THE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS	Local Tuesday, June 17, 1997

  Click here to meet investigator Rich DiBenedetto of the DA's office who relied on hunches and his wits in a 16-year search.

The long, cold trail of Ira Einhorn, Philadelphia's murderous guru fugitive, has ended at a remodeled windmill in the south of France.

But it may be months, even a year, before Einhorn -- nailed Friday to close a 16-year manhunt -- sees the inside of a Pennsylvania jail cell to begin his life sentence.

Einhorn, 57, fled just before he was to stand trial in 1981 for the killing of his girlfriend, Helen ``Holly'' Maddux. She had disappeared in 1977. Her decomposed body was found in 1979 in a steamer trunk in his apartment in Powelton Village, a politicized neighborhood where he had reigned as counterculture icon for years.

Einhorn was finally tried and convicted, in absentia, in 1993. He had been spotted in Ireland and Sweden in the 1980s, but the only recent sightings had been on real-TV fugitive dramas.

Yet Einhorn's life in France, and how it ended, is a quiet tale -- no flamboyance from the hippie business consultant who used to answer his door naked, no violence from a man convicted of bludgeoning his girlfriend to death, no escape for the fox who had twice eluded authorities by hours.

This time it was just dogged police work, some help from a persistent viewer of TV's ``Unsolved Mysteries,'' and, finally, a lucky break.

The beefy, bearded Einhorn, posing as an English writer, had lived with his younger Swedish wife since late 1992 in countryside that sounds like a fancy restaurant's wine list. Foreign retirees are common there, so the couple caused no stir in the village of Champagne-Mouton, among the vineyards of Cognac.

The old windmill, called Le Moulin de Guitry, converted to a house where they lived, was a mile down a country road. The man known as Eugene Mallon hardly ever came to town. He spoke halting French and seemed arrogant. He once got into a fight over a game of bridge.

The woman, Anika Flodin Mallon, biked into town for groceries and was much friendlier. She bought the papers, baked bread, and yearned for home. She was tall and strawberry blonde; villagers call her attractive.

While Mallon had no close friends in the village, he sometimes visited the cities of Angouleme, to the southwest, and Limoges, to the southeast. He was believed to spend many hours in the public library, doing research for serious writing projects back at le moulin.

Three years ago, the woman applied for a French driver's license and said she was already licensed in Sweden as Anika Flodin. Authorities made a routine check to Stockholm. The Mallons were soon tooling around the wine country in a red Fiat.

But the smart, cautious, most-wanted Einhorn had unwittingly swallowed his poison pill.

A month ago -- May 15 -- a Swedish Interpol officer informed Richard DiBenedetto, who tracks fugitives in the Philadelphia district attorney's office, that he had uncovered Flodin's 1994 application.

``I remember saying this is Ira's birthday, how about that?'' DiBenedetto said yesterday, savoring the capture of a man he's sought from the day he took charge of the fugitive office in 1981. ``They had an address, and the fact she was using the name Mallon, that was the key thing.''

Mallon, he said, is the name of an Irish friend who, investigators believe, may have harbored Einhorn in Dublin in the 1980s. FBI officials, who announced the arrest at a smile-filled press conference yesterday, said Einhorn had borrowed his friend's name.

``This is a classic example of us not giving up and the district attorney's office not giving up,'' said Bob C. Reutter, FBI special agent in charge for Philadelphia. ``This is a great day.''

Apparently neither Einhorn nor Flodin knew ``Mallon'' was a red-flag name.

``That's where we lucked out,'' DiBenedetto said. ``She had no idea. After 16 years, I guess we were due for some luck.

``I think Ira probably prepped her real well, but I think he really tripped up using the Mallon name.''

In late May, the DA's office obtained an international provisional arrest warrant, said Reutter. Despite red tape, he said, ``in this case it moved pretty quickly.''

Police sources in France said local gendarmes maintained a discreet surveillance until French authorities approved the warrant.

At about 6 a.m. Friday -- French law frowns on house arrests except during daylight hours -- three plainclothes officers and 10 uniformed police arrived at the windmill-house. They knocked on the door and told Mallon that he was being taken into custody as Einhorn.

``He seemed very surprised, and insisted that the police were making a mistake,'' said one officer at the scene. `` `I am not this man, I am Eugene Mallon,' he said.''

The graying, bearded man was driven to the local police station. A police fingerprint expert waited with an ink pad and a copy of prints collected from Einhorn years ago.

The prints were a perfect match, police sources said.

The man, still denying he was Einhorn, was transferred to Angouleme and, from there, to the more secure Maison D'arret de Gradijnon in Bordeaux.

The FBI's Reutter said French police described Einhorn, during surveillance, as ``very cautious, almost weary and suspicious.'' After his arrest he was ``cool, cold.''

At the windmill, police found a passport in the name of Eugene Mallon and airplane tickets indicating frequent trips to London, Sweden and Norway.

FBI and DA's officials wouldn't speculate on how Einhorn and Flodin supported themselves. He had previously gotten money from Canadian liquor heiress Barbara Bronfman, but she reportedly withdrew her secret support after reading about herself in a book about Einhorn.

As the unmasking of Einhorn unfolded, Flodin was back in the windmill refusing interviews.

A reporter for a regional paper told the Daily News, ``We managed to reach her by phone, but she refused to talk about her husband's arrest. She said, `If you are a journalist, I have nothing to say to you. Sorry but I'll hang up.' ''

Stunned villagers remembered Einhorn/Mallon, often vaguely, sometimes vividly.

``He had a very bad temper,'' said Andre Rampnoul-Duvigneau, who had played bridge with him. ``He was always convinced he was right and he pretended he could play better than the rest of us.

``He would often remind us that he was used to playing against his computer. We eventually had a fight, and we never spoke again to each other.''

Everybody liked Anika.

``She would come and visit me often,'' said Rampnoul-Duvigneau. ``I have a big yard with lots of flowers. She liked flowers and vegetables. I often gave her cuttings. They were vegetarians and I know she's the one who baked the bread.''

Once Rampnoul-Duvigneau advised Anika to leave her husband.

``She had told me that she was bored living here and that she was having problems getting a permit to stay in France,'' he said. ``She said that she missed Sweden. She said that she would not leave because the books that her husband was writing were starting to be appreciated.''

A woman who identified herself as Mrs. Racaud, owner of the store where Anika purchased the International Herald Tribune twice a week, said, ``She was friendlier than her husband. She spoke better French, and that may be why we had longer conversations together. She told me that he was a writer and that they had met in London.''

Einhorn's identify is not in doubt. But extradition won't be as easy as un, deux, trois.

Norris Gelman, the lawyer Einhorn hasn't contacted for years, vowed to fight his return and insist on a new trial.

``Ira's wife wants to contest the extradition,'' said Gelman, who represented Einhorn in 1981 before he jumped bail and in 1993 when he defended Einhorn's empty chair before Common Pleas Judge Juanita Kidd Stout.

Flodin, he said, called him Sunday. ``She was devastated. Devastated. Devastated. She sounded like a very worried, kind and caring person.''

Gelman said he would tell French authorities ``not to send Ira back here because of due process violations involved in his trial and sentencing in absentia and because of the lack of appeal on the merits as to his conviction.''

The kicker, he said, may be ``European courts don't like trials in absentia. . . . In this kind of case, he would be sent back [ only ] if he gets a new trial. . . . That's the best scenario.''

Gelman said Einhorn ``should not be sent back to a place that has already signed and sealed his fate before a proper trial.'' He noted that even ``Adolf Eichman was brought back for trial.''

Theodore Simon, an international law expert who defended the teen-ager who was caned by Singapore authorities for vandalizing cars in the Asian country, joined Gelman.

``It's very, very rare, and it smacks of a fundamental unfairness to have been tried without being present, to have been sentenced without being present, and then, when an attempt is made to determine whether the conviction is valid, to learn that the appeal would be quashed because the client was not present,'' Simon said.

``When this situation occurs in reverse, that is when an individual has fled France and has been tried in absentia . . . the person is granted a new trial. That will be a significant part of our analysis and request to the French authorities,'' he said.

Gelman said he believed the statute of limitations had long ago expired on Einhorn's post-conviction relief options.

``We are asking the French authorities to resist the extradition on the basis that he will not be afforded any relief and that his trial and sentence were done in absentia and his appeal was quashed,'' Simon said.

He said it was ``inconceivable'' Einhorn knew of his trial in 1993.

Gelman said he last spoke to Einhorn shortly after the 1988 publication of Steven Levy's book, ``The Unicorn's Secret,'' a devastating account of Einhorn's life and the Maddux murder.

Gelman said Einhorn called him at home and complained Levy had illegally excerpted his diaries. Gelman said he begged Einhorn to turn himself in, but Einhorn flatly refused.

Local authorities are bracing for an international legal brawl.

DA Abraham said extradition under current treaties could occur within 40 days -- if there were no fight from Einhorn.

The FBI's Reutter predicted it could take up to a year if there are appeals.

Abraham had no comment on Gelman's demand for a new trial. Earlier, she noted that Einhorn could not appeal his conviction under state law because a fugitive ``forfeits the right of appeal.''

Abraham said she would send a staffer to France only if legal tangles seem to require it. For now, aides are preparing extradition documents to send by week's end.

Abraham recalled how, as a Common Pleas judge in March 1979, that she signed the search warrant for Homicide Detective Michael Chitwood to search Einhorn's apartment.

``I will be very pleased to see Mr. Einhorn come before Judge Stout for formal sentencing,'' Abraham said. ``He will finally get the punishment that the court and the jury decided he so richly deserved.''

She declined to answer questions about Einhorn's $40,000 bail, set by Judge William M. Marutani on April 4, 1979, and criticized at the time as too low. Einhorn's lawyer was now-U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Einhorn had a dozen professors, ministers and other professionals attesting to his character.

Assistant District Attorney Joel Rosen, who won the Einhorn conviction in 1993, said he had called the victim's brother John and sister Meg on Sunday to tell them of Einhorn's capture.

``They were extremely pleased to the point of being overwhelmed by it,'' he said. ``John seemed to be almost quietly stunned. Meg said something like `yippee' or something. I think in the back of their minds they never expected it to happen.''

The Maddux parents are dead. The brother and three sisters live in Texas, another sister in Seattle. Family members could not be reached yesterday.

The bosses heaped praise all around at yesterday's press conference, held in FBI offices at 6th and Arch streets, but saved most of it for DiBenedetto and FBI special agent Michael Carbonell.

Carbonell, on the case for eight years, said tracking leads overseas is more difficult than getting cooperation from U.S. police agencies, and forced both men to pick their spots in seeking help from European authorities.

He noted that in 1988, when Einhorn eluded capture in Stockholm by a day, Flodin was his landlady but ``they were not romantically linked. . . . We decided to wait and see if there was a relationship.''

DiBenedetto said he thinks Flodin or a friend tipped off Einhorn. But she remained in Stockholm for three years before slipping away to Denmark, where she gave phony addresses as her destination.

``I went on a hunch, he's smart enough not to go and hook up with her right away. He's always been dependent on women to take care of him. So I felt, we'll let things sit for awhile,'' he said.

Because of the time lapse, he was sure Flodin thought she was no longer being tracked and didn't know ``we suspected he was using the Mallon name.'' Upon leaving Denmark, Flodin gave her forwarding address as Dublin, in care of Mallon.

The decision to try Einhorn in absentia touched off media flurries, including segments on ``America's Most Wanted'' and ``Unsolved Mysteries'' that have aired on the cable rerun circuit.

There's even an Internet web page called Cyber Posse based on Levy's book that offers a reward and appeals for leads. Nothing on the Internet ever proved helpful, although DiBenedetto said he contacted the Cyber Posse authors to thank them.

DiBenedetto said while the Stockholm near-miss discouraged him, he kept on plugging.

That led to the ``Unsolved Mysteries'' connection, which was intriguing although indirect. It was the only one of dozens of leads stimulated by the shows that were helpful in any way, DiBenedetto said.

Swedish born Hjordis Reichel, 65, of Redondo Beach, Calif., became fascinated with the Einhorn case through the TV show. Last summer, she thought she'd spotted Einhorn's picture in a Swedish newspaper reporting a bizarre murder case.

She contacted DiBenedetto, who quickly realized the case was unconnected. But Reichel, 65, a retired worker for Hughes Aircraft with lots of time and energy, said she traveled to Sweden and had a relative in police work.

She offered to launch her own investigation and contact friends and her relative to smooth the way for DiBenedetto.

``I have a file as thick as you know what. I have been faxing him and I have even got other avenues. I have put energy like nothing on this one,'' she said yesterday from her home.

``I feel so good about it because I think he should rot in hell,'' she said. ``I wish they would invite me to Philadelphia when they lock him up. I would like to be there and make faces at him.''

DiBenedetto said that while Reichel's lead was no help, he liked her Swedish connection.

``I said it wouldn't hurt. She started a little investigation on her own. Interpol wouldn't deal with her, that's when I stepped in again.''

The woman's persistence, he said, ``greased the skids for us'' when he called Swedish authorities who hadn't been much help earlier.

He talked directly to a top Interpol officer named Jan Eklind, and the two discussed strategies for tracking Anika Flodin.

They agreed the direct approach was doomed -- friends and relatives would warn her. They decided on a patient paper chase. One of Eklind's calls turned up the driver's license application -- and after 16 years, the Einhorn chase team was no longer tilting at windmills.

Contributing to this report were staff writers Ron Goldwyn, Jim Nolan, Bob Warner, Nicole Weisensee, Kitty Caparella, Jim Nicholson, Yvonne Latty and Julie Knipe Brown, and Hubert Barat of the French newspaper Sud-Ouest. It was written by Goldwyn.

Philadelphia Online -- Philadelphia Daily News -- Local News Copyright Tuesday, June 17, 1997