Ira Einhorn Found Guilty of Murder
'70s Hippie Guru, Longtime Fugitive Ira Einhorn Found Guilty in 1977 Slaying
P H I L A D E L P H I A, Oct. 17 Former hippie guru Ira Einhorn, who hid out in Europe for nearly 17 years after being charged with killing his girlfriend, was found guilty Thursday of murdering her and stuffing her mummified corpse in his closet.
Einhorn, 62, faces an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole.
Einhorn was a 1970s counterculture superstar who held "be-in" events and counted yippie Jerry Rubin and rock star Peter Gabriel among his acquaintances.
He insisted he was innocent and said he last saw 30-year-old Holly Maddux as she left to make a phone call. He said he had no idea how her body turned up in a steamer trunk in his closet.
The guilty verdict capped a stunning fall for a gadfly who lived the life of a country gentleman during his time in France. He appeared on television shows after his arrest five years ago to discuss his plight and posed naked in his garden for Esquire magazine.
Prosecutors said Einhorn was a loutish womanizer who turned violent whenever a woman wanted to leave him. They had him read to jurors from his poems and diary entries, in which he wrote "to kill what you love when you can't have it seems so natural" and "violence always marks the end of a relationship."
The six-man, six-woman jury deliberated less than a day before reaching its verdict. The jurors had been sequestered since late September to avoid influence from media coverage of the case.
He denied abusing or killing her, and suggested that someone could have gotten into his apartment while he was away from home in 1978. He also said he didn't learn until a court appearance that Maddux's remains had been found in his closet.
"When I finally found out it was Holly, I broke up for days. It ripped me to pieces," he told a packed courtroom.
Einhorn has said he was framed for Maddux's murder by the CIA because of his knowledge of what he called their secret mind-control weapon experiments. He did not say in court who he believed was responsible for her death.
Einhorn once hobnobbed with the influential players of Philadelphia's moneyed establishment, as well as counterculture figures.
He demonstrated against the Vietnam War and for civil rights and took part in Philadelphia's first Earth Day in 1970 though an Earth Day ornganizer testified that was only because he forced his way onto the stage. His New Age philosophy got him jobs as a consultant and speaker for big firms, including Bell Telephone, which looked to Einhorn to explain how they could tap into the counterculture.
Represented by soon-to-be Sen. Arlen Specter at a 1979 hearing, Einhorn was released on an unusually low $40,000 bail largely thanks to testimony from prominent Philadelphians about his excellent character. To be released, he needed only $4,000, which was paid by Barbara Bronfman, then an heiress-by-marriage of the Seagram distillery family, who shared Einhorn's interest in the paranormal.
Einhorn vanished on the eve of his 1981 trial. In 1993, he was convicted in absentia of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
He lived in England, Ireland and Sweden under pseudonyms before he was caught in 1997 at a converted windmill in the south of France, where he lived with his Swedish-born wife.
Einhorn was returned to the United States in the summer of 2001 after a European court refused to halt his long-fought extradition. He has already been ordered by a civil jury to pay Maddux's family more than $900 million.
'70s Hippie Guru, Longtime Fugitive Ira Einhorn Found Guilty in 1977 Slaying
P H I L A D E L P H I A, Oct. 17 Former hippie guru Ira Einhorn, who hid out in Europe for nearly 17 years after being charged with killing his girlfriend, was found guilty Thursday of murdering her and stuffing her mummified corpse in his closet.
Einhorn, 62, faces an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole.
Einhorn was a 1970s counterculture superstar who held "be-in" events and counted yippie Jerry Rubin and rock star Peter Gabriel among his acquaintances.
He insisted he was innocent and said he last saw 30-year-old Holly Maddux as she left to make a phone call. He said he had no idea how her body turned up in a steamer trunk in his closet.
The guilty verdict capped a stunning fall for a gadfly who lived the life of a country gentleman during his time in France. He appeared on television shows after his arrest five years ago to discuss his plight and posed naked in his garden for Esquire magazine.
Prosecutors said Einhorn was a loutish womanizer who turned violent whenever a woman wanted to leave him. They had him read to jurors from his poems and diary entries, in which he wrote "to kill what you love when you can't have it seems so natural" and "violence always marks the end of a relationship."
The six-man, six-woman jury deliberated less than a day before reaching its verdict. The jurors had been sequestered since late September to avoid influence from media coverage of the case.
He denied abusing or killing her, and suggested that someone could have gotten into his apartment while he was away from home in 1978. He also said he didn't learn until a court appearance that Maddux's remains had been found in his closet.
"When I finally found out it was Holly, I broke up for days. It ripped me to pieces," he told a packed courtroom.
Einhorn has said he was framed for Maddux's murder by the CIA because of his knowledge of what he called their secret mind-control weapon experiments. He did not say in court who he believed was responsible for her death.
Einhorn once hobnobbed with the influential players of Philadelphia's moneyed establishment, as well as counterculture figures.
He demonstrated against the Vietnam War and for civil rights and took part in Philadelphia's first Earth Day in 1970 though an Earth Day ornganizer testified that was only because he forced his way onto the stage. His New Age philosophy got him jobs as a consultant and speaker for big firms, including Bell Telephone, which looked to Einhorn to explain how they could tap into the counterculture.
Represented by soon-to-be Sen. Arlen Specter at a 1979 hearing, Einhorn was released on an unusually low $40,000 bail largely thanks to testimony from prominent Philadelphians about his excellent character. To be released, he needed only $4,000, which was paid by Barbara Bronfman, then an heiress-by-marriage of the Seagram distillery family, who shared Einhorn's interest in the paranormal.
Einhorn vanished on the eve of his 1981 trial. In 1993, he was convicted in absentia of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
He lived in England, Ireland and Sweden under pseudonyms before he was caught in 1997 at a converted windmill in the south of France, where he lived with his Swedish-born wife.
Einhorn was returned to the United States in the summer of 2001 after a European court refused to halt his long-fought extradition. He has already been ordered by a civil jury to pay Maddux's family more than $900 million.
Ewwwww! That's an insult to women! Blech! 
