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

^Sixteen After the Rescue

Though Frank La Salle was in jail, it wasn’t clear which law enforcement agency would have jurisdiction over him. There were the outstanding warrants for kidnapping and abduction from Camden County. But because La Salle had transported Sally across several states, it became a federal case. La Salle was charged with violating the Mann Act, for “allegedly taking the girl across state lines for immoral purposes.”

On the morning of March 22, Camden County prosecutor Mitchell Cohen spoke with the San Jose police, including Sheriff Hornbuckle. After the thirty-minute call, he told reporters in Camden that he would convene a grand jury to indict La Salle on the outstanding warrants, and start extradition proceedings immediately.

La Salle seemed ready to fight his extradition to Camden, but Cohen was undeterred. “Regardless of what La Salle says he will do about returning here, I am taking no chances,” Cohen said. “I will start formal proceedings at once and get him back here as soon as possible.” But the prosecutor had to wait on New Jersey governor Alfred Driscoll’s approval, and there was a delay because Driscoll was out of town on a business trip.

That afternoon, in California, Commissioner Marshall Hall presided over La Salle’s arraignment on the Mann Act charges. He set a $10,000 bond and scheduled a hearing for the following morning. La Salle retained Manny Gomez as his attorney, while Frank Hennessy was the federal prosecutor.

The hearing began at 10:30 A.M. on March 23. There Hennessy revealed that La Salle’s birth name was Frank La Plante; if true, then at various points during Sally’s captivity, she’d attended school using the first name of La Salle’s biological daughter and his own real last name.

When police officers attempted to lead Sally into the courtroom, she resisted at first, frantic at the thought of seeing La Salle: “I’m afraid, I’m afraid,” she cried.

May Smothers, a juvenile court matron, had accompanied the girl to court, and calmed her down. Sally finally entered the courtroom clutching Smothers’s hand. She took a seat only four feet away from La Salle and stole furtive glances at him throughout the proceedings, looking away whenever she came close to breaking down. La Salle stared at her, impassive, saying nothing.

When Sally began her testimony, Commissioner Hall asked, “Are you afraid of anything? Is there anything you want?”

“I want to go home!”

“He can’t hurt you,” said Hall.

And so, once more, Sally described her ordeal, starting with the Camden five-and-dime and ending with the San Jose trailer park. She told the court how La Salle had forced her to have sex with him, the abuse only ending in Dallas. La Salle told his story again, too, continuing to insist that he was Sally’s real father.

Commissioner Hall affirmed the $10,000 bond, and ordered La Salle transferred to the county jail in San Francisco.

The hearing also decided La Salle’s jurisdictional fate. Hennessy told the court that the federal charges would eventually be dropped because the New Jersey state kidnapping charges took precedence. But for the time being, La Salle would sit tight. Even if he raised the full $10,000 bond, federal authorities “were confident they could hold [La Salle] on other charges until he could be extradited,” reported the Courier-Post.

Sally returned to the San Jose detention center. At first, she was so anxious about La Salle possibly going free that she could hardly eat. Matron Smothers told the papers that Sally also “fretted a lot about whether her folks would want her after what happened.” Sally was kept apart from the other detained juveniles because, an unnamed sheriff’s official told the Courier-Post, “We have some pretty hardened kids here and we don’t want Sally to come in contact with them.”

Over the next few days, Sally grew more secure in the detention center. Matron Smothers took her shopping for new clothes, because in her estimation, Sally’s old ones did not measure up: “The clothes she had at the [trailer park] were neat but shabby and very inadequate.” Smothers said that Sally had also stopped worrying about whether her family would welcome her back. “All she’s thinking about is getting home and what she’ll do when she gets there.”

The detention center felt “responsible for Sally’s well-being until New Jersey’s authorities arrive to take her home,” said an unnamed sheriff’s official. “We’ve had a number of offers from people in San Jose to take care of Sally until she’s ready to go home, but we are positive no harm can come to her where she is now.”

BACK IN CAMDEN, police continued to investigate another dangling thread: the mysterious “Miss Robinson” Sally said had accompanied her and Frank La Salle on the bus to Baltimore, after which she disappeared. Camden police tried to reconcile Sally’s statement to Sheriff Hornbuckle with what they found in their own initial investigations. They had proof, after all, that Sally and La Salle had spent time in Atlantic City, in the form of unsent letters, photographs, clothing, and other material abandoned at 203 Pacific Avenue. Proof bolstered by the recollections of Robert and Jean Pfeffer, the young Philadelphia couple who had reported spending a summer day with Sally and La Salle.

No trace of the woman known as “Miss Robinson” was ever discovered by law enforcement. It remains another of the unresolved mysteries of Sally’s captivity. I believe the woman existed, because I believe Sally. Just because police did not track the woman down, and that decades later I also could not find her, does not mean Sally made her up.

A CAMDEN GRAND JURY indicted La Salle for kidnapping and abduction at 2:20 P.M. on March 23, the same day as the hearing in San Francisco. Ella Horner testified in front of the grand jury. There’s no record of what she said, but she was likely asked about why she put Sally on the bus to Atlantic City and whether La Salle was her daughter’s biological father, as he claimed.

Mitchell Cohen sent a copy of the grand jury indictment to the New Jersey governor to start the extradition process. A second copy of the proceedings, signed by Judge Rocco Palese, was airmailed to California to reinforce La Salle’s detention. Cohen also received permission to bring both Sally and La Salle—separately—back to Camden, and to cover their travel expenses, as well as those of Camden city detective Marshall Thompson and county detective Wilfred Dube.

Cohen, Dube, and Thompson flew into San Francisco on Sunday, March 26. Over the next few days, Cohen received approval to extradite La Salle from Governor Driscoll in New Jersey as well as his California counterpart (and future chief justice of the Supreme Court) Earl Warren. Cohen also interviewed various residents of the trailer park. One was Ruth Janisch, who told Cohen she was willing to testify at La Salle’s trial.

On Thursday, Sally was released from the San Jose detention center into Cohen’s custody. Just after 8:40 A.M. Pacific time on Friday, March 31, Sally and Cohen boarded a United Airlines flight headed for Philadelphia. Sally wore a navy-blue suit, polka-dot blouse, black shoes, a red coat, and a straw Easter bonnet for her first-ever plane trip. She told Cohen how much she looked forward to seeing her family. She threw up only once, when the plane ran into turbulence just outside of Chicago.

Ella waited at the airport in the backseat of Assistant Camden County Prosecutor (and future New Jersey governor) William Cahill’s car. The rest of Sally’s family, including Susan, Al, and their baby, Diana, arrived separately. Several other planes landed first, each one lifting Ella’s spirits before crushing them again. “Why doesn’t it come,” Ella said, her face pressed against the car window. Sally’s plane finally landed just after midnight, just over an hour late.

From the plane, Sally spotted her brother-in-law in the crowd. Sally wanted to get out right away, but Cohen told her to wait for the other passengers to leave first. Then she spotted her mother. “I want to see Mama!” she cried.

“All right, Sally,” said Cohen. “Let’s go.”

Sally stood at the doorway for a moment, looking around. Then she spotted her mother running toward her, holding out her arms. Sally raced down the steps, her face lit up with joy and washed in tears.

She and her mother clung to each other for several minutes, oblivious to the myriad flashbulbs popping at them. At first, they were weeping too hard to speak. Then Sally said: “I want to go home. I just want to go home.”

When they were safely in Assistant Prosecutor Cahill’s car, Ella explained to Sally that she couldn’t go home just yet. Instead, the authorities would take her to the Camden County Children’s Shelter in nearby Pennsauken, New Jersey, where she had to stay “until the trial is over.”

After a short drive, their car arrived at the center, the Panaros following closely behind in a separate vehicle. Susan got out of the car at the same time as Sally.

“Susan!” Sally cried upon spotting her older sibling. Sally had been so overwhelmed by the sight of her mother, the photographers, and so many well-wishers that she hadn’t realized her sister was part of the crowd.

“I kissed you at the airport but you didn’t recognize me!” Susan said.

Then Sally realized her sister was holding a little girl in her arms. Sally reached for Diana, the niece she’d never met, and hugged her tightly. “Gee, she looks like pictures of me taken when I was a baby!”

Cohen, exhausted from the trip, gently informed the family that Sally needed to get some sleep.

In the days that followed, Ella was the only family member allowed to visit Sally at the Children’s Shelter, to ensure the girl stayed in a calm frame of mind before and during the trial. Fortunately, Sally got along well with the matron. She also attended Palm Sunday mass with six other children from the shelter the day before her first scheduled court appearance, and that offered some solace. No one knew how long La Salle’s trial would last, and they tried not to bring the subject up with Sally, lest she get upset. The place she really wanted to be, after all, was home.

Thanks to an unexpected development, Sally’s stay at the center didn’t last long at all.