Today is Earth Day. It is a holiday created by environmentalists in the 1970s to help protect the environment and save the planet. Like many things in this country's history, the annual celebration has its roots in Philadelphia. Earth Day's founder, Ira Einhorn, was born there, and the first Earth Day event occurred in the city's famous Fairmount Park in 1970. But while Einhorn magnanimously wanted to save the planet, he showed no such virtue to his girlfriend Holly Maddux, whom he murdered in cold blood.
While a student at the University of Pennsylvania, Einhorn was in a relationship with Maddux, a graduate of nearby Bryn Mawr College. After dating for five years, Maddux ended the relationship in 1977. Afterward, Einhorn descended into a jealous rage and killed her.
He concealed the murder for 18 months by stuffing Maddux's corpse in a trunk in his apartment. The body was discovered after a malodorous red liquid leaked into the apartment below, which caused neighbors to complain. Police investigated the matter and found the decomposed body in a trunk stored in a closet.
Einhorn, a member of the counterculture pantheon, one of the founders of the environmentalist movement, an icon of the liberal intelligentsia, was a deranged murderer. He preached peace and love to his left-wing, hippie friends in the 1960s and '70s, only to commit a gruesome act of domestic violence. This hypocrisy is a common theme among radical, left-wing political activists — though most do not turn out to be bloodthirsty maniacs like Einhorn.
