For the first time in 21 years, the family of murder victim Holly Maddux will confront her convicted killer, fugitive Ira Einhorn.

The face-off will occur tomorrow in a French courtroom in Bordeaux, where Einhorn - the paunchy, aging hippie who escaped justice in Philadelphia - will begin a second extradition hearing since his capture in June 1997.

"We're a helluva lot more ready to be in a room with him than he is to be in a room looking at us," said Buffy Hall, Holly Maddux's sister.

Hall was preparing Friday to depart for France with her brother John and two sisters, Meg and Mary.

The plan for Holly's family after their arrival in the south of France, where Einhorn has been hiding out for the last five years, was a rendezvous with their new lawyer: a transplanted West Philadelphia High School grad who has been working in Paris since 1961.

"I told the general prosecutor I want to defend the honor of Philadelphia," said the Maddux family attorney, Aram Kevorkian, who is no relation to Dr. Death, Jack Kevorkian.

During Einhorn's first extradition hearing last year, the U.S. justice system and Philadelphia prosecutors took a hit from Einhorn's French lawyers, who said Einhorn's 1993 trial in absentia had violated his civil rights.

A three-judge panel in Bordeaux denied Philadelphia's extradition request. Einhorn was rearrested in September after the Pennsylvania Legislature passed a law that would appear to grant Einhorn a new trial if he's returned to the state.

French law routinely provides for new trials when a fugitive is captured.

"It's obvious that there's been a lot of misinformation bandied about in the French press," Kevorkian said during a telephone interview from Paris. "We are going to try to speak up."

Kevorkian, a West Philadelphia native and graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, said he was not charging the Maddux family for his services. "I felt I had the duty to help," he said.

Holly Maddux's sisters and brother probably will not be permitted to address the French judges tomorrow, but Kevorkian said he intended to argue on their behalf.

"I'm going to try," he said. "It's not clear in an extradition hearing, but normally the only parties are the governments."

Philadelphia's extradition request will be presented to the court by French prosecutor Jean- Pierre Defos du Rau. Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Joel Rosen will be in Bordeaux for the hearing, but will stay outside the courtroom to avoid raising any objections by French lawyers, a source in the DA's office said.

Through a spokesman, District Attorney Lynne Abraham declined to comment.

"We're not going over there with the intention of testifying," Hall said. "It would be a huge surprise to me if we were allowed to, but our physical presence is going to be a reminder to the judges that there is a real person behind this and it's not some esoteric point of human rights law. We want to remind them of what this person is accused of doing."

Einhorn was accused - and convicted by a jury in the 1993 trial - of beating Holly Maddux to death in 1977 because she was trying to leave him. Maddux's body was stuffed into a steamer trunk that was stored in a closet in Einhorn's Powelton Village apartment.

The body was found in 1979 after neighbors told a private detective that they recalled smelling strong odor and seeing an oozing brown liquid come from Einhorn's apartment two years earlier.

Einhorn was arrested for Maddux's murder but skipped bail, beginning 16 years on the run in Ireland, Sweden, England and France.

While awaiting the outcome of tomorrow's hearing, Einhorn, 57, is living in a cottage in Champagne-Mouton, a charming old village in France's cognac region, with his Swedish wife, Annika Flodin.