Scary Carrie's | The Unicorn Killer

As an adolescent, Ira Einhorn gave himself the nickname of “The Unicorn”: the English translation of his German surname. The killer was an environmental activist and part of the anti-war movement when he murdered his ex-girlfriend, Holly Maddux.

Maddux disappeared in early September 1977 after stopping by Einhorn’s Philadelphia apartment to collect her things following their break-up. Several weeks after Maddux’s death, police questioned her ex-boyfriend about her whereabouts, to which he stated she had disappeared on her way to the neighborhood co-op. Eighteen months later, after neighbors began reporting a rancid smell, police found Maddux’s body stuffed in a trunk in Einhorn’s closet. Several days before Einhorn was supposed to stand trial, he fled to Europe.

As Einhorn had already been arraigned, the court was able to try, convict, and sentence him in absentia. Despite this fact, Einhorn managed to remain in France for 23 years, even getting married while craftily evading extradition. The U.S. government was finally able to bring him back to the states and re-convict him in 2002. Einhorn is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.