Einhorn, 57, told interviewer Connie Chung that he was framed for the murder of Helen "Holly" Maddux by "large forces" during the segment on ABC's 20/20.

Einhorn was convicted in absentia in 1993 and sentenced to life in prison for bludgeoning Maddux to death in 1977. Her mummified body was discovered 18 months later in a steamer trunk in a closet in Einhorn's West Philadelphia apartment.

The interview was the first granted by Einhorn to an American journalist since he jumped his $40,000 bail and fled to Europe in 1981, as he was about to go to trial. In August, Chung spent a day with Einhorn at his country home in France.

The Philadelphia counterculture guru was captured in June 1997 after eluding U.S. justice for nearly two decades. He was living quietly under an assumed name with his Swedish wife, Annika Flodin, in Champagne-Mouton when French police raided his home with guns drawn and took him into custody.

Einhorn is fighting extradition from France.

Wearing shorts and loose-fitting shirts and sporting a wispy, gray goatee, he denied to Chung that he killed the 30-year-old Maddux.

"No," Einhorn said, shaking his head, "I never killed anybody. I certainly didn't kill Holly."

He said he knew nothing of a trunk in his closet. "I don't know how it got there," he told Chung. ". . . I didn't put her body there."

Asked who did, Einhorn replied that it was "one of the large intelligence agencies. But I don't have the data, so it's speculation."

Einhorn said that he became a fugitive because "I felt that I could not get a fair trial" in Philadelphia.
"I did not want to go to jail for life or be executed for something I did not do," he said. "So I made a decision."

Asked to explain how he had managed to avoid capture for so many years, Einhorn replied: "I don't know whether I've been just plain lucky or not. I think they [ authorities ] have been just plain stupid."

But Richard DiBenedetto, head of extraditions in the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, said during the segment, which had about three-quarters of the hour show devoted to it, that Einhorn was "lazy, arrogant, and felt he could get away with murder. . . . In the end, we outsmarted him."

Einhorn told Chung he was "shocked" by his conviction in absentia. "I couldn't believe it," he said.

When the District Attorney's Office first tried to have him extradited after his 1997 arrest, Einhorn successfully challenged the extradition in French courts. "I was crestfallen," District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham told Chung. "I just couldn't believe what happened."

Since then, the Pennsylvania legislature has met the central French demand for the extradition of Einhorn -- that he be granted a new trial -- and Einhorn was rearrested Sept. 21 by French police.

Einhorn was released from Gradignan, a medium-security prison near the town of Bordeaux, on Sept. 29 by a French court, enabling him to remain at home until his Dec. 1 extradition hearing. He was ordered to report to his local police station three times a week until the hearing.

Maddux's sisters, Buffy Hall and Meg Wakeman, also were interviewed during the segment, vowing they would not rest until Einhorn is brought to justice.

Abraham told Chung that she and other law-enforcement officials would "never give up our quest to bring him back to the United States. Never."