The real story of "Lolita" (8 photos)

“Have I done to Dolly what Frank LaSalle, a 50-year-old mechanic, did to Sally Horner in 1948?”





In mid-June 1948, 11-year-old Florence (Sally) Horner disappeared from the small town of Camden, New Jersey. Frank Lassalle deceitfully took the girl with him and for 21 months she was in his captivity, traveling around the United States.

Frank was already 50 years old at that time. At the time of his meeting with Sally, he had just been released from prison, where he was imprisoned for child molestation. Lasalle didn’t want to go back at all and decided that he was starting a new life, “locking up his inner predator.” But the pedophile could not hold out for long. Starting in March 1948, Lasalle began to follow the girl, and in such a way that she did not notice anything, living the ordinary life of a child - meetings with girlfriends, games, school. And one day, as a bet, I decided to steal a cheap notebook from a store. It was important for Sally to join the company and such a stupid act became her “initiation”.



Prison photo of Lasalle taken around 1920

Sally was really afraid to do something like that, but the argument was more important - having grabbed the first notebook she came across, she was already leaving the Woolworth store in horror. At that moment, an elderly man approached her, identifying himself as an FBI employee. How much does it take to intimidate an 11-year-old child? Sally was very afraid that her parents would be informed about the offense and Lasalle said that he would look after her. The next day, Sally, at Frank’s instigation, told her mother that she was going with her classmate and friend and her parents to the sea. Mom brought the girl to the bus station and put her on the bus when Sally pointed out to her a classmate’s “dad,” who was already sitting on the bus. This is where their travels around America began. Frank and Sally visited Atlantic City, California, Dallas, Baltimore and everywhere, in hotels, the man called the girl his daughter.





They were looking for her. Ella Horner, Sally’s mother, was going crazy with horror and uncertainty, the search went on every day, but it was already not easy for her: the father of the family drank heavily and committed suicide and the woman had to raise the children alone. The post-war times were already difficult, and even more so for a lonely widow with children. Of course, Ella was simply physically unable to look after Sally properly. Despite the fact that the girl was left to her own devices, she studied well, helped with household chores as best she could. And all this nonsense with the theft of the notebook was simply a condition for joining the “closed” girls’ club, in which she really wanted to be. Naturally, for stealing something worth five cents at most, nothing would have been done to her, even if she had been caught, but Sally believed LaSalle, because she was just a child.

And Ella, exhausted from work, understood perfectly well that her daughter was unlikely to be able to relax at sea in the coming years and was delighted at such an opportunity and such kind people who agreed to give her this adventure... Don’t blame her. It was a really difficult time, and the attitude towards children was not so attentive and reverent - it was necessary to survive. Take even the story of Sylvia Likens, who was tortured to death by a hidden psychopath when the girl's parents left her with her while they earned money for a living.



photo of Sally calling her family a few hours after she was rescued

For almost two years, Frank kept his “toy” close to him. Everyone believed that they were father and daughter, and certainly no one could have imagined that as soon as the door of the next motel closed, “dad” raped “daughter.” In addition to sexual “responsibilities,” Sally was responsible for the entire household chores: cooking, cleaning, and laundry.

The police were chasing them, but Lasalle constantly covered his tracks. The only time he made a mistake was when he left a photo of Sally in a hotel room in Atlantic City. Police showed the photo to Ella Horner and she confirmed it was her daughter. But the pedophile and his captive disappeared from the radar again.



The same photo that Lasalle forgot at the hotel

After a while they settled in Baltimore. It was autumn and, in order not to attract too much attention, Frank decided to send his “daughter” to school. At that moment, he was already sure that he had intimidated Sally enough so that she would remain silent and reliably play her role. They lived in Baltimore for six months,Frank learned that the police had tracked him down and he grabbed Sally and ran away again. The next location was Dallas, where Sally also went to school. All this time she had to be Lasalle’s sexual victim, but she was silent, she only became more and more withdrawn, she could suddenly burst into tears and one day she simply could not stand it. In hysterics, she told her classmate her whole story, and she said in horror that Sally needed to run away immediately. But both girls were so scared that they couldn’t just tell the adults everything.



Frank LaSalle

In Dallas, "father" and "daughter" lived in a trailer park. Their neighbor Ruth Janisch began to notice that there was something strange in the relationship between Frank and Sally, not like the usual relationship between a parent and child. Ruth, carefully, so that Frank would not suspect anything, tried to talk to the girl, but she was silent, averting her eyes when “dad” was mentioned. Ruth realized that something was definitely wrong here and that she needed to act. She and her husband soon moved to San Jose (California) and wrote a letter to Lasalle saying, come, there are many jobs here for mechanics, which Frank was. He believed and in March 1950 he and Sally came to San Jose. Leaving his “daughter” in the trailer, Lasalle went into town to look for the job Ruth had been promised. Ruth came to their trailer and again tried to get Sally to talk, and the girl finally began to talk. Hesitantly, cautiously, choosing his words, but he speaks. The woman tells Sally to call home immediately and when the girl's mother doesn't answer the phone, she calls her sister. In a trembling voice, she identifies herself and asks to immediately call the police, to save her, that she really wants to go home. And everything worked out! The employees managed to rush to the kidnapped girl before Lasalle returned.

Frank LaSalle was arrested the same day. Investigators, learning the details of the nightmare in which Sally Horner lived, were horrified. Frank, by the way, at the time of his arrest continued to claim that Sally was not his prisoner at all, but his daughter. But a gynecological examination confirmed the girl’s words. In general, it is worth focusing on what she had to go through. The attitude towards her was simply inhumane: she was not allowed to meet with her family, she was not provided with a psychologist, they endlessly demanded to tell her everything, and in detail, forcing her to mentally plunge over and over again into the dirt in which she had been for almost 2 years.

The newspapers screamed about this situation for a long time, savoring not only the details of the case, but also calling the real name of Sally Horner. This was disgusting on the part of the journalists; no one even thought that the name of a 13-year-old child should be changed, and not fluffed up in their articles.

Lassalle was sentenced to 35 years and Horner personally testified in court.



Sally returned to her parents. After two years of sexual slavery, she was completely different. In addition to these two years, “fame” was added, which she did not want at all. People whispered behind the girl’s back; someone, of course, sympathized with her, but there was also ridicule and the favorite accusation of victims of violence - “it’s her own fault.” Sally was not given any psychological help, no one even thought that she needed it at all, as if returning home was already enough to forget about everything that happened to her.



Sally with her mother. Meeting after 21 months of separation

Two years passed, Sally was 15 years old when she ventured into a relationship with Edward Baker - he was five years older than her. Their relationship was good and calm.

One day they were driving his car and Edward was blinded by the high beams of an oncoming car. He crashed into a truck at full speed.

On August 18, 1952, Sally Horner died. Edward survived with only bruises.

Frank Lasalle, having learned in prison about the death of his captive, brazenly sent flowers to the funeral. Of course they were thrown into the trash. He died in prison in 1967. A man who ruined the life of an ordinary girl. A man who lived for two years with “a small shadow of someone I killed.”