The Vanishing of the Sodder Children

Christmas Eve, 1945 – Fayetteville, West Virginia

The Sodder family home was filled with the warmth of Christmas and the hum of ten children, laughter echoing through the rooms. That night, Jennie Sodder let five of her children—Maurice (14), Martha (12), Louis (10), Jennie (8), and Betty (5)—stay up late to play with their new toys. George and Jennie, the parents, along with four of their other children, went to bed.

At 1:00 AM, the phone rang. Jennie answered: a woman asking for someone she didn’t know, with laughter in the background. Jennie hung up, puzzled. She noticed all the lights were still on and the front door was unlocked. She turned everything off and went to bed.

At 1:30 AM, Jennie awoke to a loud bang on the roof, followed by a rolling sound. Then—smoke. The house was on fire.

George, Jennie, and four children managed to escape. But the five children upstairs were never seen again.

The Fire – and the First Oddities

George tried desperately to save them:

He broke a window, slicing his arm.
He climbed the exterior wall barefoot, blistering his feet.
His ladder—always kept by the side of the house—was mysteriously missing.
He tried to start his two trucks to drive up and rescue them. Neither worked, though both were functional the day before.
The phone line was dead. Later, it was discovered it had been deliberately cut.

The fire department, understaffed due to wartime shortages, didn’t arrive until 8 AM. By then, the house was ash. Yet… no remains of the five missing children were ever found. Not even bone fragments or teeth.

Authorities ruled it an accidental electrical fire. But George and Jennie were not convinced.

Clues, Rumors, and Suspicion

In the weeks and years that followed, strange stories and disturbing hints began to surface:

A telephone repairman confirmed the phone line was cut, not damaged by fire.
A bus driver claimed to see objects being thrown at the house's roof the night of the fire.
A woman reported seeing the missing children peering out of a passing car the next morning.
Another claimed to have served them breakfast at a nearby diner.
A hotel maid said she saw the children with unknown adults, who spoke Italian and wouldn’t let the children speak.

A few months after the fire, George Sodder found a strange object in the yard—a small green hard rubber item. A soldier identified it as a napalm “pineapple” grenade used in WWII. It matched Jennie’s recollection of a loud “bang” on the roof.

They began to believe the children had been abducted, possibly in retaliation for George’s outspoken anti-Mussolini views. He had clashed with local Italian immigrants over politics.

The Photo – 23 Years Later

In 1968, Jennie received a letter addressed to her—no return address. Inside was a photograph of a man in his twenties, with dark, deep-set eyes. On the back, a strange note:

“Louis Sodder. I love brother Frankie. Ilil boys. A90132 or 35.”

The man in the photo bore a striking resemblance to Louis, one of the missing children. George and Jennie were so convinced they put up a billboard along Route 16 with the photo and an appeal for information. It stayed there for over 40 years.

No Closure, Only Questions

George died in 1969. Jennie wore black for the rest of her life. They never found the children. No DNA tests, no confessions, no graves.

The case remains one of America’s strangest and most heartbreaking unsolved mysteries.

Were the Sodder children kidnapped?
Was the fire a cover-up?
And who, if anyone, sent that photo two decades later?

We may never know. But the haunting legacy of that Christmas Eve lives on.