There was, however, a side of Ira Einhorn the crowds and news cameras never saw. In private, he was allegedly jealous, abusive, and self-centered. In 1979, Einhorn became the prime suspect in the disappearance of his one-time girlfriend, Holly Maddux. Ira Einhorn and Holly Maddux's 5- year relationship was stormy and marred by countless breakups. But in the beginning it had been different. Einhorn's charm and personality had seduced Holly Maddux. Holly, a one-time high school cheerleader, was the product of small-town Texas. She wandered into Ira's heady world during the fall of 1972 when they met in a cafe. Holly was apparently so overwhelmed by the force of Ira's personality that within a few days they were living together. Although Holly was considered intelligent and very creative in her own right, she was apparently overshadowed by the force of Ira's personality.

As the couple's relationship progressed, a friend eventually confronted Holly about Ira's apparent abuse after noticing unusual marks on Holly's neck. Holly began weaning herself from Ira and by July 1977, she walked out on him without bothering to pack her belongings. Holly wound up at a beach resort near New York City, where she began a romance with Saul Lapidus. On September 9, 1977, Ira Einhorn called Holly and was reportedly irate that Holly was involved with someone else. He insisted that she come to New York immediately to collect her belongings. When Holly didn't return as planned, Saul Lapidus and several of Holly's friends reported her absence to authorities. Philadelphia detectives interviewed Ira Einhorn, who confirmed that Holly did come to his apartment to pick up her things. Einhorn told police that while he was in the shower, Holly left his apartment, saying she was going to the store. He claimed he never saw her again.

Holly's disappearance didn't make sense to her family. They hired 2 former FBI agents to investigate. Their ambitious report filled hundreds of pages, contained dozens of interviews and detailed the events surrounding Holly's disappearance. The investigators located a couple who had gone to the movies with Ira and Holly during the weekend Holly went to pick up her belongings. It was the last time she was known to be alive. A few days later, Einhorn tried to convince friends to help him dump a large, heavy trunk in a near-by river. He claimed the trunk was filled with secret Russian documents. Finally, the tenants in the apartment below Einhorn's told investigators about a choking stench seeping into their apartment. They also showed them a sticky brown stain in the ceiling directly below a closet in Einhorn's apartment.

Authorities went to Einhorn's apartment on March 28, 1979. By then, Holly Maddux had been missing for 18 months. Armed with a search warrant, police raided Einhorn's apartment. There, inside a sealed trunk in a locked closet, they found the partially decomposed remains of Holly Maddux. But Einhorn came up with an explanation. He claimed the FBI and CIA had framed him by planting Holly's body in his closet. Einhorn's attorney, one-time Philadelphia D.A. Arlen Specter (now a U.S. senator) managed to get bail for Ira Einhorn. In January of 1981, 2 days before the start of his trial, Ira Einhorn fled the country. After a dozen years had passed, Philadelphia authorities made an extraordinary choice to put Einhorn on trial, in absentia, for the murder of Holly Maddux. It took the jury only 2 hours to find Ira Einhorn guilty.

Whether Einhorn ever learned of his conviction remains a matter of speculation. Since jumping bail, he has lived in Europe, primarily Ireland and Sweden. Einhorn was last known to be in the company of a woman named Annika Flodden. She is not suspected of any crime, and authorities believe she is totally unaware that Einhorn is a convicted killer.

UPDATE: The long, cold trail of Ira Einhorn, Philadelphia's murderous guru fugitive, ended at a remodeled windmill in the south of France. It was there, on Friday, June 13, 1997, that Einhorn was arrested after 16 years on the run. It was dogged police work, combined with the help of a persistent Unsolved Mysteries viewer, Swedish-American Hjordis Reichel, 65, and a lucky break that led to Einhorn's capture.

Because of Reichel's connection with a high-ranking Swedish police official, authorities in Pennsylvania were poised to receive key information about Einhorn's girlfriend. A DMV application for a foreign driver's license is what gave Einhorn and his girlfriend, Swedish-born Anika Flodden, away. When she applied for a French driver's license in 1994 under an assumed last name that Einhorn also used, Flodden cited her previous license issued in Sweden under her true name. Officials followed the trail back to France where they watched for Einhorn for about a month. Their persistence paid off with Einhorn's arrest on June 13, 1997. Were it not for Reichel's insistence that Swedish and American authorities try to find a connection to the girlfriend and her home country, who knows if they ever would have found the reference to her maiden name in the records, which is what allowed authorities to follow Flodden back to the home in France that she shared with the notorious Einhorn.

Although Einhorn had been convicted in absentia in 1993, he successfully fought extradition back to the United States for over four years. (French law required that foreign nationals not be extradited based on trials in absentia.) When Pennsylvania officials agreed to give Einhorn a new trial, France agreed to send the fugitive back to the United States. On July 20, 2001, Einhorn was flown back to Philadelphia and turned over to the police. Ira Einhorn was sentenced to life in prison.

The 1979 mug shot of Ira Einhorn.