Vanished Without a Trace: The Baffling Case of the Sodder Children

On Christmas Eve, 1945, five children mysteriously went missing. Their parents, George and Jennie Sodder, were Italian immigrants. George was born in Sardinia in 1895 and emigrated to the United States in 1908 at the age of 13 to escape poverty. He initially worked in the Pennsylvania coal mines before moving to Fayetteville, West Virginia, another coal-mining town with a large Italian immigrant population. By 1945, George had established a successful trucking company that transported coal. Despite his business success, George was known for his strong anti-Mussolini opinions, which made him unpopular among many local Italian immigrants. Jennie, born in 1899, managed the household and cared for their ten children: John, Joseph, Marion, George Jr., Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, Betty, and Sylvia. The Sodder family lived a comfortable life thanks to George's business.

On Christmas Eve, the Sodder family celebrated together, although one son was away serving in the army. Marian, the eldest daughter, had bought toys for the younger children, who excitedly begged to stay up and play with them. Jennie allowed Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty to stay awake while the rest of the family went to bed. Around 1 a.m., Jennie was awakened by a strange phone call from a woman asking for a name she didn’t recognize. Jennie could hear laughter in the background. After hanging up, she noticed the lights downstairs were still on and the curtains were open—an unusual occurrence, as the children were always reminded to close them. Assuming they had simply forgotten, Jennie shut the curtains and turned off the lights before heading back to bed.

About 30 minutes later, Jennie was startled awake by a loud bang on the roof. By 1:30 a.m., she was awakened again, this time by the smell of smoke. Tracing the source, she discovered it was coming from George's office. Panicked, Jennie woke George, and together they rushed to save their children. They managed to rescue Marion, George Jr., John, and Sylvia, who had been sleeping upstairs, and led them outside to safety. Tragically, the five younger children—Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty—who had stayed up to play with their gifts, remained trapped inside. The fire quickly consumed the house, making it impossible to reach the other children. George and Jennie yelled desperately for them, but there was no response. By this point, the staircase had collapsed, cutting off access to the upper floor.

George attempted to climb up to the attic barefoot but was forced to stop after cutting his arm deeply while breaking a window. The intense flames made it impossible to go any further. He and his sons then tried to retrieve a ladder to climb to the attic, but the ladder, usually kept in its designated spot, was nowhere to be found. Next, they attempted to use a water barrel to extinguish the fire, only to discover that the water inside was frozen solid. Desperate, George tried to drive one of his trucks close to the house to use it as a platform, but neither truck, which had worked perfectly the day before, would start.

One of the children, Marian, ran to the neighbors’ house to get help calling the fire department. A passing motorist also saw the fire and attempted to report it from a nearby tavern, but both efforts were unsuccessful. For the next 45 minutes, the family could do nothing but watch as the house collapsed, believing their children had perished in the flames. Due to the war, the fire department was severely understaffed, and firefighters did not arrive until the morning—eight hours after the fire had begun. The delayed response was further hindered because the fire chief had difficulty driving the fire truck, forcing them to wait for someone else to come and operate the vehicle.

When the firefighters finally arrived, eight hours after the fire began, there was little they could do except sift through the ashes. They concluded that the five missing children had perished in the fire. The fire chief suggested that the blaze had been so intense it completely incinerated their bodies. However, George and Jennie were skeptical. They questioned how a fire hot enough to incinerate five people could leave items like kitchen appliances partially intact. Dr. Charles F. Kennedy, the county coroner, supported the theory that the fire was sufficient to destroy the children’s bodies. However, pathologists have noted that even during cremation, which occurs at much higher temperatures than most house fires, bone fragments still remain.

The fire chief advised George not to tamper with the scene. However, just four days later, the family could no longer bear to look at the charred remains of their home. George bulldozed five feet of dirt over the site, intending to convert it into a memorial garden. Death certificates for the missing children were issued on December 30th, but George and Jennie, overwhelmed by grief, were unable to attend the funerals held on January 2nd. Their surviving children, however, were present. The cause of the fire was officially ruled as faulty wiring, a conclusion George strongly disputed. He had recently had the house rewired, and the electrician had assured him it was completely safe. George also recalled that the Christmas lights had stayed on during the early stages of the fire. If faulty wiring had been the cause, the lights would not have remained functional.

Suspicions continued to grow as the Sodders recalled strange incidents leading up to the fire. In the fall of 1945, a man came to the house to inquire about George’s work and casually remarked that the house’s wiring was likely to cause a fire. Around the same time, another man approached George, attempting to sell him life insurance. When George refused, the man became enraged and allegedly said, "Your house is going to go up in smoke, and your children are going to be destroyed." He also warned George that his outspoken anti-Mussolini remarks would lead to tragedy.

A woman driving past the fire claimed to have seen the Sodder children peering out of a passing car. Another woman, who worked at a tourist stop about 50 miles away, reported seeing the children the morning after the fire. She claimed to have served them breakfast and noted they were traveling in a car with Florida license plates. However, these leads ultimately went nowhere. Meanwhile, the Sodders discovered their ladder at the bottom of an embankment 75 feet away from their house. A telephone repairman later informed the family that their phone lines had not been burned in the fire but had been deliberately cut by someone.

Jennie began investigating other house fires and discovered that skeletal remains were always found, even in the most severe cases. She conducted her own experiments by burning piles of animal bones to see if they would turn to ash, but they never did. A crematorium worker confirmed her suspicions, stating that even when bodies are burned at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for two hours straight—much longer and hotter than the fire that allegedly killed the children—bones still remain. George also suspected that their trucks had been tampered with, which seemed plausible given that someone had already cut their phone line. However, one of their sons suggested it was possible the trucks had been accidentally flooded when they tried to start them.

In 1949, George hired Oscar B. Hunter, a pathologist, to examine the site of the fire. During the investigation, Hunter discovered several small bone fragments, which were sent away for further analysis. The examination revealed that the bones were lumbar vertebrae from the same individual. However, it was determined that the person’s age was likely 16 or 17, which was too old to match any of the Sodder children, as Maurice, the oldest, was only 14. Additionally, the bones showed no signs of having been exposed to fire.

The Sodders hired a private investigator named C.C. Tinsley, who informed them that the insurance salesman who had threatened George was also on the coroner’s jury that had ruled the fire an accident. The fire chief had found a heart, which he had secretly buried, and George confronted him about it. The chief eventually showed the Sodders where he had buried it. However, it turned out the "heart" was actually beef liver, which had never been exposed to fire. The chief had placed it there in hopes that the Sodders would find it and believe the children had perished in the fire. The Sodders then contacted Edgar Hoover, an FBI agent, who agreed to investigate—if local authorities granted them permission. However, both the police and fire department refused. In response, Jennie and George put up a missing person billboard along the highway, offering a $10,000 reward.

In 1967, Jennie received an unexpected letter from an unknown sender, which included a photo of a young man who resembled Lewis Sodder. The photo was accompanied by a cryptic note that read, "Louis Sodder. I love brother Frankie. Lill boys, A900132 or 35." The meaning of the note has never been deciphered, and the identity of the sender remains unknown. Jennie hired a private investigator to travel to Kentucky, where the letter had originated, but the investigator disappeared without a trace.

The Sodders never gave up their search for the truth, continuing their investigation until their deaths. George passed away in 1969, followed by Jennie in 1989. After Jennie’s death, the surviving children took down the billboard that had been a constant symbol of their parents’ unwavering hope. To this day, the fate of the missing children remains a mystery. Many still believe the children were kidnapped, but the truth remains elusive.