THE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS	Local Friday, June 20, 1997

It was the way the hippie guru talked with women, say those who knew him.

He held their gaze. He used his hands to emphasize a point. His forceful voice asked their opinions on cryogenics or whatever topic he fixated on. Self-confidence oozed from his unbathed pores.

It did not matter that he was not the cutest or the most hygienic.

``Ira was quite charming,'' said Harry Jay Katz, an Einhorn friend and infamous Philly playboy.

``He would say, `What do you think about this or how do you like this?' '' Katz said. ``In actuality, Ira didn't care what they thought, but he gave women a sense he did care, and it worked quite successfully for him.''

He was such a charming manipulator that a steady stream of women was always willing to take care of him and support him financially.

But beneath the charm and intellectual intensity lurked a darker soul, a sexist and a control freak who tried to kill two former lovers, then calmly reflected about it in his journals, according to ``The Unicorn's Secret,'' a book about Einhorn's life.

It was that twisted demon who killed his girlfriend, Helen ``Holly'' Maddux, and stuffed her in a trunk in the closet of his Powelton Village apartment. Einhorn, who fled right before his trial in 1981 and who was later convicted of the murder in absentia, was captured last week in a French country village.

Einhorn preyed on shy, insecure and vulnerable women, ones he could easily dominate, said Richard DiBenedetto, head of the district attorney's fugitives and extradition unit who tracked down the aging hippie.

And true to his methods, the scraggly haired, tubby Einhorn was married to a pretty blonde, Annika Flodin, when he was caught.

Flodin fits the profile of Einhorn's women perfectly. Like Maddux, Flodin is a quiet strawberry-blonde who kept house and baked bread.

The pattern -- guru-chasers made it part of the psychological profile they used to track Einhorn -- included a preference for slender women who were no more than medium height, DiBenedetto said. Those women have also typically been attractive and some years younger than Einhorn.

And like others before her, DiBenedetto suspects, Flodin had the money to support Einhorn.

It was Flodin's attempt to gain a French driver's license that alerted authorities to Einhorn's whereabouts.

For Einhorn's buddy, Katz, it's no surprise he was caught with a pretty woman at his side. ``I always thought if Ira was going to get caught, it would be because of a broad,'' he said.

Katz, who met Einhorn in the late '50s, said Einhorn loved chasing women he could not have.
``They were a little trophy,'' Katz said.

He and Einhorn dated many of the same women. Katz remembers that Einhorn used his blustering intellect to impress women.

``He'd make up an author, then say to me, `You remember that chapter by Hymie Yankel?' and go on and on about it,'' Katz said.

Yet none of Einhorn's conquests seemed bothered by his piggish appearance. Katz said Einhorn smelled so bad, he never let him in his house.

``I would have had to fumigate it,'' he said.

One woman who went out with Einhorn twice during the mid-70s described his overbearing self-assurance. She remembers that Einhorn visited her apartment once and told her, ``When we sleep together -- and we will -- you won't forget it.''

What made Maddux's murder so surprising, she said, was that even when a woman rejected Einhorn, which she did, it did not matter to him. He just moved on to the next woman.

Robert Moss, who grew up with Einhorn in West Oak Lane and who later helped round up character witnesses at the 1979 bail hearing, recalls a teen-ager and young man who had no trouble getting girls.

``It was his mind and his personality,'' Moss said. ``He was very strong-willed. He had a tremendous sense of self-confidence and the rightness of his position.''

For Rita Siegal, one of Einhorn's former girlfriends, the power he emanated instantly hooked the insecure college student.

In ``The Unicorn's Secret,'' author Levy describes Einhorn's growing obsession with Siegal when they dated in 1962. But Siegal tried to break off the relationship.

Einhorn, Levy writes, went after Siegal and tried to strangle her. Siegal never pressed charges against him.

Later, Einhorn wrote in his journal, ``To kill what you love when you can't have it seems so natural that strangling Rita last night seemed so right.''

Three years later, it was Penn student Judy Lewis who found herself trying to break it off with the dashiki-clad Einhorn, Levy writes.

Lewis told Philadelphia homicide Detective Michael Chitwood that Einhorn grabbed an empty Coke bottle and smashed it over her head, according to the book.

As she fell to the floor bleeding, Einhorn held her by the neck, choking her, writes Levy.

In his journal, Einhorn writes, ``Where I am now after having hit Judy over the head with a Coke bottle, blood on my jacket and pants -- then making some feeble attempts to choke her . . . I'll be able, if she does not have me arrested, to go back to living a normal life. Violence always marks the end of a relationship. It is the final barrier over or through which no communication is possible.''

Then in 1977, the dark side lurched again. This time, his victim was the slight, almost ethereal, Maddux.

Her family could never understand how their beautiful Holly could ever be in love with ``The Pig Man,'' as her father called him.

``I'm sure he terrorized some people deep in their souls,'' said Meg Maddux Wakeman, Holly's younger sister. ``But here was someone he could talk to. He was brilliant and she was brilliant.

``I think that he probably realized she was too good for him and he didn't want to lose her.''

Staff writers Ron Goldwyn and Jim Nolan contributed to this report.

Philadelphia Online -- Philadelphia Daily News -- Local News Copyright Friday, June 20, 1997