Ira Einhorn, C’61

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The Unicorn’s Capture.

When Ira Einhorn, C’61, jumped bail in 1981 rather than stand trial for the 1977 murder of his girlfriend, Helen “Holly” Maddux, the presiding judge in Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas asked court officials why he had not been recaptured. “It’s not easy to find a planetary enzyme, your honor,” replied an assistant district attorney, borrowing a term that Einhorn had often used to describe himself during his years as a countercultural leader in Philadelphia.

For more than 16 years, Penn’s most famous fugitive managed to elude the authorities, though he was almost caught in Ireland and Sweden. But in June, he was finally arrested by French police in the village of Champagne-Mouton, where he had been living under the name Eugene Mallon. He is now in a French prison, and at an extradition hearing claimed he was the victim of a government conspiracy. A decision on his extradition will be made after another hearing in November; if he loses, he can appeal to the French Supreme Court.

Einhorn has already been convicted in absentia and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Maddux, whose remains were found in a trunk in his Powelton Village apartment in March of 1979, 18 months after she disappeared. At his bail hearing, a parade of influential people testified on his behalf, and bail was set at just $40,000.

In his 1988 bookThe Unicorn’s Secret, author Steven Levy reported, in harrowing detail, that Einhorn had physically attacked two former girlfriends when they tried to leave him. Maddux had reportedly been planning to break off their relationship when she disappeared. At the time of his arrest, he was living with a Swedish woman named Anika Flodin, whose attempt to get a French driver’s license using the name Mallon eventually led to Einhorn’s arrest.

By Sam Hughes

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