One of Montreal's wealthiest clans found itself in the middle of an outrageous case that was to become a magnet for conspiracy theorists of all stripes and was even turned into a movie in 1997.
Charles Bronfman's wife Barbara (nee Baerwald) brought considerable negative attention to the Seagram clan when she put up $40,000 of bail money for a Philadelphia hippie impresario who murdered his girlfriend Holly Maddux in 1979.
Maddux's decomposed body was found in a trunk in Einhorn's possession and he was charged with murder. In spite of the murder charge Einhorn was allowed out on bail for a relatively small sum of $40,000 - put up by Montreal's Barbara Bronfman - and he skipped to Europe in January 1981 where he married a Swede and lived undetected for 24 years.
Some have claimed that Barbara (Stephen Bronfman's mother) even sent Einhorn money while he was in Europe and remained in contact with him while he was on the lam but we have seen no hard evidence to support that.
Einhorn had claimed that the CIA had planted Maddux's body at his place to frame him.
It isn't clear how Barbara came to know Einhorn so well or become such a champion of his efforts but she was said to have shared his interests in psychic phenomena.
Einhorn was said to have been an aggressive bully to Maddux and even had bad hygiene but was surely a good talker because what else could there be?
Barbara and Charles Bronfman wed in 1962 and divorced in 1982. Their children were 13 and 18 at the time of their split.
Charles - who long owned the Expos - moved to New York City and remarried twice.
Barbara, who'd be in her mid-70s at least, is one of the few Bronfmans still living Montreal. Her son Stephen is another and aunt Phyllis Lambert being the other main ones.
The fugitive Einhorn was finally tracked down France in 1997.
After many complicated attempts to extradite him, Einhorn was eventually shipped back to the USA in 2001. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole ion October 17, 2002.
The case has led many to babble online about the Illuminati and such stuff but we're pretty sure that it was just a case of a friend trying to be loyal and perhaps getting suckered by a fast-talker.
Charles Bronfman's wife Barbara (nee Baerwald) brought considerable negative attention to the Seagram clan when she put up $40,000 of bail money for a Philadelphia hippie impresario who murdered his girlfriend Holly Maddux in 1979.
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| Holly Maddux - murdered in '77 |
Some have claimed that Barbara (Stephen Bronfman's mother) even sent Einhorn money while he was in Europe and remained in contact with him while he was on the lam but we have seen no hard evidence to support that.
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| Ira Einhorn and Barbara Bronfman |
It isn't clear how Barbara came to know Einhorn so well or become such a champion of his efforts but she was said to have shared his interests in psychic phenomena.
Einhorn was said to have been an aggressive bully to Maddux and even had bad hygiene but was surely a good talker because what else could there be?
Barbara and Charles Bronfman wed in 1962 and divorced in 1982. Their children were 13 and 18 at the time of their split.
Charles - who long owned the Expos - moved to New York City and remarried twice.
Barbara, who'd be in her mid-70s at least, is one of the few Bronfmans still living Montreal. Her son Stephen is another and aunt Phyllis Lambert being the other main ones.
The fugitive Einhorn was finally tracked down France in 1997.
After many complicated attempts to extradite him, Einhorn was eventually shipped back to the USA in 2001. He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole ion October 17, 2002.
The case has led many to babble online about the Illuminati and such stuff but we're pretty sure that it was just a case of a friend trying to be loyal and perhaps getting suckered by a fast-talker.
This story always seemed odd. I've known about it a long time, I think "60 Minutes" did a piece on it relatively early on.
ReplyDeleteBut "the Unicorn" just doesn't show up in other places. He was supposed to be someone important in the counterculture, but I've never come across him except in reference to the murder. If he was so important, surely he'd have shown up in some of the books of the time.
Clearly he was known, because why else would Barbara Bronfman have put up the bail money? But I see no trace of his importance before the murder, Yes, for thirty years he was known for the murder, but he's not in the books before that. All I know about him is because I've read Steven Levy's book about the murder (which was published while Ira was on the lam).
Those Bronfmans were certainly radical. There was a time when one of them, I think Phyllis Lambert, wanted to do a nuclear disarmament fundraiser at The Forum. This was 1979, just after the big No Nukes! series of concerts in New York City. She even had concrete dates that were available.
It was one of the Bronfman's, but I'm not sure which. I may just be assuming Phyllis Lambert because she seemed more interested in such things.
In sort of related news, you could write about the time Abbie Hoffman was living in Montreal in the spring and/or summer of 1976, while he himself was underground. he was actually not in a good mental state, and people were worried that he'd give himself away. Marty Jezer wrote about the period in his biography of Abbie, Marty was someone who knew Abbie, but who also lived here for six months a year in the eighties, so he knew the area and is quite descriptive.
Michael
Einhorn liked to paint himself as an environmental activist who singlehandedly started Earth Day as a thing. The truth is, that was more the brain child of a Wisconsin Senator (Gaylord Nelson). Einhorn was "Master of Ceremonies" at the very first Philadelphia Earth Day rally, but other than his very vocal opposition to the war in Viet Nam and his embrace of conspiracy theories and counterculture movement in general, he didn't make much of an impression on US society. By the time he was extradited from France back to Philadelphia, no one was buying his very weak defense against first degree murder anymore.
DeleteThey just called him the unicorn because his name is just that in Kraut. He was a big talking nobody really.
ReplyDeleteMy older brother was good friends with Geoffrey Bronfman who later became a mystic of sorts in Arizona or something. Edgar's oldest son - the one snubbed - was deemed unsuitable to take over the empire partially because he's gay. Meanwhile there was another Bronfman in my high school who seemed about as straight and nerdy as you could get, so I guess there's all stripes in that clan.
Thanks for the tip on Abbie Hoffman.
They did find evidence that she has sent him funds, she admitted as much to Philadelphia police. By that time, she no longer believed in his innocence, and had stopped sending him money, but he had married a rich woman, so he didn't need his American friends quite so much. She also told the police the name of his wife. That's how they found him in France, by doing a records search on her and coming up with a request from her for a French driver's license, complete with the address where the two of them were living.
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