Fugitive Guru Arrested in France, 16 Years After Killing Girlfriend

PHILADELPHIA — A New Age guru who gained a following among the rich and influential in the 1970s before he beat his girlfriend to death and stuffed her body in a steamer trunk has been captured in France after 16 years on the run.

Ira Einhorn, 57, fled to Europe in 1981, shortly before his murder trial was to begin. A Philadelphia court convicted him in absentia and sentenced him to life in prison in 1993. Authorities finally caught up with him Friday.

His current girlfriend’s application for a French driver’s license and tips that followed a story about Einhorn on television’s “Unsolved Mysteries” led authorities to the charismatic fugitive.

French police arrested Einhorn at a converted windmill in the rural Bordeaux region that was believed to have been his home since 1992.

Before his arrest, Einhorn was well known in Philadelphia as a leader of the local antiwar movement and a 1971 candidate for mayor. He also was a ladies’ man and an eccentric known for answering his door naked.

Although he had a scraggly beard and long hair, wore dirty clothes and frequently smelled bad, Einhorn became a successful New Age guru in the 1970s with an international network of scientists, corporate sponsors and wealthy benefactors.

In 1977, Einhorn killed his then-girlfriend, Helen “Holly” Maddux, a Bryn Mawr College graduate from Tyler, Texas. Police, responding to complaints from neighbors about a stench coming from his apartment, found Maddux’s mummified remains in a trunk in Einhorn’s closet 18 months after she disappeared.

His influential acquaintances packed a courtroom to vouch for his character, and Einhorn was released on $40,000 bail. He then fled.