Philadelphia police have revealed the outlines of a sprawling and disturbing death investigation centered on a home at 417 Chew Avenue. During the case, homicide detectives examining a hard drive recovered from the property found videos and images of two women who appear to be deceased. Officials described it as one of the largest and most complex investigations the city's homicide unit has ever taken on, warning it will be a long and painstaking process.
The two women depicted in the material have now been identified, and their families were formally notified during the day. The first was named as Maribel Fresses, 27, who was last seen in February 2018. About two hours later, detectives notified the family of the second woman, Gabriela Amarando, who had been missing since September 2012. The disappearance of another missing person, Blair Tunzelli, had earlier helped open the inquiry into the address.
According to police, the case first developed when the DEA and officers assigned to a federal task force served a search warrant at 417 Chew Avenue. Inside, investigators recovered an illegal gun and gun parts, a marijuana grow operation with a street value of more than 280,000 dollars, an FBI badge and credentials bearing the photograph of a man connected to the house, and five urns containing what officers believe to be cremated remains.
The alarming findings prompted the DEA to contact the homicide unit, which opened its own investigation. A subsequent search warrant uncovered what appeared to be a home laboratory in the basement, along with containers of an unknown oily substance and more than 50 electronic devices, including hard drives, computers and thumb drives. The FBI Evidence Recovery Team traveled from Quantico to help process the scene, and more than 95 search warrants have been served on the house to date.
The volume of digital evidence has been described as astonishing. Investigators say they must review more than 600,000 images, 70,000 videos and over 10,000 pages of writings, work that will take a great deal of time. The first hard drive alone represents only about five to seven percent of the total material, and it was on that drive that detectives found footage showing the two women alive and then, at a later point, apparently deceased inside the home.
The case presents unusual legal challenges because investigators do not have bodies to work with. Officials said that, based on the video and photographic evidence, the medical examiner believes the individuals shown are deceased, but cannot conclusively declare them dead or issue death certificates without physical remains. Police explained that, in the absence of a body, only the Philadelphia Orphans' Court would be able to formally declare the individuals deceased.
Work at the property is far from finished. Officers have begun excavating part of the front yard and are examining the suspect's possible connection to a series of cases in which women disappeared over the years. With increased police activity continuing at 417 Chew Avenue, investigators appealed for public assistance, urging anyone who was inside the home or who had contact with the men linked to it to come forward as they try to piece together the full timeline.
