Florence Sally Horner - Abduction

Abduction

At the age of 11, 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 and raping her. 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. La Salle was arrested and claimed that he was Florence's father; however, the FBI found that her father had died seven years previously. La Salle was sentenced to 30 to 35 years in prison.

Florence Horner died in a car accident near Woodbine, New York, on August 18, 1952. As the Associated Press reported on 20 August 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."