MONROE UNFILTERED: THE DAILY BUZZ | Sept. 21
Philly's 'House of Horrors' Has Monroe Roots
Monday, September 21, 2026
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THE WEEK'S WEATHER
To nobody's surprise, Fall officially arrives on Tuesday, but we've been feeling it on and off for a while now. The kids are back at school, the temperature has begun to drop, and the leaves are starting to change. Don't put away the shorts yet, but make sure those sweatshirts and hoodies are within reach.
Today, expect those overnight showers to have tapered off before daybreak. We will be mostly cloudy and cooler, with a high near 68°F and just a 7% chance of rain. If you planted anything this past weekend, good news! Showers return Tuesday morning as the high dips to 62°F so the watering will take care of itself.
As for the rest of the week, it stays mostly cloudy and cool: mid-60s highs Wednesday and Thursday, then a real chance of afternoon showers creeping back in Friday (37%, high near 68°F). Lows run in the mid-40s to low 50s all week.
LOCAL CONNECTION TO PHILLY'S 'HOUSE OF HORRORS'
Monroe County has an unlikely, unsettling walk-on role in one of the biggest ongoing criminal investigations in the country. Raymond “R.C.” Horsch, the late photographer and “filmmaker” (and I use that term VERY loosely) at the center of Philadelphia's sprawling “house of horrors” case, was born in East Stroudsburg on May 5, 1943, according to published reports.
The family moved to Chalfont, in Bucks County, where he graduated Central Bucks High School in 1961. He says he was raised there, so if they want him, they can have him. None of the sourcing we could find pins down exactly how old he was when the family made that move, only that it happened sometime in his childhood, before that 1961 graduation, when he'd have been about 18.
Horsch went on to a long, deeply controversial career as an erotic photographer and pornographic filmmaker, opening an unlicensed “avant-garde” cinema on Philadelphia's Sansom Street in the late 1960s and later racking up convictions for forgery and drug manufacturing. He died in 2025 at 82.
The investigation that's put his name back in headlines traces to a chance encounter back in June, when a National Park Service ranger found Horsch's son, Eugene, 44, illegally parked near Independence Mall with a woman in his car. That stop led investigators to the father and son's home in Philadelphia's Olney neighborhood, where police say they've since recovered more than 1 million digital files. Investigators have identified 58 people depicted in the material reviewed so far, believe five women shown in photos or video may be dead, and are still looking for two more, Amy McHale and Blair Tonzelli. Three of the deceased have been named, most recently Nicole Fusaro, identified Sept. 11 as a woman police believe Horsch may have killed on camera. Of course, some of his films displayed fictional deaths, so it's not as straightforward as it might seem.
No remains connected to the missing women have been recovered at the property, and no homicide charges have been filed against anyone. Eugene Horsch faces unrelated gun and fake-ID charges from the June stop and is being held without bail in federal custody. He, like anyone facing charges, is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
THE DAILY RUNDOWN
Gas Continues to Tick Up. The average for East Stroudsburg is $4.48 per gallon, up 4 cents from $4.44 a week ago. That's only about a 1% increase, but we've been seeing that for weeks now and it adds up. One piece of good news is that we are still below the state average of $4.57, per AAA.
WHAT WERE YA THINKIN'
Okay everyone, hold on tight. We held a few stories on Friday going into the weekend, so here is the download. As always, everyone below is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Federal Charges Filed. Destin A. Petrides, 20, of Polk Township, is now facing federal charges after what started as a state case. Per a Pennsylvania State Police criminal complaint, Petrides ran a months-long online extortion scheme against a 13-year-old boy in Canada, met through Roblox, that escalated to coerced self-harm and, ultimately, the boy's own attempt on his own life. State charges against Petrides, including attempted murder and aiding suicide, were withdrawn Sept. 16 after the Department of Justice took over the case; he was indicted federally on Aug. 18 on two counts of receiving child sexual abuse material and one count of possession, per the Pocono Record.
Worst Behavior at a Best Western. Joseph Montilla-Briceno, 35, is charged after allegedly choking a woman until she couldn't breathe during a domestic dispute at the Best Western hotel in Pocono Township on Aug. 26; an active ICE detainer turned up during the investigation, and he's held at Monroe County Correctional Facility.
Campus Predator. Edmoh F. Sheriff, 20, of Allentown, is charged with rape, sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault, and harassment after allegedly assaulting an 18-year-old student in her East Stroudsburg University dorm room around 5 a.m. on Sept. 12. He was arraigned Sept. 16, denied bail, and has a preliminary hearing set for Sept. 29.
Nobody's Salvation. James Allen Gingrich, 64, a former Salvation Army major who served at the East Stroudsburg Corps starting in 2009, was arrested Sept. 9 near his current home in Tallahassee, Florida, after a Clark County, Ohio grand jury indicted him on 41 counts of rape and 3 counts of attempted rape. The charges involve child victims and stem entirely from his earlier post at a Salvation Army in Springfield, Ohio, from 1996 to 2009, well before he came to Monroe County. Either way, good riddance (again, assuming he is guilty).
THE WEEK AHEAD
Smithfield Gateway Hearing: Still No New Date. The conditional-use hearing on the proposed Smithfield Gateway data center, originally set for Sept. 9, was pulled after the township said a newspaper notice listing that date had run in error. There's still no makeup date on the calendar as of this writing. We've asked the township directly and will report the new date as soon as it's public. That said, the Board of Supervisors will hold its regular monthly business meeting Wednesday, Sept. 23, 6 to 7:30 p.m., at the Municipal Center.