutherford]], who shared a Christchurch address; neither Horsch nor the name Stokowski appears among its officers. The register records the company as in receivership from its incorporation until December 17, 1984, and then as registered until it was removed from the register in November 2013.[^3] +The company, registered as Chemical Technology Ltd, company number 141090, was incorporated on May 26, 1981, with its registered office at Ibis House, 183 Hereford Street, Christchurch. The register lists two directors, John Gordon Rutherford and [[Dorothy Verna Rutherford]], who shared a Christchurch address; neither Horsch nor the name Stokowski appears among its officers. The register records the company as in receivership from its incorporation until December 17, 1984, and then as registered until it was removed from the register in November 2013.[^4] -Whey ethanol was then an established New Zealand industry: the technology for fermenting deproteinated whey into ethyl alcohol was bought from [[Ireland]] by the [[Anchor Ethanol Company]] in the late 1970s and used at plants at [[Tirau]] and [[Reporoa]].[^4] +The company was "formed earlier this year," *The Press* reported in July 1981. On July 14, 1981, the Minister of Customs, [[Hugh Templeton]], and the Minister of Energy, [[Bill Birch]], announced that a licence had been approved for its distillery at [[Temuka]], 15 kilometres north of Timaru, the first commercial distillery in the South Island, to produce industrial ethanol mainly from whey and beet crops; Birch said it would save 250,000 dollars a year in overseas funds. "Dr Stanly Stokowski, the director," said the 1.5 million dollar plant would be in full production of one million litres a year by the end of 1981, fed by 22 to 27 million litres of whey a year from the neighbouring dairy factory. "We will be solving a serious waste disposal problem," he said. The company planned to take damaged potatoes and off-grade grain, to make acetic acid, ethyl acetate, butanol, milk protein, carbon dioxide, and cattle feed, and to study gasohol fuels; it hoped the plant would serve as a pilot for a sugar-based chemical industry, was trialling [[Jerusalem artichoke]]s, and spoke of expanding five to ten times.[^5][^6] Two regional development suspensory loans totalling 120,235 dollars were approved for it in 1981 on the recommendation of the South Canterbury Regional Development Council, and the [[Development Finance Corporation]] reported favourably on its viability.[^7] In December 1981 Rutherford, as a director, asked the Canterbury United Council to back ethanol in place of tetraethyl lead as an octane booster, to press for unleaded fuel from the [[Marsden Point Oil Refinery|Marsden Point]] refinery to be shipped to the South Island, and to seek removal of the tax on ethanol used for the purpose.[^8] The Minister of Science and Technology, [[Ian Shearer]], opened the whey-to-alcohol factory in April 1982, remarking that it would turn what had twenty years earlier been "poured down the throat of a pig" into alcohol and proteins.[^9] + +Whey ethanol was then an established New Zealand industry: the technology for fermenting deproteinated whey into ethyl alcohol was bought from [[Ireland]] by the [[Anchor Ethanol Company]] in the late 1970s and used at plants at [[Tirau]] and [[Reporoa]].[^10] ### Stokowski -Rutherford told *[[The Press]]* in 1984 that he had contacted "Stokowski" "after reading American advertisements about new technology," and that the man was "brilliant and hard working" and "trained unskilled men in skills from welding to more complex tasks." Horsch had obtained the post with a forged [[Stanford University]] transcript in Stokowski's name.[^1][^2] A New Zealand government investigation into his admission to the country found that his papers included a transcript of a university degree, that the [[New Zealand Department of Immigration|Department of Immigration]] had been "under some pressure" from his "proposed employer" to "make an early decision," and that "checks were not made with the [[New Zealand Ministry of Energy|Ministry of Energy]] and other Government departments." The real Stokowski later confirmed that the transcript was his.[^1] The *Philadelphia Daily News* reported at Horsch's sentencing in April 1985 that while on the run he had "helped design and build an ethanol plant for the New Zealand government."[^5] +Rutherford told *[[The Press]]* in 1984 that he had contacted "Stokowski" "after reading American advertisements about new technology," and that the man was "brilliant and hard working" and "trained unskilled men in skills from welding to more complex tasks." Horsch had obtained the post with a forged [[Stanford University]] transcript in Stokowski's name.[^1][^2] A New Zealand government investigation into his admission to the country found that his papers included a transcript of a university degree, that the [[New Zealand Department of Immigration|Department of Immigration]] had been "under some pressure" from his "proposed employer" to "make an early decision," and that "checks were not made with the [[New Zealand Ministry of Energy|Ministry of Energy]] and other Government departments." The real Stokowski later confirmed that the transcript was his.[^1] The *Philadelphia Daily News* reported at Horsch's sentencing in April 1985 that while on the run he had "helped design and build an ethanol plant for the New Zealand government."[^11] He was described in 1984 as a director of the plant who also ran a computer software exchange at [[Washdyke]]. Rutherford said the man had trained unskilled workers and that about eight jobs had been created, and that the company had not performed as well as expected late in 1983. Horsch said in 2013 that he had owned 80 percent of the distillery and signed his share over when he left.[^3][^12][^13] -In March 1984 Horsch returned from a trip to the [[United States]] carrying several passports and on March 17 left New Zealand on another passport, which police believed had been stolen in a burglary at [[Temuka]]. Rumors followed that he was a Soviet or Bulgarian spy or was sought by the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]. Rutherford told *The Press* that his partner might have had trouble in the United States "perhaps of the scale of being a draft dodger during the [[Vietnam War]]," dismissed the suggestion that he was a spy, and said of the company: "As far as I am concerned, it is business as usual."[^1] +In March 1984 Horsch returned from a trip to the [[United States]] carrying several passports and on March 17 left New Zealand on another passport, which police believed had been stolen in a burglary at Temuka. Rumors followed that he was a Soviet or Bulgarian spy or was sought by the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]. Rutherford told *The Press* that his partner might have had trouble in the United States "perhaps of the scale of being a draft dodger during the [[Vietnam War]]," dismissed the suggestion that he was a spy, and said of the company: "As far as I am concerned, it is business as usual."[^1] At police request the Fire Service drained a well at the plant in late May 1984, and Detective Superintendent [[R.N. MacDonald]] would not comment on reports that firearms and drugs had been found in it.[^14] [[Westpac]] put the company into receivership, with [[K.N. Curnow]] of [[Deloitte Haskins & Sells]] appointed receiver on May 22, 1984; Rutherford arranged to pay the bank about 170,000 dollars, and said the business made "a modest profit." Preferential tax debts remained.[^3][^12] In October 1984 he told *The Press* that business was booming, with protein and acetone planned, and that Horsch "had trained everybody up before he left."[^15] In 1986 the company was still producing alcohol from whey at Clandeboye and had grown Jerusalem artichoke varieties under quarantine for three years on Rutherford's farm at Moncks Spur on the [[Port Hills]], as a possible feedstock.[^16] ### Footnotes [^1]: Leask, Anna. "Man linked to multiple missing women in US had fled NZ 40 years ago after posing as scientist," *The New Zealand Herald,* September 23, 2026 (quoting *The Press* of 1984 and the New Zealand immigration investigation report). https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/raymond-horsch-man-linked-to-philadelphia-house-of-horrors-lived-near-timaru-under-stolen-name/BVQSWBL3LZDL3GIXFEHHBFY6RY/ [^2]: "How a pornographer's violent fantasies blurred fact and fiction as cops searched Olney house for missing women," *The Philadelphia Inquirer,* August 2, 2026. https://www.inquirer.com/news/a/raymond-eugene-horsch-olney-philadelphia-missing-women-history-20260802.html -[^3]: New Zealand Companies Office, Companies Register, "Chemical Technology Ltd," company number 141090 (incorporated May 26, 1981; status "In Receivership" May 26, 1981, to December 17, 1984; "Removed," updated November 3, 2013), accessed September 23, 2026. https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/141090 -[^4]: Hamilton, Ron. "The Manufacture of Ethanol from Whey," ed. Heather Wansbrough, Bioenergy Association of New Zealand, undated. https://www.bioenergy.org.nz/documents/resource/Reports/Manufacture-of-Ethanol-from-Whey-3H.pdf -[^5]: Smith, Jim. "Fugitive's Luck Runs Out With 4-Year Jail Sentence," *Philadelphia Daily News,* April 27, 1985, p. 8. https://www.newspapers.com/image/185948055/ +[^3]: "Where has 'Dr Stokowski' gone?," *The Press* (Christchurch), June 9, 1984. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19840609.2.9 +[^4]: New Zealand Companies Office, Companies Register, "Chemical Technology Ltd," company number 141090 (incorporated May 26, 1981; status "In Receivership" May 26, 1981, to December 17, 1984; "Removed," updated November 3, 2013), accessed September 23, 2026. https://app.companiesoffice.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies/141090 +[^5]: "Ethanol plant at Temuka," *The Press* (Christchurch), July 15, 1981. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19810715.2.31 +[^6]: "Ethanol by September," *The Press* (Christchurch), July 20, 1981 (Press Association, Wellington). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19810720.2.23 +[^7]: "Impostor: immigration cleared of blame," *The Press* (Christchurch), October 3, 1984. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19841003.2.23 +[^8]: "Ethanol study beyond council," *The Press* (Christchurch), December 11, 1981. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19811211.2.98 +[^9]: "Dr Shearer wants extra effort in biotechnology," *The Press* (Christchurch), April 23, 1982. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19820423.2.96.9 +[^10]: Hamilton, Ron. "The Manufacture of Ethanol from Whey," ed. Heather Wansbrough, Bioenergy Association of New Zealand, undated. https://www.bioenergy.org.nz/documents/resource/Reports/Manufacture-of-Ethanol-from-Whey-3H.pdf +[^11]: Smith, Jim. "Fugitive's Luck Runs Out With 4-Year Jail Sentence," *Philadelphia Daily News,* April 27, 1985, p. 8. https://www.newspapers.com/image/185948055/ +[^12]: "Police look for U.S. chemist," *The Press* (Christchurch), June 6, 1984 (Press Association, Timaru). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19840606.2.48 +[^13]: West, Ashley. "Ray Horsch: Sociopathic Villain," *The Rialto Report,* Podcast 27, 2013, audio at 1:05:45 to 1:09:27 (audio preserved in a Wayback Machine capture of March 31, 2019). https://web.archive.org/web/20190331064614/http://traffic.libsyn.com/therialtoreport/27_Rialto_Report_027_-_Ray_Horsch__Sociopathic_Villain.mp3 +[^14]: "Police seek wife, child," *The Press* (Christchurch), June 13, 1984 (Press Association, Timaru). https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19840613.2.7 +[^15]: "Ethanol plant's business booms," *The Press* (Christchurch), October 4, 1984. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19841004.2.21 +[^16]: "Jerusalem artichokes as dual-purpose crop?," *The Press* (Christchurch), February 14, 1986. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19860214.2.93.1