On Christmas Eve, 1945, George and Jennie Sodder and their nine children went to sleep in Fayetteville, West Virginia (their tenth son was serving in the military). Around 1 AM, a fire engulfed the house and left little time for escape. The parents and four children escaped, but the other five disappeared.
George broke a window to re-enter the flaming house, hoping to save his remaining kids. Despite cutting his arm, the father frantically searched through the smoke for any signs of life. The staircase was burning, which left him incapable to go further inside. George decided to reach his remaining children through the upstairs window, but the ladder propped against the house was missing. He attempted to use two coal trucks to stand on top of but the engines wouldn't start, even though they'd worked perfectly the day before. George tried to use water from a rain bucket but found it was frozen. Unable to do anything else, he screamed his children's names.
His daughter ran to a neighbor's house to call the fire department, but no operator responded. They called again and were left with the same answer: nothing. The neighbor drove into town to search for the fire chief instead. Even after finding him, the fire trucks didn't arrive until 8 AM despite only being two or so miles away. By this time, the house had burned to ashes, leaving nothing intact.
George and Jennie assumed their five remaining children were dead, but no bones were recovered from a sweep despite various household items being distinguished from the fire. This nulled the idea of the flames being hot enough to turn bones to dust.
The fire was found to have been caused by "faulty wiring." The basement was made into a memorial, and the case seemed to have been closed, but George and Jennie were still unsure. What if their children were still alive? With this thought in mind, the parents released pictures of their missing children in hopes that someone would have seen them. They would not give up hope on Maurice (aged 14), Martha (12), Louis (9), Jennie (8), and Betty (5) so easily.
Odd moments before the fire began to click together after this tragic incident. George remembered a man showing up in the fall, requesting to help haul items. After retreating to the back of the house, the stranger pointed to the two fuse boxes and said that they would cause a fire one day. George found this odd, considering the local power company declared that the fuses were in a good condition with no danger to attribute.
Around this time, another man attempting to sell the family life insurance grew angry when George declined his offer. He viciously warned that the house would go up in flames and that his children were going to be destroyed. Apparently, this was all because of George's "dirty remarks" on Mussolini, an Italian dictator that the father was very outspoken about his dislike for. The older Sodder sons also noticed a man parked along the highway before Christmas, watching the younger children as they returned from school.
Thirty minutes before the fire broke out, Jennie, the mother, answered a phone call that rang through the house. An unfamiliar woman's voice asked for an unknown person while glass clinks and laughter echoed in the background. Jennie huffed that the lady had the wrong number and hung up. She noticed that the downstairs lights were on, the curtains open, and the front door unlocked. Jennie thought this was odd, but saw her son asleep on the couch, so figured it had been him and that her other children were sleeping soundly. After closing everything, Jennie went to bed, but a bang on the roof then rolling woke her. Soon after, she saw smoke drifting into the room.
After the tragedy, a telephone repair man told the family that their wires had been cut, not burned. They also realized that if the fire had been caused by "faulty wiring", then wouldn't the electricity have gone out? If so, why was the downstairs light on? George and Jennie began to doubt the validity of the story they had been told by police.
A witness came forward, explaining that he'd seen a man during the fire with a block and tackle used for removing engines, which connected to the reason George's coal trucks wouldn't start. While visiting the sight, one of their children found a rubber ball, which was determined as a "pineapple bomb" used in warfare. Jennie guessed this was the thud she'd heard on the roof.
Reports of sightings began to flourish. A woman claimed to have seen the missing children looking out from a passing car window during the fire. A clerk working at the tourist shop between Fayetteville and Charleston, about 50 miles west, stated that she'd served the children breakfast. There had been a car with a Florida license plate outside as well. Another woman at the Charleston Hotel said she'd seen the children there four or five weeks after their disappearance. However, they'd been accompanied by two women and two men who spoke fluent Italian. These strangers had been hostile when she'd attempted to speak to the children. After purchasing a large room with several beds, the party left early in the morning, leaving no trace.
I'm 1947, the parents tried to reel in the FBI to help with the investigation. The local police and fire departments declined the FBI's offer when they agreed, therefor limiting their access. George and Jennie sent out flyers and set up a billboard on the highway offering $5,000 for finding the children.
Seeing as the FBI situation hadn't worked out, the parents hired a private investigator named C. C. Tinsley. It was revealed that the insurance salesman who had threatened George before the accident was a member of the jury that had deemed the fire accidental. The fire chief, F. J. Morris, had also supposedly found a heart in the ashes that he'd hidden inside a box and buried at the scene. After further investigation, the parents and the private investigator found the box and sent it to a local funeral director. It was concluded to be beef liver, untouched by the fire. They concluded that this had been done on purpose in hopes that the family would find it and conclude the investigation.
As the years passed, tips continued to be called in. George was convinced that a child in a schoolchildren photo from a New York City newspaper was his daughter Betty, but this trek lead to a dead end after the daughter's parents refused to speak to him. In 1949, George and Jennie brought in a Washington D.C. pathologist named Oscar B. Hunter. Several shards of vertebrae were found at the remains of the house and sent in for a report by Oscar. It was concluded that no evidence suggested the vertebrae had been exposed to the fire, and looked to be of an older age than any of the missing Sodder children.
Eventually, the governor and state police told the family their search was hopeless and declared the case closed. They increased their missing persons flyers to $10,000. A woman in St. Louis sent a letter stating to have seen the oldest missing siblings and daughter, Martha, in a convent there. Another tip came from Texas, where someone overheard a conversation about a Christmas Eve fire in West Virginia. A stranger from Florida claimed to have seen the missing children staying at a distant relative of Jennie's. George investigated the lead, but returned with no answer and even more questions.
Twenty years after the fire, Jennie received a picture of a mid-20s man in an envelope in 1968. It was postmarked to Kentucky but had no return address. The parents couldn't deny that this person looked like Louis. The letter even came with a handwritten note: "Louis Sodder. I love brother Frankie. Ilil Boys. A90132 or 35." They sent a private investigator to pursue the lead and never heard from him again.
George died a year later in 1968. Jennie continued mourning until her death in 1989 when the billboard finally came down. Her children and grandchildren continued the investigation. Some theories surfaced, too, many of which were backed by much evidence and conspiracy: a local mafia had tried to recruit George but had been shunned, kidnapping the children for revenge and money before setting the fire. Another idea was that these people had been Mussolini supporters, the Italian dictator George had publicly disliked, that had kidnapped the children for revenge of the father's opinions. This would explain why the two men and women in the Charleston hotel report were speaking fluent Italian.
If either of these, or any more theories, were the case, then it could explain why the children wouldn't have contacted their parents if alive. They just wanted to protect George and Jennie if they had been captured by a mafia or something bigger. But does it really?
The youngest and last surviving Sodder child, Sylvia, is now 75 and still speaks to people about her family's mystery and will occasionally visit the burned house. The investigation has continuously led to dead ends and no one has been able to uncover the mystery behind this Christmas Eve tragedy. After 73 years, you'd think something would've been revealed — but it seems nothing ever will. This is truly a cold case.
My opinion:
Wow, this took me at least an hour to write and I'm honestly so interested and disturbed by this?? I mean how traumatic can it be to lose five children and not know whether they're dead or alive. It's so crazy that this was real and actually happened. Who knows what happened? No one, basically, and we may never know. It's been over 7 decades, so I think this can be concluded as a cold case.
My opinion? I love this theory and I think it's so insane and I really wish there was more information out there. I know this part was long but I needed to get all the information in because there was a lot. Now I know I believe, but what about you? What do you think happened to the children? Were the tips real or just a mistake/hoax? And are the Sodder kids even alive anymore? I'd love to hear what you think, so please comment below! Thanks for checking this out! Stay tuned...
Interest Rate: 9/10
Truth Rate: 9/10