Hippie icon fights murder charge by invoking the stars

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the author of this article, printed in 2002, and then reprinted on Buzzle. I've probably read this one 4 or 5 times over the years so I thought I'd include it here on the All Ira page. The last line is indicative of the general feeling for Ira. It is also one of the articles that has mention of Peter Gabriel. In fact there is even some promise here that Gabriel was still in the mix and could have attended the courtroom proceedings. Alas, he played his show in Philly that week, and turned the other cheek. We can make some assumptions as to why -- maybe he had given Ira some coin to sock away for one of those rainy nights while on the run, or maybe The Unicorn self-worthed Peter in some conversations he didn't want to hear. In any case, there is not more than a peep from Peter about his relationship with Ira Einhorn so mark that as yet another sad ending.

Author not credited

In the Sixties and Seventies, when flower power raged, Ira Einhorn liked to describe himself as a 'planetary enzyme'. It was a suitable term for the former guru who was not even present for his first murder conviction nearly a decade ago.

Tomorrow, the long odyssey of Ira Einhorn nears its conclusion: the infamous New Age fugitive goes on trial again for the 1977 murder of his lover, a pretty Texas heiress named Helen 'Holly' Maddux. This time Einhorn will be present in the flesh and apparently in spirit in a Philadelphia courtroom.

'He's remarkably well, upbeat and looking forward to it,' says his defence counsel William Cannon. So well, in fact, that 62-year-old Einhorn has invited some old friends from his hippie seer heyday to speak to his good character, among them singer Peter Gabriel, actress Ellen Burstyn and Edward Bacon, father of actor Kevin Bacon.

Such is the bizarre world of Ira Einhorn, a man who once hung out with beat heroes and hippie superstars such as Allen Ginsberg, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, organised 'be-in' events, ran for mayor of Philadelphia on a ticket of free love and expanded consciousness, and considered himself too mythic to wash; a man who preferred to be known as 'The Unicorn' because that was the creature that would lead us into the Age of Aquarius.

The trial is unlikely to involve too much free-thinking or proselytising of the benefits of group sex. Einhorn, who was arrested in France in 1997 after a 16-year manhunt and extradited by the French on condition that he would be retried, is facing a charge of murder in the first degree which carries a sentence of life without parole.

Prosecutors say it is an open-and-shut case and do not believe any stars will turn up to revisit their acquaintance with Einhorn or wish to be associated with a man who has already been found guilty once of bludgeoning Maddux to death and stashing her body in a steamer-trunk yards from where he slept in the apartment they had shared.

Eighteen months after the murder, Maddux's mummified corpse was discovered after neighbours had complained of the stench from fluids dripping down the wall. When police made their grim discovery, Einhorn said simply: 'You found what you found.'

However, the long road to justice was only beginning. Einhorn said Maddux had vanished one night after saying she was going to the grocery shop. But even after his arrest, he managed to get respected, if deluded, members of Philadelphia society to speak on his behalf.

He was granted bail for a small sum put up by Barbara Bronfman, former wife of Seagram distilling heir Charles Bronfman. Shortly before his trial was set to begin in 1981, Einhorn disappeared. 'The evidence was so insurmountable, he had no choice but to take off,' says Michael Chitwood, the lead detective in the case. 'There was no way this guy was going to stand trial.'

Einhorn's flight took him first to Ireland where he lived under the name Ben Moore. Philadelphia investigators believe he was supported by wealthy benefactors taken in by his strange charm and ideas of paranormal psychology and mind control during his flight. 'Even if you're a sack of shit who's a planetary enzyme, you've got to eat something,' said one.

One theory has Einhorn seeking support from British rock star Peter Gabriel, a founder of Genesis. But although Gabriel admits meeting Einhorn in the Seventies, and Richard DiBenedetto, who led the manhunt for the Philadelphia district attorney's office, says the pair met in London within the past decade, there is no evidence that Gabriel - who did not apparently know Einhorn was an accused murderer - supplied him with any financial assistance.

Einhorn's lawyer, Richard Cannon, says Einhorn visited Gabriel at the singer's Wiltshire millhouse on several occasions. 'He [Einhorn] thinks Mr Gabriel's testimony could be very helpful,' he says. (Ironically, Gabriel is scheduled to play in Philadelphia on 18 November - in time, perhaps, for a visit to the court. A spokesman for Gabriel said he had not decided one way or the other.)

Einhorn then met up with Anika Flodin, daughter of well-to-do parents in Stockholm. Using the appropriated identity of Eugene Mallon, he moved with her to the secluded village of Champagne-Mouton near Bordeaux. The poet-prophet passed himself off as a writer of mysteries and an anti-nuclear campaigner, and attracted a following of impressionable French hippies who dubbed him Vieux Baba Cool - Old Cool Daddy.

'We were not surprised that even before the murder he was a guru,' recalled a neighbour of Einhorn during his his French exodus. 'He talked about things uncommon, but not extraterrestrial.'

In 1997, the authorities caught up with him after tracing a driver's licence Flodin had applied for in Sweden. But after his arrest, the French authorities refused to repatriate him unless he was granted a new trial - a condition met by a change in the state constitution. When Einhorn came home to face trial two years ago, he seemed to have lost none of the self-importance and self-promotion skills that had served him so well in attracting benefactors. He likened his stay in France to the apartheid-era imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and his situation to that of some 4,000 black men on death row in the US.

Prosecutors say their case against Einhorn is water-tight. 'We have a smoking gun already: we have the victim's body in a chest in his closet,' says assistant district attorney Joel Rosen.

The defence plans to introduce contradictory forensic tests from 1979 that could raise doubt in the minds of jurors and testimony from witnesses who say they saw Maddux alive after the time prosecutors contend she was bludgeoned to death. They also say they have an FBI report that says that - besides her corpse - no evidence of decomposition was found in the trunk or on the floorboards.

'If her body did not decompose in the trunk that upsets the case,' says Cannon. Dr Herbert Fillinger, a forensics expert, is expected to testify that Maddux could have been dead for as little as two months when her body was discovered.

Whatever turns the case may take over its projected six-week duration, the trial will shed light on an era of hippie dreams. How were wealthy and impressionable counter-culture dreamers of Philadelphia, Ireland and France taken in by a man who has been found guilty of beating his girlfriend to death?

One former acolyte, George Keegan, recalls meeting Einhorn before he jumped bail. 'We were walking down the street together. People who once would come up and hug Ira crossed the street and averted their eyes... He looked at me, sad, and said, "I'm not going to be able to be Ira Einhorn now". And I realised he was a selfish, arrogant bastard.'

© Guardian News & Media 2008
Published: 9/29/2002