True Lolita: the tragic story of Sally Horner, who became the prototype of the heroine of Nabokov’s novel

All of America was shocked by what happened: for almost two years, a little girl was the concubine and servant of a 52-year-old pedophile.

It all started in March 1948, when 11-year-old Sally Horner tried to pull a cheap notepad out of a store without paying for it. Small theft – this was exactly the “entrance fee” to the exclusive circle of “cool” girls, where the girl dreamed of entering. But the initiation failed: a man with a scar on his face jumped on Sally and grabbed her hand.

The stranger announced that he was an FBI agent and that Sally was a criminal, whom he would immediately take to a penal colony. The frightened girl begged to be released, and the man “gave in”: he said he would forgive the first offense, but would watch the thief to make sure she learned her lesson. The schoolgirl, convinced that she was not in danger, returned home.

No FBI agent, of course, existed: this is how Frank LaSalle introduced himself, a 50-year-old mechanic already convicted several times of rape and depraved acts on minors. Frank had his own plans for Sally – he only allowed her to return to her mother for a short time.

In March, Lasalle took the girl with him, after forcing Sally to tell her parents that she was being invited home by the sea for the holidays by the father of two classmates. The wife was only delighted: after the death of her husband, she worked day and night to feed her family, and she herself could not afford Sally’s vacation.

On June 14, 1948, Sally Horner and Frank LaSalle boarded a bus for Atlantic City. Only a few weeks later, the girl’s mother realized: there is no Mr. Warner, whose daughters are in the same class as Sally, and her daughter has been kidnapped.

Sally continued to believe that Lasalle could send her to jail at any time for stealing the ill-fated notebook, and so followed all of his instructions. She became not only the concubine of the pedophile, but also his servant – she washed, cleaned, cooked.

Lasalle said everywhere that the girl was his daughter, and she didn’t argue. She went to different schools, where she told everyone that she lived with her father. It’s unclear how long this would have gone on if Sally hadn’t somehow let a classmate slip away: Frank isn’t her father. The girlfriend was horrified and began to convince Horner – we urgently need to run! Sally, gathering her courage, did just that: she asked a neighbor at the trailer park to call the police and tell her everything.

The police sent the girl home and detained Lasalle. But for the child, the story did not end: reporters revealed the name of the victim, and the whole town discussed Sally’s behavior. Many treated her with sympathy, but there were also enough of those who said, “It’s her fault, you shouldn’t have stolen!”

Lasalle was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Sally died two years after her arrest – she was driving with her boyfriend in a car and had an accident. They say the day of the funeral, a bouquet arrived in the name of Sally’s mother, whom Lasalle sent from prison. He lived another 15 years and died behind bars in 1967.

Three years after Sally’s death, Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita is published. Researchers of the writer’s work say he not only mentioned Sally’s abduction in the book, but also preserved numerous press clippings about how the Horner investigation unfolded. So it was Sally who was probably the prototype of Lolita – the fates of the two girls are very similar, except that the literary heroine lived a much longer life.

Photo: Legion Media