Unsolved Christmas Mystery Of The Sodder Children

On Christmas Eve, 1945, the small town of Fayetteville, West Virginia was stunned by a fire at the house of George Sodder, the owner of a local trucking company. Five of the Sodder children never came out. But no remains were ever found, and as various sightings of the children started coming in, along with clues that pointed fingers at local political groups, they began to suspect that the children may have been kidnapped. What exactly happened to the Sodder children is a mystery that has never been fully explained.

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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Intro
1:05 - The Backstory
4:07 - Questions and Controversy
9:40 - Reopening the Investigation
12:36 - Sightings
14:08 - Theories
17:50 - Sponsor - Nebula

[duffman]

Worked in the funeral industry for very long time and most of that work was as a crematory operator or crematory management. I can say with almost 100% certainty that the children were not killed in that fire and simply reduced to ash. Ive cremated people over 500lbs and newborns, their is always something left. Plus in a open air fire without controlled and directed heat they would not simply reduce to ash. There would still be "pieces" of their bodies.

[juliegellert]

One thought occurred to me regarding no remains being found in the ashes of the house: I recall that Caitlin Doughty on the YouTube channel, Ask a Mortician, said in one video that to cremate a body, you need a temperature well over 2000 degrees fahrenheit. Even at that temperature, bones remain (they're broken into small pieces afterwards, according to my understanding.) It seems unlikely to me that no bones, not even parts of skulls, would have been left behind. A human heart, however, would be destroyed at a much lower temperature.

[MDE]

For me, the biggest “mystery” is the phone call. Rural areas in 1945 wouldn’t receive a “misdial”. Then it was definitely connected by an operator. Which means someone had to request a connection through an operator. There is always the possibility of an incorrect or cross connection… but someone would have definitely been waiting on the line to talk to whoever picked up.

[TheWhiteDragon]

12:30 Honestly not a mystery at all. Until fairly recent legislation, farm communities would often bury their dead on the property instead of interring them in cemeteries. Over time, some families would go extinct, or the properties would be sold and the gravesites forgotten. Sometimes when you're grabbing some random dirt out in the middle of nowhere, you'll get somebody's remains in there.

[NewMateo]

Its wild how many old unsolved crimes start off with lazy police / investigators not wanting to do their actual jobs.

[robfj]

In 24 years as a professional firefighter in a major metropolitan area, I never saw or even heard of a fire fatality where human remains could not be easily located and identified.

No way that the heat produced by a house fire will be sufficient to completely incinerate 5 bodies.

Crematoriums work because the fire is inside a sealed unit. Temperatures can rise well beyond the flash point of structural and furnishing materials. Even in a cremation, bone fragments and some teeth will often remain intact.

In a house fire, as soon as a window is broken or a portion of a roof collapses, fresh air is constantly introduced to the fire. Temperatures no longer have the chance to get to the level necessary to do so much damage to a body.

The moisture in a body will also protect bone and tissue for quite a while. The only way for these children’s bodies to have simply vanished is if they simply weren’t in the house when the fire happened.

There is plenty of photographic evidence out there to show what is left of a human body after an intense and prolonged house fire. It isn’t nice to look at but it is usually intact.

[htmmt-podcast]

I may have missed it. But I had always heard that not only was the ladder not in its usual location, but that they later found it in the middle of a nearby field, with no explanation. As though it had been intentionally hidden.

[itsROMPERS...]

A detail Joe didn't report that i saw in another video was that a hard runner object was found in the yard, and it was suggested that it could've been the object that was heard clunking on the roof the night before.
When it was shown to George he identified it as part of an incendiary grenade used in WWII.

[GregorBarclay]

“..threatened to burn down his house and *BLEEP* his children.” Yikes, the censorship has made this story unintentionally darker

[ZAGAD-ix]

There's another interesting fact I've heard regarding this case, apparently the object that caused the loud thud reported by Jennie Sodder was recovered in the rubble following the fire and George Sodder apparently identified it as rubber pineapple grenade

[ryantwombly]

My wife’s family is from WV. I don’t know why, but every crime story she’s told me about the area involves arson. There was one case where a murderer confessed to killing somebody, but refused to confess to burning down the victim’s house. I’ve never understood the connection. Maybe it all goes back to those billboards.

[maxsmodels]

We had a similar loss of a young adult in my hometown. Very sketchy. His skull was found years later about a kilometer from his abandoned truck with a gunshot wound. Ruled a possible suicide but may have been assisted or an out right homicide as no gun was found but it was about 12 years later.

[silverXnoise]

To be fair, “your wiring is fine” at the time was still a pretty severe fire risk.

[believeinmatter]

I’ve heard this story told by 4 or so different people by now, and honestly it’s still fascinating to learn about each time.

[jamesfowley]

It's too bad we can't discuss real life issues without beeping out parts of real life.

[historybuff]

This case is wierd. I understand why the parents (and the family) wondered what happened. I still have problems with the 7 hours for the fire department. I lived (several years) in an area with a volunteer fire department. One to two men always showed up quickly and before the equipment. They would help with rescue (if needed) or other things. 7 hours seems way too long -- even for a holiday. The volunteers could have walked to the burning house in less then half the time.

[joao_goncalves]

If you ever do a follow up on their decedents let us know if they did some kind of genetic match up, to see if they could find each other like that.

[philipjmars]

Its very possible that in the age of 23&Me and Ancestry that this unsolved mystery could have a new chapter or two. If the children were kidnapped, and presumably grew up as that picture of the older Louis suggests, those kids would likely have had kids of their own.

All you need is a few people to sign up for the same service and suddenly some dots can start to be connected.

[grene]

YouTube needs to start a rating system. The demonetization over a few words is just stupid.

[dragongirldragon]

Great video :) such a sad but fascinating case. Here are a couple of additional interesting facts if you’re interested. In regards to the picture of Louis that was addressed to the mom, Jennie, she did had a brother named Frank Cipriani, who could be “brother Frankie”. The Sodder family had initially suspected him because he lived in Florida. There were witnesses who saw the children get into cars with Florida licence plates. Even the Sodders believed this theory that Jennie’s brother took them because it would’ve been someone they knew. Thank you again for a great video.