Name Florence Horner | ||
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Died August 18, 1952, Woodbine, New Jersey, United States | ||
Florence Sally Horner (1937–August 18, 1952) was a girl abducted by a child molester in 1948.
Abduction
In 1948, the 11-year-old Horner stole a 5-cent notebook from a store in Camden, New Jersey. Frank La Salle, a 50-year-old mechanic, caught her stealing, told her that he was an FBI agent, and threatened to send her to "a place for girls like you". Then he abducted the girl and spent 21 months traveling with her over different American states during which period he is thought to have raped her repeatedly. While attending school in Dallas, Texas, she confided her secret to a friend. Later she escaped from La Salle, and phoned her sister at home, asking her to send the FBI. When arrested on March 22, 1950 in San Jose, California, La Salle claimed that he was Florence's father. However, authorities in New Jersey confirmed that Horner's father had died seven years previously. La Salle was tried, convicted and sentenced to 30 to 35 years in prison under the Mann Act.
Florence Horner died in a car accident near Woodbine, New Jersey, on August 18, 1952. As the Associated Press reported on August 20, 1952: "Florence Sally Horner, a 15-year-old Camden, N.J., girl who spent 21 months as the captive of a middle-aged morals offender a few years ago, was killed in a highway accident when the car in which she was riding plowed into the rear of a parked truck."
