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Wednesday, June 18, 1997

French authorities say the claim was absurd -- the prisoner had the fingerprints of Philadelphia's long-sought fugitive -- but he stuck by his story that he was a writer named Eugene Mallon.

The man who called himself Mallon seemed to cling to the identity he had carved out for himself in this remote village of narrow roads and flowered hillsides. He lived a cloistered life befitting someone who wished not to be found.

He was presented to the village as a mysterious, brooding author who, it was said, had published four or five books in his native Britain. It was assumed that he spent his days writing inside the converted 19th-century windmill he shared with a Swedish woman, Annika Flodin, who was as forthcoming as he was withdrawn.

Even as gendarmes wearing bullet-proof vests and brandishing 9mm Berettas hauled him naked from his bed on the morning of Friday the 13th, he professed ignorance of anyone named Ira Einhorn. Asked whether he knew why the police had come, he replied simply: ``No.''

Eighteen years ago, Ira Einhorn denied knowing anything about the mummified body in a trunk in his small Powelton apartment. The remains proved to be those of Helen ``Holly'' Maddux, his live-in girlfriend who had been missing for 18 months.

Rather than face the trial that would have established that he bashed her skull because she threatened to leave him, Einhorn fled in 1981. The trail, through Ireland and then Sweden, grew hot and then cold over the years, but it finally led police here, to a village of 1,000 in the stunning countryside of southwestern France.

Since arriving in 1993, Einhorn had been a somewhat aloof character -- most townspeople said his French was too primitive to permit easy conversation -- but his wife remains a popular and sympathetic character.

``He didn't speak French very well. It was easier for her. The population here knew he was a writer,'' said Mayor Jack Jouaron.

Jouaron said most people believed that Einhorn, or Mallon, was an Englishman like many of the retirees who have settled in the area and that such socializing as he did seemed to be mainly with the British.

The gendarmes said Einhorn married Flodin in Britain in September 1992. When they came to the village about a year later, she proved to be fluent in French and far more outgoing.

``Especially the wife, who we saw often, we liked her very much, she was respected,'' said Jouaron.
It was Flodin's desire to settle into her rural life that ultimately undid Einhorn. When she applied for a French driver's license, she supplied information on her Swedish origins, clues that tipped authorities as to ``Mallon's'' true identity.

The couple had bought a rambling, converted mill and bakery a little more than a mile outside of town, a secluded spot with a pond and small stream and no close neighbors.

The French police, who have a policy of not speaking for attribution, say they believe the couple paid 750,000 francs for the seven-room stone building with an orange tile roof -- about $130,000 at current exchange rates.

They bought from a 75-year-old woman who, with her husband, had converted the ruined mill into a residence. The seller, Madame LeFevre -- she would not give her first name -- said the couple seemed to be in a hurry to close the deal.

Like many in town, LeFevre liked the wife, but not Einhorn. ``He became odious,'' she said.

Claudette Racaud, who runs a tobacco and news shop in the village, said either Einhorn or Flodin came twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, to get their special order of the International Herald Tribune.

``He doesn't have the face of a criminal. Sincerely, he doesn't look like someone who could kill somebody.'' Racaud said.

She described him as stout but not fat, very strong, with a beard but no moustache, and a full head of curly graying hair.

``He was nice, he was smiling, but no conversation. I think he spoke French very poorly,'' Racaud said.

The police said they planned their approach to the isolated mill carefully, meeting in the village Thursday night to study blueprints of the mill. There were three local police from Bordeaux and 11 from the national gendarmerie.

About 7:30 Friday morning, seven of the police surrounded the mill while the other seven, guns drawn, went directly through the white gate on the road.

There is a small courtyard between the gate and the door -- freshly painted a brilliant royal blue -- and the police entered and knocked for three or four minutes before Flodin finally answered.

They announced to her that they had come with an arrest warrant, but told her nothing else except, ``You are with someone who is dangerous.''

One officer remained with her, while the six others found him, naked, in bed. They handcuffed Einhorn, then removed the cuffs for him to dress and to get his identification papers.

From 8 a.m. till noon, the police said, the man continued to deny that he was Einhorn. He was eventually taken to a jail just outside Bordeaux, where he remained yesterday while the wheels of extradition started to turn.

In the District Attorney's Office in Philadelphia, administrator for extraditions Richard DiBenedetto, a lead investigator in the case, said he was beginning to prepare the documents and evidence required by the U.S. extradition treaty with France.

The paperwork must be certified by the U.S. Justice Department, which will then pass the matter to the State Department. Einhorn can appeal any court proceedings in France, DiBenedetto said, and so it is impossible to say how long it may be before Einhorn returns to America. In the meantime, the people of Champagne-Mouton will come to grips with the dramatic turn in their village life. ``An American Murderer Flushed Out,'' a local newspaper headline said yesterday.

``People are really, really surprised,'' Racaud, the tobacconist, said.
The police say that Einhorn's wife seemed to furnish the epitaph for their contented life in this quiet corner of France, now surely gone for good.

As she left to accompany her husband on his trip to jail, she locked the doors, drew the shutters, looked back and said, ``This was paradise.''

Inquirer staff writers Larry Fish and Michael Matza contributed to this article.