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Einhorn: Lover's death 'ripped me to pieces'Defendant sought psychic help to find Holly
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- More than two decades after his girlfriend's mummified remains were found stuffed in a trunk in his closet, former hippie guru Ira Einhorn testified for the first time Monday, saying the discovery "ripped me to pieces." "I went somewhere to cry. I was really upset," he said. "I couldn't believe that was Holly in my trunk. It was an impossible situation. I broke up for days. It ripped me to pieces." Einhorn, a leader in Philadelphia's counter-culture movement and friend to the stars -- now white-haired and 62 and married for the past 14 years -- told jurors that his five-year relationship with Helen "Holly" Maddux was a "lovely and happy time." But it was also a time of stress, Einhorn said. Toward the end of their relationship, Maddux had become increasingly uncomfortable about his liaisons with other women, he said. Maddux left him 10 times during their relationship, Einhorn said. During three of those times, he did not know where she was, he said. "She just vanished into thin air." Einhorn said he last saw the 30-year-old Maddux on September 11, 1977. He was taking a bath in the Philadelphia apartment they shared. "'I've got to go out and make a phone call. I'm going to the co-op,'" Einhorn said she told him, the latter comment a reference to a community grocery store where she worked. Several days later, he said, Maddux called him and told him, "'Leave me alone, I'm OK,'" he said. Never smelled foul odorAsked about a complaint from a neighbor in the weeks following Maddux's disappearance that a strong odor was emanating from the apartment, Einhorn said he never smelled it. "I looked in my closet. There was no foul odor, nothing in my closet to cause an odor." Einhorn said he also fended off complaints around the same time from a building manager about an odor from the closet, telling him searching her belongings would be too painful for him.
It was some two years later -- in 1979 -- that police showed up at the apartment, searched the closet and found Maddux's mummified remains inside a trunk -- a discovery the state now calls a "smoking gun." "If he didn't put the body in the trunk in his apartment, well then who put it there?" prosecutor Joel Rosen asked outside the courthouse Monday. "There is no reason as to how it got there other than him putting it there." Einhorn was charged in his girlfriend's death, but weeks before his trial was to have begun in 1981 he fled the United States for Europe. He eventually settled in France, where he was arrested in 1997. Eventually, in July 2001, he was extradited to the United States for his long-delayed trial in Philadelphia. Einhorn grew up in this city and became interested in alternative forms of communication. In early testimony Monday, he told of a trip he and Maddux took to Europe shortly before she disappeared. Their mission, he said, was to investigate what he called "psychotraumic weaponry" -- the ability of some people to use their minds to control other people's minds. In the past, Einhorn has said the CIA framed him for his girlfriend's murder because he had knowledge of a mind-control weapon. Einhorn's court-appointed lawyer, William Canon, said he was pleased with Einhorn's testimony Monday. "I think he did a good job under tremendous pressure," he told reporters. Cross-examination, a brief rebuttal and closing arguments are expected to take place Tuesday. CNN Correspondent Jason Carroll contributed to this report.
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