On Tuesday, Buffy Hall and Meg Wakeman were in France, along with their sister, Mary, hoping to hear that the man who murdered their sister would finally be brought to justice, only to learn that the decision on extraditing him would be postponed until Feb. 18.

On Wednesday, Hall, who lives outside Fort Worth, Texas, and Wakeman, who lives in Seattle, flew from Paris to Los Angeles. And yesterday morning, at the winter meeting of the Television Critics Association, they sat on a dais with actor Kevin Anderson ("Nothing Sacred"), talking about an upcoming NBC miniseries in which Anderson will play Ira Einhorn, Philadelphia's most infamous fugitive and the man who was convicted in absentia for killing their sister more than 20 years ago.

Hall and Wakeman were here, as they have been so many places, to put a human face on the sad story of their sister, Holly Maddux. Along with Richard DiBenedetto, of the Philadelphia district attorney's office, they found they also had to tell the story of Einhorn to a group that wasn't as familiar with the details as most Philadelphians are.

And to explain their decision to participate in "Hunt for the Unicorn," the miniseries based on Steven Levy's book of the same name.

"What money we were paid for our rights" was donated to charity in Maddux's name, Hall told reporters. "We have not personally profited from this movie."

"We got involved because this is our family," said Wakeman, who wore a green ribbon with a small red heart pinned to her sweater in memory of her sister. "It just stands to reason that if it's something personally based, you certainly want to see what's done with it," she added.

She said the family sold the rights to their story "as a protective measure" because they heard Einhorn was peddling the rights to his story.

The oddity of their position isn't lost on Hall and Wakeman.

"Of course, it's surreal," Hall said. "We're getting used to surreal. This is just such a bizarre story." Turning to Wakeman, she said, "Shall I tell her what we've started calling our lives?"

"The Mad-X Files," Hall said. "From the sublime to the ridiculous, and back again. We kind of roll with it."

Tuesday's announcement that the decision on extraditing Einhorn would be postponed "was very disappointing," she said. "It was an option, but we all sort of had fingers crossed that that wouldn't be behind Door No. 1."

"Hunt for the Unicorn" producer Dan Wigutow, who got his master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania, is no stranger to telling stories about killers, having previously produced "Fatal Vision" (about Green Beret Jeffrey MacDonald, who was convicted of killing his family) and "Blind Faith" (about Toms River, N.J., wife-killer Robert O. Marshall). Both of those stories were based on books by former Philadelphia newspaperman Joe McGinniss.

Einhorn, Wigutow told reporters, shares at least one character trait with his previous subjects. "They all seem to shed many tears for themselves, but none for their victims," he said.