Ira Einhorn was on stage hosting the first Earth Day event at
the Fairmount Park in Philadelphia on April 22, 1970. Seven years later,
police raided his closet and found the "composted" body of his
ex-girlfriend inside a trunk.
A self-proclaimed environmental activist,
Einhorn made a name for himself among ecological groups during the
1960s and '70s by taking on the role of a tie-dye-wearing ecological
guru and Philadelphia’s head hippie. With his long beard and gap-toothed
smile, Einhorn — who nicknamed himself "Unicorn" because his
German-Jewish last name translates to "one horn" —advocated flower
power, peace and free love to his fellow students at the University of
Pennsylvania. He also claimed to have helped found Earth Day.
But the charismatic spokesman who helped bring awareness to environmental issues and
preached against the Vietnam War — and any violence — had a secret dark
side. When his girlfriend of five years, Helen "Holly" Maddux, moved to
New York and broke up with him, Einhorn threatened that he would throw
her left-behind personal belongings onto the street if she didn't come
back to pick them up.
And so on Sept. 9, 1977, Maddux went back to the apartment that she
and Einhorn had shared in Philadelphia to collect her things, and was
never seen again. When Philadelphia police questioned Einhorn about her
mysterious disappearance several weeks later, he claimed that she had
gone out to the neighborhood co-op to buy some tofu and sprouts and
never returned.
It wasn't until 18 months later that investigators searched Einhorn's
apartment after one of his neighbors complained that a reddish-brown,
foul-smelling liquid was leaking from the ceiling directly below
Einhorn's bedroom closet. Inside the closet, police found Maddux's
beaten and partially mummified body stuffed into a trunk that had also been packed with Styrofoam, air fresheners and newspapers....MORE
