The Real Lolita: The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World by Sarah Weinman

Author:Sarah Weinman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: true crime
Publisher: Ecco
Published: 2018-09-11T04:00:00+00:00

Frank La Salle, after pleading guilty.

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BECAUSE FRANK LA SALLE pleaded guilty, Sally did not get to testify against him. In Mitchell Cohen’s office after the hearing, she asked, once more, letting go of the earlier courtroom stoicism and blinking back tears, when she could go home. With the case finished, and Frank La Salle going to prison, surely she could return to her mother right away?

Cohen sympathized with Sally, and told her so. There seemed no reason to keep her in the state’s custody when the case was finished and La Salle incarcerated, but the wheels of bureaucracy turned at their own pace, not his. Judge Palese was the one who would have to decide when she could be released into Ella’s custody again. Palese did so the very next day.

At noon on April 4, 1950, Cohen summoned Sally and Ella to his office for what he later told the press was a “lengthy conference” in which he delivered the news both of them wanted to hear the most. He also offered mother and daughter some advice. They were free, of course, to return to 944 Linden Street, but he thought it best they “went away from this area, changed their names and began life anew.”

The extensive media coverage meant all of Camden, and much of Philadelphia and the surrounding towns, knew what had happened to Sally. Cohen worried the girl might be judged harshly for the forcible loss of her virtue, even if that reaction was in no way warranted. Cohen also urged Ella to seek the advice of the Reverend Alfred Jass, director of the Bureau of Catholic Charities, “in directing Sally’s return to a normal life.” Ella was a Protestant, but clergy was still clergy, and Sally’s recent attendance at Catholic schools may have influenced Cohen’s choice of religious advisor.

Sally and Ella got home at 1:45 P.M. Waiting reporters and photographers shouted questions and snapped pictures as they walked through the front door, Ella shielding her daughter. Ignoring the shouts, she shut the door firmly behind them.

From that afternoon on, the Horner women were private citizens. They were no longer at the mercy of the legal system, or the national press. The rest of the world could leave them alone.

In some fashion, it worked out that way, but their newfound calm did not last for long.

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