Ira Einhorn Returns to U.S.

ByABC News
July 19, 2001, 7:56 PM

July 20 -- Convicted murderer Ira Einhorn was extradited from France early today and turned over to authorities in Philadelphia where he faces a new trial in the bludgeoning death of his girlfriend.

Einhorn, a former hippie and an organizer of the first Earth Day, went on the lam in 1981, shortly before he was set to stand trial for the death of his girlfriend Holly Maddox, who vanished in 1977. Police found her partially mummified corpse stuffed in his steamer trunk 18 months later.

With the help of rich friends, he began a new life in Europe. A Pennsylvania court eventually tried him in absentia, convicted him of murder, and gave him a life sentence in 1993.

He was captured in France in 1997 after authorities got tips sparked by a television program on his case.

Then 57, the fugitive told ABCNEWS correspondent Connie Chung at the the time: "I like living in France. I like the situation here. But I have something hanging over my head, and I will for the rest of my life."

French authorities caught up with him at his country home in Bordeaux, but the French consider trials in absentia an abuse of human rights and a lower court refused to extradite him. Finally, Pennsylvania passed a special law to allow him a new trial and French judges agreed in February of 1999 to send him home.

Einhorn, once known as Philadelphia's foremost radical, then took his case to the French Supreme Court, which turned him down and set the stage for his extradition.

His hopes of staying in France were dashed last week when the European Court of Human Rights dropped a request it made a week earlier for a delay in the extradition.

Einhorn slit his throat last week when he lost his last French appeal, but he was not seriously injured, and the European court determined Thursday in its decision that he was fit to travel.

American Law vs. French Justice

"We agreed to do cartwheels for the French government and ourselves," says Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham. "We were determined that we would do everything to get Ira back."