With "Lolita" in America (8 photos)

The girl’s heart sank: maybe someone saw it? No, no one saw it. Phew! It's gone! She did it.

Florence hid the notepad under her dress and headed towards the exit. store. The cashier smiled at her, but the man at the door was watching Weird. It seems like he’s not a security guard, why should he look at her like that?

Who is he?





Florence was five years old when her father Russell Horner hanged himself in the garden tool shed in the backyard of the house. It happened in the chilly autumn of 1943 in the town of Camden, New Jersey.

After her father's death, Florence was raised by her mother Ella Horner and half-sister Susan.

In 1948, Florence turned ten years old. The girl went to fifth grade of elementary school. I studied mostly with excellent marks. U Sociable and cheerful Florence had many friends with whom she adored play after school.



Florence Horner.

On that March day in 1948, one of Florence's friends offered a dangerous but incredibly exciting game. Should have been stolen a notebook from Woolworths. The price of this book is five cents, mere trifles, and the girls were sure that even if the thief was caught, then they will release you immediately. Who will punish a child for five cents?

They drew lots. Florence got the short match, and the girl went to the store. The schoolgirl carried the notebook safely past the cash register, she was heading towards her friends, but then she was stopped by a man in hat.

This man's name was Frank La Salle.



Frank La Salle.

Frank seemed to have stepped out of the pages of James's detective novels Hadley Chase. 51 years old, mechanic, adventurer with a bunch of pseudonyms. Who is he only he didn’t call himself: Frank Warner, Frank LaPlante, and Frank Robinson and Frank O'Keefe and Frank Fogg and Harry Patterson. In each state, La Salle was introduced by a new name. It and It’s clear that he had something to hide.

A typical American tramp of the 40s and 50s, who differed from a real, barefoot, tramp only in that he had a hat, decent shoes and a car in which he traveled around the states, taking advantage of the famous American freedom and tugging on their dark business.

And Frank was involved in a lot of dark affairs. From June 1938 years, La Salle was repeatedly brought to trial and served in prison for obscene behavior, bigamy, check fraud, assault, battery, hitting a pedestrian, non-payment of child support daughters... The St. Louis police tried to prove Frank's involvement in kidnapping and human trafficking, as well as for attacks on minors. La Salle managed to get out, and he went on to travel around America.



USA, 1958.

No matter how long the string goes... In 1944, Frank again arrested. He was charged with molesting five underage girls. La Salle went to prison for five years.

Frank's wife, Dorothy Dare, who was 24 years his junior, filed for divorce.

On January 15, 1948, Frank was released early for good behavior from Trenton State Prison. Free America again opened its endless expanses to the many-faced mechanic. La Salle I picked up my car from a friend and set off across the country.

The villain introduced himself to Florence, scared half to death. FBI agent - his proven mask, which has never failed. La Salle told the girl that she was obliged to periodically inform him about everything that happens in her house, otherwise he will send her to reform school.

Florence obediently carried out all the instructions of the "FBI agent." Meanwhile, the mechanic was carefully preparing for the kidnapping.

On June 15, 1948, everything was ready. Frank told the girl tell her mother that the father of two of her school friends is taking his kids in Atlantic City for a week and invites Florence with him. Ella Horner did not suspect anything, and Frank, as if nothing had happened, took the schoolgirl away with yourself.



At first, La Salle forced Florence to write letters to her mother. IN In messages, the girl said that everything was fine with her, the holiday was interesting, but it will last longer than previously planned - until July 31st.

On July 31, 1948, Ella Horner received her last letter from daughters. The holidays are dragging on again! Ella finally realized what was wrong something was wrong and went to the police.

By August 4, law enforcement officers were able to establish aaddress letter sender in Atlantic City. Upon arriving at the scene, detectives found an empty house in which there were two suitcases with a man's and a child's clothes, as well as a photograph of Florence Horner. The girl sat on a swing and smiled. The picture was clearly taken in a studio environment.

Meanwhile, the car with Frank and Florence had been racing for a long time along dusty roads past endless fields of corn, fenced with thorny wired pastures and forests.

We stayed in motels in small towns. Frank is everywhere used different pseudonyms, but always called himself the girl’s father.



Florence Horner.

We stayed for a long time in Baltimore, Maryland. Here La Sal achieved Florence's enrollment in a Catholic gymnasium. Certainly, the girl entered school under a name other than her real name: Frank came up with it Her pseudonym is "Madeleine La Plante".

La Salle understood that at the gymnasium Florence might “blurt unnecessary" or try to escape. To prevent this from happening, the criminal threatened the girl with a gun.



In April 1949, Frank decided that Baltimore was becoming dangerous. Florence and her kidnapper set off again on a journey across America. Stopped in Dallas, Texas, where La Salle rented a trailer in trailer park.

Here the girl went to school under her own name - Florence, but under the fictitious surname Planetette.

At school, Florence made a close friend, whom the girl she once admitted that the uncle she lives with is not her father at all. The friend did not attach any importance to this information.

A little later, Ruth Janisch, La Salle's trailer neighbor park, I noticed that Frank behaved with the girl in a completely different way daughter. Ruth tried to talk to Florence about her "father", but the girl closed in on herself.

In March 1950, Ruth Janisch and her husband decided to leave for California to look for work. Ruth invited La Salle to go with them, and he agreed.

In California, Jenish was able to establish contact with the girl, and she told her everything. The woman called Florence's mother, but didn't got through (later it turned out that Ella Horner was behind on payments per phone). But my older sister Susan's phone worked. Exactly Susan alerted the FBI to her sister's whereabouts.



On March 22, 1950, La Salle came to the rented apartment police. Frank claimed to be Florence's father, but his tricks were in vain. The kidnapper was arrested and sent to New Jersey for trial.

On April 1, at the Philadelphia airport, Florence was handed over to her mother Ella Horner. The girl was held captive by the villain for 21 months.

La Salle's trial took place on April 3. The criminal was found guilty of violating public morals, kidnapping and repeated rape of a minor and sentenced to 35 years imprisonment at Trenton State Penitentiary without parole.

Alas, the further fate of Florence Horner, it would seem, torn from the clutches of a monster was tragic. August 18, 1952 at At the age of 15, the girl died in a car accident. Florence, all over apparently she was driving a car that crashed into the body of a truck parked by the road.

The kidnapper learned about Florence's death from newspapers and sent prison bouquet of flowers. Ella and Susan Horner threw the bouquet in the trash.

On March 22, 1966, 69-year-old Frank La Salle died in prison from atherosclerosis. Nobody came to his funeral.

The story of Florence Horner inspired writer Vladimir Nabokov to write his famous novel Lolita.

This is the fate of the girl whose life was destroyed a scoundrel who should have rotted in prison the first time, but for some reason he was released...