Christmas Eve Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipation ...

, December 24, 1945, a fire destroyed the Sodder residence in Fayetteville,

West Virginia West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...

, United States. At the time, it was occupied by George Sodder, his wife Jennie, and nine of their ten children. During the fire, George, Jennie, and four of the nine children escaped. The bodies of the other five children have never been found. The surviving Sodder family believed for the rest of their lives that the five missing children survived. The Sodders never rebuilt the house, instead converting the site into a memorial garden to the lost children. In the 1950s, as they came to doubt that the children had perished, the family put up a billboard at the site along State Route 16 with pictures of the five, offering a reward for information that would bring closure to the case. It remained standing until shortly after Jennie Sodder's death in 1989. In support of their belief that the children survived, the Sodders had pointed to a number of unusual circumstances before and during the fire. George disputed the Fayetteville fire department's finding that the blaze was electrical in origin, noting that he had recently had the house rewired and inspected. George and his wife suspected

arson Arson is the crime of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, wat ...

, leading to theories that the children had been taken by the

Sicilian Mafia The Sicilian Mafia, also simply known as the Mafia and frequently referred to as Cosa nostra (, ; "our thing") by its members, is an Italian Mafia-terrorist-type organized crime syndicate and criminal society originating in the region of Sicily a ...

, perhaps in retaliation for George's outspoken criticism of the fascist government of his native Italy. State and federal efforts to investigate the case further in the early 1950s yielded no new information. The family did, however, later receive what may have been a picture of one of the boys as an adult during the 1960s. The last surviving daughter, along with their grandchildren, continued to publicize the case in the 21st century in the media and online.

Background

George Sodder was born with the name Giorgio Soddu in

Tula Tula may refer to: Geography Antarctica *Tula Mountains *Tula Point India *Tulā, a solar month in the traditional Indian calendar Iran * Tula, Iran, a village in Hormozgan Province Italy * Tula, Sardinia, municipality (''comune'') in the pr ...

Sardinia Sardinia ( ; it, Sardegna, label=Italian, Corsican and Tabarchino ; sc, Sardigna , sdc, Sardhigna; french: Sardaigne; sdn, Saldigna; ca, Sardenya, label=Algherese and Catalan) is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, in 1895. He

immigrated to the United States Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. In absolute numbers, the United States has a larger immigrant population than any other country in the world, ...

13 years later, with an older brother who went back home as soon as both boys had cleared customs at

Ellis Island Ellis Island is a federally owned island in New York Harbor, situated within the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, that was the busiest immigrant inspection and processing station in the United States. From 1892 to 1954, nearly 12 mi ...

. For the rest of his life George, as he came to be known, would not talk much about why he had left his homeland. Sodder eventually found work on the railroads in

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

, carrying water and other supplies to workers. After a few years he took more permanent work as a driver in

Smithers Smithers is a surname of English origin. It derives from the Middle English term "smyther", referring to a metalsmith, and is thus related to the common occupational surname Smith. The name Smither is related. People *Alan Smithers (born 1938), ...

. He then started his own trucking company, initially hauling

fill dirt Fill dirt (also called cleanfill, or just fill) is earthy material which is used to ''fill in'' a depression or hole in the ground or create mounds or otherwise artificially change the grade or elevation of real property. The Sodders settled outside nearby Fayetteville, which had a large population of Italian immigrants, in a two-story

timber frame Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

house north of town. In 1923, they had the first of their 10 children. George's business prospered, and they became "one of the most respected middle-class families around" in the words of one local official. However, George had strong opinions about many subjects and was not shy about expressing them, sometimes alienating people. In particular, his strident opposition to Italian dictator

Benito Mussolini Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...

had led to some strong arguments with other members of the immigrant community. The last of the Sodder children, Sylvia, was born in 1942. By then, their second-oldest son Joe (21) had left home to serve in the military during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The following year, Mussolini was deposed and

executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

. However, George's criticism of the late dictator had left some hard feelings. In October 1945, a visiting

life insurance Life insurance (or life assurance, especially in the Commonwealth of Nations) is a contract between an insurance policy holder and an insurer or assurer, where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money upon the death ...

salesman, after being rebuffed, warned George that his house " ould goup in smoke ... and your children are going to be destroyed", attributing this all to "the dirty remarks you have been making about Mussolini." Another visitor to the house, ostensibly seeking work, took the occasion to go around to the back and warned George that a pair of

fuse box A distribution board (also known as panelboard, breaker panel, electric panel, DB board or DB box) is a component of an electricity supply system that divides an electrical power feed into subsidiary circuits while providing a protective fuse ...

es would "cause a fire someday." George was puzzled by the observation, since he had just had the house rewired when an electric stove was installed, and the local electric company had said afterwards it was safe. In the weeks before

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...

that year, George's older sons had also noticed a strange car parked along the main highway through town, its occupants watching the younger Sodder children as they returned from school.

Christmas Eve 1945 house fire

The Sodder family celebrated on

1945. Marion (19), the oldest daughter, had been working at a

dime store A variety store (also five and dime (historic), pound shop, or dollar store) is a retail store that sells general merchandise, such as apparel, automotive parts, dry goods, toys, hardware, home furnishings, and a selection of groceries. It us ...

in downtown Fayetteville, and she surprised three of her younger sisters—Martha (12), Jennie (8), and Betty (5)—with new toys she had bought for them as gifts. The younger children were so excited that they asked their mother if they could stay up past what would have been their usual bedtime. At 10 p.m., Jennie told them they could stay up a little later, as long as the two oldest boys who were still awake, 14-year-old Maurice and his 9-year-old brother Louis, remembered to put the cows in and feed the chickens before going to bed themselves. George and the two oldest boys, John (22) and George Jr. (16), who had spent the day working with their father, were already asleep. After reminding the children of those remaining chores, she took Sylvia (2) upstairs with her and they went to bed together. The telephone rang at 12:30 a.m. Jennie woke and went downstairs to answer it. The caller was a woman whose voice she did not recognize, asking for a name she was not familiar with, with the sound of laughter and clinking glasses in the background. Jennie told the caller she had reached a wrong number, later recalling the woman's "weird laugh". She hung up and returned to bed. As she did, she noticed that the lights were still on and the curtains were not drawn, two things the children normally attended to when they stayed up later than their parents. Marion had fallen asleep on the living room couch, so Jennie assumed the other children who had stayed up later had gone back up to the attic where they slept. She closed the curtains, turned out the lights, and returned to bed. At 1 a.m., Jennie was again awakened by the sound of an object hitting the house's roof with a loud bang, then a rolling noise. After hearing nothing further, she went back to sleep. After another half hour she woke up again, smelling smoke. When she got up again she found that the room George used for his office was on fire, around the telephone line and fuse box. Jennie woke him and he in turn woke his older sons. Both parents and four of their children—Marion, Sylvia, John and George Jr—escaped the house. They frantically yelled to the children upstairs but heard no response; they could not go up there as the stairway itself was already aflame. John said in his first police interview after the fire that he went up to the attic to alert his siblings sleeping there, though he later changed his story to say that he only called up there and did not actually see them. Efforts to find aid and rescue the children were unexpectedly complicated. The phone did not work, so Marion ran to a neighbor's house to call the Fayetteville fire department. A driver on the nearby road had also seen the flames and called from a nearby tavern; they too were unsuccessful either because they could not reach the operator or because the phone there turned out to be broken. Either the neighbor or the passing motorist was eventually successful in reaching the fire department from another phone in the center of town. George, barefoot, attempted to climb the house's outside wall and broke open a window, cutting his arm in the process. He and his sons intended to use a ladder to the attic to rescue the other children, but it was not in its usual spot resting against the house and could not be found anywhere nearby. A water barrel that could have been used to extinguish the fire was frozen solid. George then tried to pull both of the trucks he used in his business up to the house and use them to climb to the attic window, but neither of them would start despite having worked perfectly during the previous day. Frustrated, the six Sodders who had escaped had no choice but to watch the house burn down and collapse over the next 45 minutes. They assumed the other five children had perished in the blaze. The fire department, low on manpower due to the war and relying on individual firefighters to call each other, did not respond until later that morning. Chief F.J. Morris said the next day that the already slow response was further hampered by his inability to drive the fire truck, requiring that he wait until someone who could drive was available. The firefighters, one of whom was a brother of Jennie's, could do little but look through the ashes that were left in the Sodders' basement. By 10 a.m., Morris told the Sodders that they had not found any bones, as might have been expected if the other children had been in the house as it burned. According to another account, they did find a few bone fragments and internal organs, but chose not to tell the family; it has also been noted by modern fire professionals that their search was cursory at best. Nevertheless, Morris believed that the five children unaccounted for had died in the fire, suggesting it had been hot enough to burn their bodies completely.

Aftermath

Morris told George to leave the site undisturbed so that the state

fire marshal A fire marshal, in the United States and Canada, is often a member of a state, provincial or territorial government, but may be part of a building department or a separate department altogether. Fire marshals' duties vary but usually in ...

's office could conduct a more thorough investigation. However, after four days, George and his wife could not bear the sight anymore, so he bulldozed of dirt over the site with the intention of converting it to a memorial garden for the lost children. The local

coroner A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into Manner of death, the manner or cause of death, and to investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within th ...

convened an

inquest An inquest is a judicial inquiry in common law jurisdictions, particularly one held to determine the cause of a person's death. Conducted by a judge, jury, or government official, an inquest may or may not require an autopsy carried out by a coro ...

the next day, which held that the fire was an accident caused by "faulty wiring". Among the jurors was the man who had threatened George that his house would be burned down and his children "destroyed" in retribution for his anti-Mussolini remarks.

Death certificate A death certificate is either a legal document issued by a medical practitioner which states when a person died, or a document issued by a government civil registration office, that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death, as ...

s for the five children were issued December 30. The local newspaper contradicted itself, stating that all the bodies had been found, but then later in the same story reporting that only part of one body was recovered. George and Jennie were too grief-stricken to attend the funeral on January 2, 1946, although their surviving children did.

Family questions about the official account

Not long afterward, as they began to rebuild their lives, the Sodder family started to question all the official findings about the fire. They wondered why, if it had been caused by an electrical problem, the family's

Christmas lights Christmas lights (also known as fairy lights, festive lights or string lights) are lights often used for decoration in celebration of Christmas, often on display throughout the Christmas season including Advent and Christmastide. The custom goe ...

had remained on throughout the fire's early stages, when the power should have gone out. Then they found the ladder that had been missing from the side of the house on the night of the fire at the bottom of an

embankment Embankment may refer to: Geology and geography * A levee, an artificial bank raised above the immediately surrounding land to redirect or prevent flooding by a river, lake or sea * Embankment (earthworks), a raised bank to carry a road, railwa ...

away. A telephone repairman told the Sodders that the house's phone line had not been burned through in the fire, as they had initially thought, but cut by someone who had been willing and able to climb up the pole and reach away from it to do so. A man whom neighbors had seen stealing a

block and tackle A block and tackle or only tackle is a system of two or more pulleys with a rope or cable threaded between them, usually used to lift heavy loads. The pulleys are assembled to form blocks and then blocks are paired so that one is fixed and one ...

from the property around the time of the fire was identified and arrested. He admitted to the theft, and claimed he had been the one who cut the phone line, thinking it was a power line, but denied having anything to do with the fire. However, no record identifying the suspect exists, and why he would have wanted to cut any utility lines to the Sodder house while stealing the block and tackle has never been explained. Jennie said in 1968 that if he had cut the power line, she and her husband, along with their other four children, would never have been able to make it out of the house. Jennie also had trouble accepting Morris's belief that all traces of the children's bodies had been burned completely in the fire. Many of the household appliances had been found, still recognizable, in the ash, along with fragments of the tin roof. She contrasted the results of the fire with a newspaper account of a similar house fire that she read around the same time that killed a family of seven; skeletal remains of all the victims were reported to have been found in that case. Jennie burned small piles of animal bones to see if they would be completely consumed; none ever were. An employee of a local

crematorium A crematorium or crematory is a venue for the cremation of the dead. Modern crematoria contain at least one cremator (also known as a crematory, retort or cremation chamber), a purpose-built furnace. In some countries a crematorium can also be ...

she contacted told her that human bones remain even after bodies are burned at for two hours, far longer and hotter than the house fire could have been. The Sodders' trucks' failure to start was also considered. George believed they had been tampered with, perhaps by the same man who stole the block and tackle and cut the phone line. However, one of George's sons-in-law told the ''

Charleston Gazette-Mail The ''Charleston Gazette-Mail'' is the only daily morning newspaper in Charleston, West Virginia. It is the product of a July 2015 merger between ''The Charleston Gazette'' and the ''Charleston Daily Mail''. The paper is one of nine owned by HD ...

'' in 2013 that he had come to believe that Sodder and his sons might have, in their haste to start the trucks, flooded the engines. Some accounts have suggested the wrong-number phone call to the Sodder house might have also somehow been connected to the fire. However, investigators later located the woman who had made the call. She confirmed it had been a wrong number on her part.

Subsequent developments

As spring approached, the Sodders, as they had said they would, planted flowers in the soil bulldozed over the house. Jennie tended it carefully for the rest of her life. However, further developments in early 1946 reinforced the family's belief that the children they were memorializing might, in fact, be alive somewhere. Evidence soon emerged indicating that the fire had not started in the electrical fault and was instead set deliberately. The driver of a bus that passed through Fayetteville late Christmas Eve said he had seen some people throwing "balls of fire" at the house. A few months later, when the snow had melted, Sylvia found a small, hard, dark-green, rubber ball-like object in the brush nearby. George, recalling his wife's account of a loud thump on the roof before the fire, said it looked like a "pineapple bomb"

hand grenade A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade genera ...

or some other

incendiary device Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using fire (and sometimes used as anti-personnel weaponry), that use materials such as napalm, th ...

used in combat. The family later claimed that, contrary to the fire marshal's conclusion, the fire had started on the roof, although by then there was no way to prove it. Other witnesses claimed to have seen the missing Sodder children themselves. One woman who had been watching the fire from the road said she had seen some of them peering out of a passing car while the house was burning. Another woman at a

rest stop A rest area is a public facility located next to a large thoroughfare such as a motorway, expressway, or highway, at which drivers and passengers can rest, eat, or refuel without exiting onto secondary roads. Other names include motorway servi ...

between Fayetteville and

Charleston Charleston most commonly refers to: * Charleston, South Carolina * Charleston, West Virginia, the state capital * Charleston (dance) Charleston may also refer to: Places Australia * Charleston, South Australia Canada * Charleston, Newfoundlan ...

said she had served them breakfast the next morning, and noted the presence of a car with Florida license plates in the rest stop's parking lot as well. The Sodders hired a

private investigator A private investigator (often abbreviated to PI and informally called a private eye), a private detective, or inquiry agent is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private investigators of ...

named C.C. Tinsley from the nearby town of

Gauley Bridge Gauley Bridge is a town in Fayette County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 614 at the 2010 census. The Kanawha River is formed at Gauley Bridge by the confluence of the New and Gauley Rivers. Two miles to the southeast of Gaule ...

to look into the case. Tinsley informed the family that the insurance salesman who had threatened George over his anti-Mussolini sentiments had been on the coroner's jury that ruled the fire an accident. He also learned of rumors around Fayetteville that despite his report to the Sodders that no remains had been found in the ashes, Morris had found a heart which he later packed into a metal box and secretly buried. Morris had apparently confessed this to a local minister, who in turn confirmed it to George. George and Tinsley went to Morris and confronted him with this news. Morris agreed to show the two where he had buried the metal box and they dug it up. They took what they found inside the box to a local

funeral director A funeral director, also known as an undertaker (British English) or mortician (American English), is a professional involved in the business of funeral rites. These tasks often entail the embalming and burial or cremation of the dead, as w ...

, who after examining it told them it was in reality fresh

beef liver The liver of mammals, fowl, and fish is commonly eaten as food by humans (see offal). Pork, lamb, veal, beef, chicken, goose, and cod livers are widely available from butchers and supermarkets while stingray and burbot livers are common in som ...

that had never been exposed to fire. Later, more rumors circulated around Fayetteville—that Morris had afterwards admitted the box with the liver had indeed not come from the fire originally; he had supposedly placed it there in the hope that the Sodders would find it and be satisfied that the missing children had indeed died in the fire.

1949 excavation

On one occasion, George saw a magazine photo of a group of young ballet dancers in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, one of whom looked like his missing daughter Betty. He drove all the way to the girl's school, where his repeated demands to see the girl himself were refused. George also tried to interest the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

(FBI) in investigating what he considered a

kidnapping In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful confinement of a person against their will, often including transportation/asportation. The asportation and abduction element is typically but not necessarily conducted by means of force or fear: the p ...

FBI Director The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a United States' federal law enforcement agency, and is responsible for its day-to-day operations. The FBI Director is appointed for a single ...

J. Edgar Hoover John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation ...

personally responded to his letters: "Although I would like to be of service, the matter related appears to be of local character and does not come within the investigative jurisdiction of this bureau." If the local authorities requested the bureau's assistance, he added, he would of course direct agents to assist, but the Fayetteville police and fire departments declined to do so. In August 1949, George was able to persuade Oscar Hunter, a

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

pathologist Pathology is the study of the causal, causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when us ...

, to supervise a new search through the dirt at the house site. After a very thorough search, artifacts including a dictionary that had belonged to the children and some coins were found. Several small bone fragments were unearthed, determined to have been human

vertebra The spinal column, a defining synapomorphy shared by nearly all vertebrates,Hagfish are believed to have secondarily lost their spinal column is a moderately flexible series of vertebrae (singular vertebra), each constituting a characteristic ...

e. The bone fragments were sent to Marshall T. Newman, a specialist at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

. They were confirmed to be

lumbar vertebrae The lumbar vertebrae are, in human anatomy, the five vertebrae between the rib cage and the pelvis. They are the largest segments of the vertebral column and are characterized by the absence of the foramen transversarium within the transverse p ...

, all from the same person. "Since the transverse recesses are fused, the age of this individual at death should have been 16 or 17 years", Newman's report said. "The top limit of age should be about 22 since the centra, which normally fuse at 23, are still unfused". Thus, given this age range, it was not very likely that these bones were from any of the five missing children, since the oldest, Maurice, had been 14 at the time (although the report allowed that vertebrae of a boy his age sometimes were advanced enough to appear to be at the lower end of the range). Newman added that the bone showed no sign of exposure to flame. Further, he agreed that it was "very strange" that those bones were the only ones found, since a wood fire of such short duration should have left full skeletons of all of the children behind. The report concluded that the vertebrae had, instead, most likely come from the dirt that George had used to bulldoze the site. Later, Tinsley supposedly confirmed that the bone fragments had come from a cemetery in nearby Mount Hope, but could not explain why they had been taken from there or how they came to be at the fire site. The Smithsonian returned the bone fragments to George in September 1949, according to its records; their current location is unknown. The investigation and its findings attracted national attention, and the

West Virginia Legislature The West Virginia Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of West Virginia. A bicameral legislative body, the legislature is split between the upper Senate and the lower House of Delegates. It was established under Article VI o ...

held two hearings on the case in 1950. Afterwards, however,

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Okey L. Patteson Okey Leonidas Patteson (September 14, 1898July 3, 1989) was the 23rd Governor of West Virginia from 1949 to 1953. He was a member of the United States Democratic Party and of the "machine" that totally controlled politics in that era in the sta ...

and

state police State police, provincial police or regional police are a type of sub-national territorial police force found in nations organized as federations, typically in North America, South Asia, and Oceania. These forces typically have jurisdiction o ...

superintendent W.E. Burchett told the Sodders the case was "hopeless" and closed it at the state level. The FBI decided it had jurisdiction as a possible interstate kidnapping, but dropped the case after two years of following fruitless leads.

Continuing family investigation

With the end of official efforts to resolve the case, the Sodder family did not give up hope. They had flyers printed up with pictures of the children, offering a $5,000 reward (soon doubled) for information that would have settled the case for even one of them. In 1952, they put up a billboard at the site of the house (and another along U.S. Route 60 near

Ansted The Ansted was an American automobile; successor to the Lexington and the Ansted-Lexington, it was manufactured from 1926 to 1927. Following the sale of the Lexington plant in Connersville, Indiana Connersville is a city in Fayette Cou ...

) with the same information. It would in time become a landmark for traffic through Fayetteville on

U.S. Route 19 U.S. Route 19 (US 19) is a north–south U.S. Highway in the Eastern United States. Despite encroaching Interstate Highways, the route has remained a long-haul road, connecting the Gulf of Mexico with Lake Erie. The highway's southern ...

(today State Route 16). The family's efforts soon brought another reported sighting of the children after the fire. Ida Crutchfield, a woman who ran a Charleston hotel, claimed to have seen the children approximately a week afterwards. "I do not remember the exact date", she said in a statement. The children had come in, around midnight, with two men and two women, all of whom appeared to her to be "of Italian extraction". When she attempted to speak with the children, " e of the men looked at me in a hostile manner; he turned around and began talking rapidly in

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

. Immediately, the whole party stopped talking to me". She recalled that they left the hotel early the next morning. Investigators today do not, however, consider her story credible, as she had only first seen photos of the children two years after the fire, five years before she came forward. George followed up leads in person, traveling to the areas from where tips had come. A woman from

St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

, claimed Martha was being held in a

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...

there. A bar patron in

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

claimed to have overheard two other people making incriminating statements about a fire that happened on Christmas Eve in West Virginia some years before. None of those proved significant. When George heard later that a relative of Jennie's in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

had children that looked similar to his, the relative had to prove the children were his own before George was satisfied. In 1967, George went to the

Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

area to investigate another tip. A woman there had written to the family, saying that Louis had revealed his true identity to her one night after having too much to drink. She believed that he and Maurice were both living in Texas somewhere. However, George and his son-in-law, Grover Paxton, were unable to speak with her. Police there were able to help them find the two men she had indicated, but they denied being the missing sons. Paxton said years later that doubts about that denial lingered in George's mind for the rest of his life. Alleged 1967 photograph of Louis Sodder

Another letter that they received that year brought the Sodders what they believed was the most credible evidence that at least Louis was still alive. One day Jennie found in the mail a letter addressed to her, postmarked in

Central City In urban planning, a core city, principal city metropolitan core, or central city, is the largest or most important city or cities of a metropolitan area. A core city is surrounded by smaller satellite cities, towns, and suburbs. A central city i ...

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia to ...

, with no return address. Inside was a picture of a young man of around 30 with features strongly resembling Louis's, who would have been in his 30s if he had survived. On the back was written: ::''Louis Sodder'' ::''I love brother Frankie'' ::''Ilil boys'' ::''A90132 or 35'' The family hired another private detective to go to Central City and look into the missive, but he never reported back to the Sodders and they were unable to locate him afterwards. The picture nonetheless gave them hope. They added it to the billboard (leaving Central City out of it and any other published information out of fear that Louis might come to harm) and put an enlargement of it over their fireplace. George admitted to the ''

'' late the next year that the lack of information had been "like hitting a rock wall—we can't go any further". He nevertheless vowed to continue. "Time is running out for us", he admitted in another interview around that time. "But we only want to know. If they did die in the fire, we want to be convinced. Otherwise, we want to know what happened to them". George Sodder died in 1969. Jennie and her surviving children—except John, who never talked about the night of the fire except to say that the family should accept what happened and move on with their lives—continued to seek answers to their questions about the missing children's fate. After George's death, Jennie stayed in the family home, putting up fencing around it and adding additional rooms. For the rest of her life she wore black in mourning and tended the garden at the site of the former house. After her death in 1989, the family finally took the weathered, worn billboard down. The surviving Sodder children, joined by their own children, continued to publicize the case and investigate leads. They, along with older Fayetteville residents, have theorized that the

was trying to

extort Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, al ...

money from George and the children may have been taken by someone who knew about the planned arson and said they would be safe if they left the house. They were possibly taken back to Italy. If the children had survived all those years and were aware that their parents and siblings had survived too, the family believes, they may have avoided contact in order to keep them from harm. Sylvia Sodder Paxton, the youngest of the surviving Sodder siblings, died in 2021. She was in the house on the night of the fire, which she said was her earliest memory. "I was the last one of the kids to leave home", she recalled to the ''Gazette-Mail'' in 2013. She and her father often stayed up late, talking about what might have happened. "I experienced their grief for a long time". She believed that her siblings survived that night, and assisted with efforts to find them and publicize the case. Her daughter said in 2006: "She promised my grandparents she wouldn't let the story die, that she would do everything she could". In the 21st century, the family's efforts have come to include online forums like websleuths.com in addition to media coverage. The increase in the latter has led some who have examined the case to believe that the children did, in fact, die in 1945. George Bragg, a local author who wrote about the case in his 2012 book ''West Virginia's Unsolved Murders'', believes that John was telling the truth in his original account, when he said he tried to physically awaken his siblings before fleeing the house. He allows that that conclusion may still not be correct: "Logic tells you they probably did burn up in the fire, but you can't always go by logic."

Stacy Horn Stacy Horn (born June 3, 1956 in Norfolk, Virginia) is an American author, businesswoman and occasional journalist. She grew up on Long Island, New York and received a B.F.A. from Tufts University and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. She rec ...

, who did a segment on the case for

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

around its 60th anniversary in 2005, also believes the children's death in the fire is the most plausible solution. In a contemporaneous post on her blog with material she had to cut from her story for time, she noted that the fire had continued to smolder all night after the house collapsed and that two hours was not enough time to search the ash thoroughly. Even if it had been, the firefighters may not have known what to look for. "However", she said, "there is enough genuine weirdness about this whole thing ... that if someday it is learned that the children did not die in the fire I won't be shocked". In 2022, the

History Channel History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...

aired an episode of its series ''History's Greatest Mysteries'' that detailed the events of the case.

Notes

References

External links

Sodder children disappearance on Bottega MisteroStuff You Should Know episode
{{coord missing, West Virginia 1940s missing person cases Missing person cases in West Virginia 1945 in the United States Italian-American history 1945 in West Virginia Fayette County, West Virginia December 1945 events in the United States Mass disappearances Missing American children Fires in West Virginia Building collapses in the United States Building collapses caused by fire Building and structure fires in the United States