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Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2002 22:43:11 -0700
From: radtimes <resist@best.com>
Subject: Former Guru Einhorn Convicted of 1977 Slaying
Former Guru Einhorn Convicted of 1977 Slaying
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-crime-einhorn.html
By REUTERS
October 17, 2002
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Former hippie guru Ira Einhorn, who eluded police
for 20 years as a fugitive in Europe, was convicted in the 1977 murder of
his girlfriend Holly Maddux on Thursday and sentenced to life in prison.
More than a quarter-century after police discovered the blond Bryn Mawr
College graduate's mummified remains in his apartment, a sequestered jury of
six men and six women needed less than 2-1/2 hours to reach their unanimous
verdict on a charge of first-degree murder.
``He had a warped mind. I can't say it no plainer than that,'' juror Tracy
Garett told reporters after 17 days of trial proceedings that included
lengthy testimony from Einhorn himself.
``Even on the witness stand, it was like he thought he was God,'' he added.
While imposing a sentence of life in prison without parole, Philadelphia
Common Pleas Judge William Mazzola lashed out at the 62-year-old radical as
``an intellectual dilettante who preyed on uninitiated, uninformed,
unsuspecting and inexperienced people.''
Einhorn, standing red-faced in a dark business suit as the verdict was
announced, declined to make a statement, but will appeal the conviction and
seek a new trial, his lawyer said.
The counterculture leader, who was once known as ``the Unicorn'' because his
last name means ``one horn'' in German, showed no emotion but pursed his
lips as if to whistle while sheriff's deputies hustled him from the packed
courtroom.
``This should go to prove that justice delayed is not justice denied,''
Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham later observed.
Einhorn, who helped launch Earth Day in 1970 and hobnobbed with
counterculture luminaries from Yippie leader Jerry Rubin to poet Allen
Ginsberg, allegedly bludgeoned Maddux to death on Sept. 11, 1977, when she
tried to end their five-year relationship. Police found her body in a
steamer trunk in the closet of his West Philadelphia apartment 18 months
later.
He was first arrested in March 1979 but jumped bail on the eve of his 1981
murder trial and spent two decades on the run in Europe, where he lived
under three different aliases.
Another Philadelphia jury convicted him in absentia and sentenced him to
life in prison in 1993.
But after police tracked him down in 1997 to a cottage in France, where he
was living with his Swedish-born wife, Annika, French authorities agreed to
extradite him only after U.S. authorities said he would get a new trial and
not face the death penalty.
Maddux's three sisters and one brother, who all grew up in Texas, said they
were not disappointed that he escaped a death sentence.
``I'm just vindictive enough to wish him a long life in prison in hopes that
he'll experience just one iota of what he did to Holly,'' said Buffy Hall,
one of Maddux's three sisters.
``We're locking him in a box and locking the closet door on him,'' she said.
Meanwhile, Einhorn attorney William Cannon said his client continues to
maintain his innocence. Einhorn claims the CIA framed him because of his
Cold War research into Soviet psychic weaponry.
``He's very disappointed, of course,'' said Cannon, who readily admitted
that the case was a tough one to defend.
``In terms of difficulties, start with the body in the trunk in his closet.
You have to start there. That was huge.''
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