City & Region
Tuesday, June 17, 1997

Einhorn's Swedish-born wife applied for a French driver's license. The French licensing agency wanted proof of her previous driver's license, which happened to have been issued in Stockholm, where she and Einhorn lived before he eluded capture in 1988.

Swedish authorities recognized her name, saw the forwarding address in a southern French village, put two and two together, and Ira Einhorn was in handcuffs awaiting a free trip back to life in prison in the United States for the 1977 murder of his girlfriend, Helen ``Holly'' Maddux.

Investigators say Einhorn's arrest Friday in a rural French village near Bordeaux illustrates how perseverance, detective work and luck came into play to trap a fugitive as elusive as Einhorn.

``Following leads overseas is not like following leads in Newark, or Baltimore or Washington, D.C.,'' said Bob C. Reutter, who heads the FBI's Philadelphia office. ``Getting the information over there, getting it to the people who need to have it takes a lot more time.''

In Einhorn's case, authorities knew he had fled to Dublin in 1981, a month before his trial in Maddux's murder. At that time, however, the U.S. and Ireland did not have an extradition treaty, and the FBI had no way to arrest him.

In 1986, Reutter said, Einhorn was sighted regularly on the campus of Trinity College in Dublin. By then the United States had an extradition treaty with Ireland, but other legal delays cropped up, Einhorn spooked and then fled.

Einhorn next turned up two years later, in Stockholm, living with a Swedish woman named Annika Flodin. Once again, Reutter said, U.S. officials began laying the groundwork for extradition. This time, the FBI chief said, someone apparently tipped off Einhorn, and he eluded police by about an hour.

Investigators had suspicions about Flodin but could not pursue them, and the trail went cold. ``The reason we didn't immediately go after her [ Flodin],'' said Rich DiBenedetto, head of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office extradition unit, ``is that there was no romantic link. She told police he was just a boarder. After that, she refused to cooperate.''

Nevertheless, DiBenedetto said, based on Einhorn's reputation and history in Philadelphia, he believed that a woman would be the key to finding Einhorn.

``One thing about Ira,'' DiBenedetto added, ``he always depended on someone to take care of him.''

After waiting ``for the dust to settle,'' DiBenedetto said, investigators took another look at Flodin.

Flodin left Sweden in 1991 and went to Denmark, where she stayed for a year. In 1993, DiBenedetto said, investigators asked Danish authorities to check addresses for Flodin but were told no one there knew of her. Checking back with Swedish authorities, DiBenedetto said, investigators learned Flodin had left a forwarding address of a Eugene Mallon, a bookseller in Dublin.

Mallon was a known clue on the Einhorn trail. Back in the '80s, DiBenedetto said, investigators had found books in his Dublin bookstore with Einhorn's name on them.

DiBenedetto said he was certain they were on to Einhorn: ``What possible link could there be between a Swedish citizen and an Irish citizen?''

Suspecting that Einhorn might now be posing as Mallon, investigators began searching for Flodin in Dublin. They could find no trace of her. In 1993 Einhorn was tried in absentia in Philadelphia, convicted of murdering Maddux, and sentenced to life in prison.

Then, after watching a May 31, 1996, Unsolved Mysteries episode about Einhorn and the Maddux murder case, a Swedish woman living in California, Yordis Reicher, called in a tip. The tip turned out to be useless, but during their conversation, Reicher told DiBenedetto she had a relative connected with the Swedish police.

``That helped,'' DiBenedetto said. ``If you have the personal aspect, some connection, that makes all the difference.''

As DiBenedetto was making some contacts with police in Sweden, he said, a Swedish Interpol officer named Jan Eklindir discovered a 1994 query from French officials trying to verify a Swedish driver's license in the name of Annika Flodin.

The query said Flodin was married and had changed her surname to Mallon and was living at Champagne-Mouton near Bordeaux in southwestern France.

The FBI told French officials of their suspicions that Flodin was living with the fugitive Einhorn under the name of Mallon. About three weeks ago, Reutter said, French officials established surveillance of the converted stone windmill in which the couple had lived since early 1993.

Early Friday morning, French police said, 12 gendarmes and three judicial police officers surrounded the 100-year-old stone house.

Eugene Mallon was arrested while still in bed; Ira Einhorn's 16-year run was over.