THE PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS	Local Thursday, June 19, 1997

Excerpts from ``The Unicorn's Secret: Murder in the Age of Aquarius'' by Steven Levy (Prentice Hall Press, 1988)

Second of Three Parts

It would be almost three years into the 1970s before Ira Einhorn met the former Texas cheerleader who would change his life in a way he never imagined. During those years, the Unicorn executed a dazzling transition from his sixties persona into a more subtle, and more durable, figure: a Renaissance man whose tendrils extended from the fringes of society to its central core. . . .

In a sense, Einhorn was venturing far beyond the anarchist Yippie Movement: He was applying educated analysis of the world in terms of systems. Kiyoshi Kurimaya, a founder of Penn's Free University and later an editor of Buckminster Fuller's writings, claims that Ira was a master teacher for that very reason: ``Ira seemed to have a complete system. He had a unique analysis of world events and contemporary culture that was not available in any other source that I had come in contact with. And they were ideas that were later confirmed through study, sometimes a year later, and sometimes ten years later.''

THERE WAS also a private side to the Unicorn, one at odds with the cosmic citizen Philadelphians knew and had come to appreciate. There were no articles, no published writings, no boardroom gossip or chatting at La Terrasse about this other side of Ira Einhorn. Those who knew something of this other side of Ira Einhorn considered it a quirkiness, an anomaly, a blip on an otherwise stable radar screen. Almost no one suspected that it would be his downfall.

That downfall began on October 7, 1972. He was still basking in the glory of his book, thrilled by the prospect of promoting [ psychic Yuri ] Geller, excited by his success in penetrating the business world, and overall satisfied by his turning the corner from the sixties to the New Age. He was brunching at La Terrasse. And his eye was struck by what he described later that day as a ``lovely shy blonde,'' a beauty with blue eyes, with whom he struck up a conversation, and jotted her birthdate so he could divine its astrological significance. She was a frail young woman, a leaf shaken from the tree of the sixties, recently returned from a trip abroad and fluttering aimlessly in a town 2,000 miles from the home she had rejected.

She was Holly Maddux. She and Ira would hit it off instantly, beginning a passionate and tumultuous relationship that would last five years. And end with her death.

A ``STORMY RELATIONSHIP'' is an accurate, though not complete, epithet to explain the half-decade of attraction, repulsion, affection, jealousies, squalor, revelation, oppression, and frustration that characterized the union of Ira Einhorn and Holly Maddux. Both lovers were ripe for something momentous. Ira had much to celebrate, but no special person to celebrate it with. Holly was just plain needy, but she had learned enough hard lessons about the world to know that a long-term commitment could not be just with anyone. . . .

In very little time, Holly was conquered. How could she not be? When Ira Einhorn focused his attention on a woman, it was overwhelming. Those blue eyes would fix on her, and she'd feel almost drunk with attention. This man, who seemed to know everything and everybody, was easily the most dynamic person Holly Maddux ever had a chance to be involved with, and Holly was thrilled that he was interested in her. Ira, on his part, apparently deemed that a sexual experience was worth the risk he had articulated, of no ``real contact occurring,'' and his generosity paid off. They spent, as Ira wrote that day, ``hours of lovemaking,'' with a ``great desire to produce mutual satisfaction.''

ON OCTOBER 20, less than two weeks after their meeting at La Terrasse, Holly was ready to move into 3411 Race Street. . . .

Ira went out immediately after [ friend Don ] Matskin left Holly and her things at the apartment, and when he returned, found it remarkable that Holly was sitting at the kitchen table. Waiting for him, as if she were a frightened, yet defensively independent, cat. The first days of their living situation were tense. Lots of discussions and second-guessing. Ira read his notebooks and his poetry to Holly, perhaps to give her an indication of his breadth. Holly was feeling, in Ira's words, ``a bit shell-shocked'' at the suddenness and intensity of things. When possible, they made love to preserve their best feelings, but that did not go smoothly. Holly was suffering a bout of vaginitis, a periodic and chronic condition. Ira for some reason felt pain in his penis, and as always with him in the winter months, he was trying to fight off colds and flu with massive doses of vitamin C. However, the times when things did go right on that sole mattress on the floor of the living area, the air between them would clear.

FRED AND ELIZABETH Maddux did not hear from their daughter Holly in September of 1977. A one-sided silence for that length of time was unusual, but certainly not unprecedented. The only truly unsettling aspect was that the silence had been preceded by a flurry of warm correspondence to several of her siblings and each of her parents individually, welcome communication that ended abruptly. In letters Holly wrote in late August, from the Fire Island home of Joyce Petschek, she had included the address to which letters should be sent after Labor Day. The address was only a block away from her previous lodging, but the difference -- one that pleased the Madduxes considerably -- was that she would not be sharing this apartment with Ira Einhorn. It looked like that relationship was finally, thankfully over.

When nothing came from Holly in October, though, the rambling house in Tyler, Texas, became enveloped in concern. . . . On October fourth, before the family sat down for dinner, Liz Maddux announced, ``Well, I'll call him now,'' and picked up the telephone to ask Ira Einhorn where her daughter might be.

``I was about to call and ask you,'' said the Unicorn.

AS CHRISTMAS and New Year's passed, it was certain that something awful was afoot. In January they learned that R.J. ``Bob'' Stevens, the chief of the Tyler FBI bureau, had retired on the last day of 1977. [ Family friend ] Toni Erwin said that Stevens planned to go into private investigation. The Madduxes contacted him and asked him for help in finding their daughter. . . .

Stevens had several obvious leads. One was this woman Joyce Petschek . . . but Petschek was not helpful. . . .

In any case, Petschek was not the most important lead. That honor was reserved for Ira Einhorn. Stevens thought it crucial to interview Einhorn in person; furthermore, he knew that the bulk of his leads would not be in Texas, but Philadelphia. So before Bob Stevens flew north in the middle of March 1978, he arranged to work with a local private detective [ J.R. Pearce ] , to whom he would subcontract the investigation upon returning to Tyler. . . .

J.R. Pearce was fifty-four years old, tall and imposing, a pipe smoker; and somewhat more urbane than the relatively earthy Stevens. He'd headed, before retirement, the organized-crime squad of the Philadelpia FBI bureau, where he had developed a smooth working relationship with the police commissioner, and later mayor, Frank Rizzo.

STEVENS ARRIVED in Philadelphia on March 14, 1978, and spent much of the next day in Pearce's office going over the case. It was evening when they decided to call their chief witness. Stevens got Einhorn on the phone, informed him that he was a former FBI agent now working as a private investigator for the Madduxes. Was it possible to meet the next day so Einhorn could provide information that might help locate Holly?

It was not possible, said Ira Einhorn. . . . Stevens, in town for only a few days, persisted [ but ] suspended his efforts to set up a face-to-face interview, and instead tried to glean whatever information he could get right then, on the phone. To Stevens' surprise, Einhorn wound up answering some of the questions. . . .

Finally, Ira Einhorn terminated the conversation. Pearce and Stevens decided that Pearce should make every attempt to talk to him again. They could see no reason why someone so close to Holly would be so intransigent about helping an investigation to locate her. . . . -- when he even admitted that he knew no one who was in touch with her. From that minute on, Ira Einhorn became something besides a key lead in the search for Holly Maddux.

He became a suspect.

IT WAS NOW over a year since Holly Maddux had vanished, and the detectives were unable to provide Fred and Elizabeth Maddux with any solid information . . . By now, both Stevens and Pearce were convinced of two things: one, that Holly had met with foul play -- their euphemism for indicating that she was dead -- and two, that Ira Einhorn was, at the least, withholding key information. At most, he was responsible for the disappearance. But there was no strong evidence to back up this suspicion. Stevens and Pearce began feeling very deeply for the young woman they had never met. Conversely, they developed a silent contempt for Ira Einhorn. . . . The fact that Ira Einhorn was now parading around in the war costume of the sixties -- long hair, beard, dashiki -- and actually winning the approval of the Establishment was galling . . .

Einhorn's attitude toward the investigation seemed cavalier. In early September 1978, J.R. Pearce once again requested an interview, solemnly suggesting that Holly might be dead. . . .

``Can I ask you one question?'' asked Pearce, hoping to ask the Unicorn what his opinion was of Holly's fate.

But Ira Einhorn had hung up.

J.R. PEARCE'S final investigating would be a return to the scene of the alleged crime. In December 1978, Pearce began searching for tenants who had been living at 3411 Race Street at the time of Holly Maddux's disappearance. . . .

The student who lived in the adjoining apartment on the second floor had no information about Holly and suggested Pearce talk to James Jafolla, who still lived in the building. . . . The only story Jafolla had to tell of Ira was something that had occurred the previous September. The landlord had ordered work to be done on the area of Einhorn's porch. Ira, in town for a few days between his summer vacation and his Harvard residence, specifically instructed the repairmen not to go near the closet on his porch. . . .

And then [ building superintendent ] Harold Johnson told J.R. Pearce about the problem with the screened-in porch in the rear of Ira Einhorn's apartment.

Some months ago, the tenant below Einhorn had complained of an odor that seemed to be coming from the porch of the second-floor rear apartment. No amount of deodorizing chemicals could eliminate the smell. . . .

AT THIS POINT, J.R. Pearce knew that he was reaching the limits of what a private investigator could do. His interest now was in alerting the police to the degree to which the case had progressed, . . . [ so he ] returned to the Roundhouse once more to meet the new detective on the case, Michael J. Chitwood.

Detective Chitwood was a controversial figure in Philadelphia. A slim man of surprising strength -- he stood 6 feet 1 inch while weight only 170 -- he had earned the reputation in nearly two decades of service as the local version of ``Dirty Harry,'' a man cited as a brutal inquisitor of homicide suspects by a Pulitzer Prize-winning Philadelphia Inquirer series. . . .

Mike Chitwood quickly realized that the reports from Stevens and Pearce were a gold mine. He read them with enthusiasm and wonder -- he thought it unfolded like an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

CHITWOOD'S JOB was to officially verify the Pearce information so a search warrant might be drawn.

Chitwood also visited Halbert Fillinger, the city coroner, to ask him about the decomposition process of human corpses. After briefing Fillinger on the case and discussing various forensic possibilities, Fillinger told him, ``When you go to Einhorn's apartment, you're going to find a body there.'' Chitwood said no way. ``Our goal is to get a search warrant, get in there, have the lab technicians tear up the floor and the walls, and take all this stuff,'' he said. Toward that end . . . Chitwood compiled his evidence and finally typed up a thirty-five page search warrant, loaded with information from his interviews. On March 28, 1979, less than three weeks after having been handed the case, Michael Chitwood gathered a team for a morning's work. . . . At about ten to nine, they rang Ira Einhorn's buzzer.

Seventy minutes later, J.R. Pearce received a phone call. As he later wrote in his mop-up report, the call informed him that ``the police had found a body in the trunk in a closet at the apartment of IRA EINHORN, 3411 Race Street, Philadelphia, PA.'' Pearce arrived on the scene an hour later, witnessing the end of his year-long investigation. Later in the day, Bob Stevens in Tyler received the news and made the painful visit to the Maddux household to tell them the news that they had long dreaded. Then Stevens drove to the office of the late Holly Maddux's dentist, to retrieve the dental records that would verify the body found in Ira Einhorn's closet was indeed Holly Maddux's.

Philadelphia Online -- Philadelphia Daily News -- Local News Copyright Thursday, June 19, 1997