Month: October 2026

By Nakell Williams

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    ATLANTA (WUPA) — One hundred and twenty years after mob violence tore through downtown Atlanta, students at Morris Brown College confronted the history of the 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre and drew connections to today.

The four-day wave of violence from Sept. 22 to Sept. 25, 1906, left Black Atlantans beaten, killed, and driven from their businesses after false accusations against Black men spread through local newspapers. During that time, students at the University Center could not return to school until Oct. 1, 1906.

Some of the areas heavily impacted by the massacre included Brownsville, Five Points, Summerhill, Auburn, Pittsburgh, Auburn Avenue, and Lakewood Heights.

Now, near the same historic grounds where scholar W.E.B. Du Bois once documented the tragedy, a new generation learned how misinformation helped to fuel one of the city’s darkest chapters.

Inside a Morris Brown classroom, freshman Denym Chambers said the lesson opened her eyes because she knew nothing about the massacre.

“I did not, but I loved learning about it and being able to be at an HBCU like Morris Brown, so that I’m able to expand my education within my Black history, because I did not grow up somewhere where I did learn a lot about my Black history,” Chambers said.

During the massacre, Du Bois took cover at Atlanta University. He wrote his famous poem, “A Litany of Atlanta,” reflecting on the violence that historians say killed at least 20 people.

Adjunct professor Sunny Brown told students the history lesson is meant to connect past and present.

“When we talk about the race massacre of 1906, it really goes into not only historically what has happened, but we connect it to what we see today,” Brown said. “How does it show up in real time today?”

At the Auburn Avenue Research Library, artifacts from the massacre, including historic newspapers and soil samples from recovery sites, help memorialize victims.

“These are things that are important to the history of our city. These are things that can happen again. So, the more we learn about mob mentalities, about violence, about genocide, the more we learn about history, the less likely we are to repeat certain things,” said John Austin, a collections librarian at the Auburn Avenue Library.

Students said one of the most striking parallels is the role of misinformation. In 1906, false newspaper reports helped ignite the violence. They said nowadays misleading information can spread rapidly online.

“A lot of stuff that does come from social media, we definitely do believe. I know that social media definitely can not say the full truth about certain things. That does happen,” Chambers said.

Brown said her goal to examine the massacre helps students think critically about the information they consume, and that they’ll recognize how quickly false narratives can have real-world consequences.

Kyler Winston-Kendricks, the lead resident historian at the Apex Museum, walked CBS News Atlanta’s crew through an exhibit called Before and Beyond 1906.

“A lot of people called it a riot, but now we call it a massacre. The reason is because the numbers can reach up to 40 to 100 people that were injured or killed in this incident,” Winston-Kendricks said.

She said there are 25 known victims, but many others were never identified.

“People were snatched off the streets and snatched out of the trolley cars as well. They were snatched from their businesses. People were laid out in front of the Henry Grady statue as well, ” she explained.

Winston-Kendricks said J. Max Barber, the editor of the journal The Voice of a Negro, left Atlanta and went to Chicago, where he published what happened.

“J. Max Barber got this story out, and that is why a lot of newspapers all over the nation and also including the world were talking about the reason as to why this actually happened. You had newspapers that were in Liverpool, England. You had some that were in Scotland. You had some that were in France and also Italy as well, talking about why this was happening,” she said.

The Apex Museum’s exhibit includes audio recordings of survivors of the massacre, including June Dobbs Butts, John Wesley Dobbs’s daughter.

“She’s talking about it from the perspective of her father,” Winston-Kendricks said.

There are also audio recordings describing how guns were smuggled into the city for this massacre so people could fight back and protect their communities as well as recollections from a white survivor, who tells stories of her mother protecting one of her Black neighbors.

The exhibit will remain available at the Apex Museum through October.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

By Joe Holden

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    PHILADELPHIA (KYW) — Investigators believe Raymond “R.C.” Horsch, who owned and lived in the so-called house of horrors in the Olney section of Philadelphia, may have been a serial killer, multiple law enforcement sources confirmed to CBS News Philadelphia.

At least seven missing women have been linked to his house at 417 West Chew Ave., and at least five women are feared dead.

Horsch died in 2025.

“It was very alarming to hear that this was going on, and going on for years and right under everyone’s noses without knowing,” said Devon Rodriguez-Cayro, who works in the area and said she sometimes waited for the bus near the house.

Investigation ramping up The investigation at the house is set to ramp up next week, and road closures are planned in the neighborhood.

Investigators are also set to use heavy machinery to excavate the property the following week, Philadelphia police said.

Police and the FBI are expected to remove any areas or furniture in the house that could have blood, tissue, hair or other fibers.

Sources say police are looking at everything in the home, including the flooring, drywall and plaster. Investigators are expected to remove pieces of the home’s interior, guided by what they have seen since reviewing more than 1 million videos and images recovered from inside.

Police said they have identified at least 58 people seen in those files and have interviewed some of them. Police also said they saw two identified women in the videos who appeared to be either dead or unconscious.

That’s in addition to three other women who police believe are dead based on their investigation into the house so far — Gabrielle Amarando, Maribel Fresses and Nicole Fusaro.

Philadelphia Police Inspector Raymond Evers has described the evidence found in the house as “graphic and dark.”

No human remains have been found at the house, but detectives have looked for evidence of wet cremation, which is when a mix of chemicals is used to break down human remains, law enforcement sources with direct knowledge of the case told CBS News Philadelphia. Chemicals and pipes have been removed from the property during the investigation.

Moreover, video reviewed by police showed R.C. Horsch strangling a woman with a zip tie, which sources say would implicate him in murder.

Who is Raymond Horsch? Horsch created dark pornographic films and self-published several books and referred to himself as an empathetic serial killer.

CBS News Philadelphia reviewed hundreds of pages of books Horsch wrote and published, which have since been yanked from Amazon. Much of the material is graphic, disturbing, sexually explicit and violent.

In one book, Horsch claims he murdered a woman and disposed of her body through a chemical process.

In a 2013 podcast interview, Horsch talked about his life of sex and adult films and shared some disturbing confessions.

“I, of course, was kind of a natural as a perverted serial killer, wasn’t much of a stretch at all,” he said in the recording.

Traffic stop sparks investigation The investigation into Horsch and the house began with a traffic stop this summer.

Horsch’s son, Eugene Horsch – who also lived in the Chew Avenue house, was stopped by a park ranger at 6th and Market streets in June.

Investigators said Eugene Horsch and an unidentified woman were pulled over near a fire hydrant. The park ranger said he heard the woman tell Horsch, “You’re going to hurt me.”

Horsch and his nameless passenger were suspected of doing drugs. A search of his BMW revealed crack cocaine and guns — a .40 caliber and .38 Special, according to court documents.

Horsch was also allegedly carrying fake Drug Enforcement Administration credentials in his car. The woman had Blair Tonzelli’s identification on her, which sources and investigators have since said set off alarms because Tonzelli was reported missing in 2023.

An attorney for Eugene Horsch — who remains jailed on weapons and narcotics offenses — has declined comment on the case. In a brief interview Friday, the attorney said he’s upset the Olney home will be, in his words, destroyed by the police activity.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.