What Happened to the Sodder Children?

**Discussion begins at 5:00**

On Christmas Eve, 1945, tragedy struck the Sodder family home in Fayetteville, West Virginia.  A fire destroyed the house — but five of the children were never found.  Authorities ruled the blaze accidental, yet no bones, remains, or evidence of the children were ever recovered.

For decades, George and Jennie Sodder believed their kids hadn’t perished in the flames at all.  Were the Sodder children kidnapped? Was it a Mafia cover-up tied to George’s outspoken views?  Or was this just one of history’s strangest true crime coincidences?

In this episode, we dive deep into the mysterious disappearance of the Sodder Children: the cut phone lines, the disabled trucks, the suspicious “wrong number” call, and the mysterious photo mailed to the family two decades later.  This unsolved case has haunted West Virginia for nearly 80 years — and it remains one of the most chilling Christmas true crime stories ever told.

Transcript

Hey, guys.
Welcome.
Welcome back.
It is the 2Scheme Queens again today.
Colleen is venturing out with the children, trying to find some lost ones.
I get it, because we're gonna talk about lost children.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, she's on the hunt, actually.
Yeah, she'll be back.
We'll all be together next week.
The 3Scheme Queens.
The 3...
Well, yeah.
Maybe you guys can blame Colleen for this one.
Colleen likes to...
She's not here to defend herself, so...
Colleen likes to work a job and then try and do other things that are not her job.
Her friends ask her for favors, and she can't say no.
And so we were hassling her that Kate is a mother of two, but for some reason...
With two jobs.
But for some reason, Colleen, babysitting and dog sitting for people is the harder one to coordinate with.
But we're all going to be back next week in our new recording studio.
And she won't listen to this, so...
She won't know we're talking.
And I find that whenever we're not...
Whenever it's got been a couple episodes and we haven't been together, and then we're finally together, it's just...
Pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew.
Off the ribs.
Yeah.
Well, unintentionally, we're in like...
True crime burr.
True crime burr?
Yeah.
That's better than murder burr.
We're like in true crime burr.
Yeah.
So all our conspiracy theories, you know, last week and this week and next week...
No doubt.
Are true crime-y.
Yeah.
Before we get into it.
So is it time for our drink check?
Drink check.
We have a theme drink that we're kind of undecided about.
Yeah.
I want to note that I did not make the face.
She did not make the face.
Yeah.
I was cognizant of not making the face.
This had all the things you were going to love.
This is a West Virginia kiss because we're going to talk about a West Virginia story today.
Yeah.
And it has muddled strawberries, which we think is the problem.
The problem, yeah.
Except then, if you take out the strawberries, it's just bourbon and maple syrup and a little bit of club soda.
Yeah, sounds great to me.
Bourbon soda?
Yeah.
I'm like, well, really, if we just put, if we just subbed oranges in for the strawberry, it'd be like a old fashioned.
Yeah.
It's not bad, but it kind of gives, like, melted smoothie or something.
Yeah.
It's like, it's like when you're at an all inclusive and you swim up to the bar and you're like, hey, can I get a daiquiri?
And it's a very pulpy daiquiri.
And then you get down, you get back to your chair and your, your kids are like, hey, let's go swimming.
And then you go swimming and then you come back to your drink and it's melted.
But the pulp is all there with the alcohol.
That's what it's like.
What all inclusive are you going to where you're getting fresh strawberries and your daiquiris?
Well, that's a great question.
I've never actually done that.
We always joke you can't go to an all inclusive because she can't just lay by the pool.
It's something with the strawberry.
Well, I've never before thought strawberry and bourbon, that's a good pair.
Right.
Cherry and bourbon.
We were advised against it, but we did it anyway.
We did some jello shots for a party that were black cherry, jello and bourbon.
And actually, they were really good.
Who told you not to do it again?
Captain Fred.
Oh, Captain Fred.
Captain Fred is the one who taught me, when I was in college, he taught me how to make jello shots.
What a guy.
And everyone used to rave about my jello shots.
Yeah.
And he's the one who's like, you do lime jello and tequila, chef's kiss.
Yeah.
And I was like, let's do black cherry and bourbon.
And I think he was skeptical because it's like a dark liquor and jello shot.
But actually, they were pretty good.
It was good.
Yeah.
Better than our West Virginia kiss.
All right.
Well, that being said, I'm still drinking it.
I did just top it off with a little bit more bourbon.
She was like, just give me more bourbon.
So she's also over here in her professional pajamas.
So she's going to just pass on out after this.
Yeah.
Nothing like a strawberry nightcap.
So today, we're going to talk about the mystery of the Sodder children.
Are you familiar with this one?
I'm not.
So on Christmas Eve, 1945.
Another Christmas tragedy.
Yeah.
Jambonet.
Yeah.
I have nothing to say.
You're right.
And it's a bummer.
On Christmas Eve, 1945, a fire broke out at the Sodder family home in Fayetteville, West Virginia.
George and Jennie Sodder escaped with four of their 10 children, but five others, Maurice, Martha, Lewis, Jennie and Betty, aged five to 14, were never seen again.
10 children.
Okay, I already have questions, but continue.
The blaze quickly consumed the house, and authorities concluded that the children had perished in the fire.
However, no remains were ever recovered, which raised suspicions almost immediately.
In the years that followed, numerous oddities deepened the mystery.
The Sodders discovered that the house's telephone lines had been cut, and George's trucks, which he intended to use to fight the fire, would not start.
Witnesses later claimed to have seen the children alive.
These accounts, along with the lack of physical evidence in the ashes, fueled the Sodders' belief that their children had been kidnapped, rather than killed.
For decades, George and Jennie pursued leads, even putting up a famous billboard along Route 16 with the children's photos, pleading for information.
In 1967, the family received a mysterious photo in the mail of a man they believe resembled their missing son, Louis, though the sender was never traced.
Oh my gosh.
Despite their tireless efforts, no conclusive evidence ever surfaced.
The case remains officially unresolved, and the fate of the Sodder children is still debated, whether they perished in the fire or were abducted under mysterious circumstances.
So what really happened to the five children?
Authorities at the time concluded the children perished in the blaze.
However, critics point out the bone fragments should have survived and tests at the time showed even animal bones remained intact in similar fires.
Conspiracy theories continue to circulate.
Many believe the children were taken from the house before or during the fire, which may have been set deliberately as a cover-up, as evidenced by a number of strange discoveries in the aftermath.
Some suggest organized crime or human trafficking may have been involved, possibly linked to George Sodder's outspoken criticism of Mussolini and tensions within the Italian-American community.
Whoa.
Some speculate that influential people in Fayetteville may have been involved either directly or indirectly.
The family always felt that the fire department and local officials dismissed their concerns too quickly, and the fire chiefs claim that the children's bodies had been cremated beyond recognition and seems scientifically unlikely.
So, what do you think?
Um, well, I'm still stuck on the 10 children part.
I mean, it's 1945.
Yeah, 1940.
Farmland, West Virginia.
They got a...
How did the fire start?
Well, that's what I...
My thought is, how did the fire start?
How did...
how many children were there?
Six that didn't get out?
Well, there were 10 children, but one of them was away in the military.
Okay.
So, there were nine children at home, and the two parents.
The two parents and four children got out.
Five perished.
Five allegedly perished.
Yes.
And between the ages of five and 14.
Yep.
So, the oldest...
The older ones?
So, the ones that survived were the youngest child who stayed in a bedroom with the parents.
Yeah.
She survived, and then the three oldest children survived, and then the rest, who knows?
Oh my gosh.
Okay.
Well, yes, I have lots of thoughts.
How did the fire start?
Telephone lines cut, and yeah.
His trucks wouldn't start, which had started earlier in the day.
Oh.
Was his gas all let out from the truck?
And then, I also have a question about, oh, how long did the fire blaze?
Because I feel like that is a reasonable question when you're talking about, are there remains left?
So, I would like to receive more detail before I, but these are my questions right now.
Well, lucky for you, I think I have answers to all those questions.
Oh my gosh.
It's a rarity.
Well, will those answers, not that Megan isn't thorough, just usually a couple of weeks ago, she said, why do you two always ask the one question that I don't have any information?
Well, because it's also something, it's always something like, well, why was he wearing a blue shirt and not a green shirt?
Yeah.
It's never something that loops into the story.
As details.
Yes, details.
And my mind, you and Colleen, your minds think very similarly.
We snag.
Mine has not worked that way.
So, George Sidoux immigrated from Italy to the United States in 1908 at the age of 13, at which time his name was Americanized as Sodder.
Oh, okay.
He found work delivering water and supplies to the rail workers in Pennsylvania before relocating to West Virginia where he worked in the coal mines.
While in West Virginia, he met the daughter of an Italian shopkeeper, Jennie Cipriani.
The couple wed in 1922 and settled into a two-story house in the Italian community within Fayetteville, West Virginia.
They had 10 children over the next 20 years.
My goodness.
And were a well-respected middle-class family.
Eventually, George and his sons ran a transport company for railroad supplies and coal.
George was very outspoken, though, and openly discussed his political views, including his disdain for Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Italy and leader of the Fascist Party.
So he did have some local enemies within the Italian...
Oh, community.
Well, first of all, very weird, in my opinion, that there's an Italian community in West Virginia.
I thought the same thing.
Yeah.
And second of all, this is 45.
So this is like hot off the coals of World War II.
Mussolini is already dead.
Oh, he's already dead?
At the time of this fire, Mussolini's been dead for over six months.
Yeah.
He was...
How long did he reign in Italy?
I mean, you don't have to answer that question, but I'm assuming that, uh, Sodder was probably affected by his reign, or he got out and then saw everything through the American propaganda.
So, I mean, his family, I think he came over with his brother, but his brother turned around and went right back.
Oh.
Which gets into sort of some mob theories, but I think all of his family was still in Italy.
He's here by himself.
Yeah.
So I bet his brother turned around because he, like, couldn't survive without his mom.
You know those Italian men.
Oh.
They love their mommas.
It's a thing.
Okay.
Okay, it's Italian.
Yeah.
So, again, December of 1945, the war has just ended, and the family gathers for the Christmas holiday.
Their eldest son had just returned from the war.
Their second eldest was on his way back.
So, the entire family is present in the home, with the exception of Joe, who again is the second oldest son.
So, around 10 p.m.
on Christmas Eve night, most of the family had gone to sleep.
But Maurice, Martha, Louise, Jennie, and Betty wanted to stay up and play.
Their older sister Marion worked at a dime store and had bought them toys, and so they wanted to play with their toys.
Jennie's like, it's Christmas Eve, you guys can stay up.
She takes Sylvia upstairs to bed.
Sylvia is the youngest.
Yeah.
But she says to Maurice and Louis, you need to put the cows in and feed the chickens before you go to bed.
Okay.
Which they do.
This is their normal chore.
Yep.
This happened.
Okay.
These two boys were alive, left the house to go do their chores.
And came back.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Okay.
So at 1230 on Christmas morning, Jennie was awoken to a phone ringing in her husband's downstairs office.
So I will say that as I listened to all this content and watched and read and everything, I was like, is Jennie the only person in this house who wakes up?
Because she wakes up like six times.
And then I actually did listen to a podcast with one of her granddaughters.
And her granddaughter was like, she was a notoriously light sleeper.
I'm like, okay.
Well, yeah, if you have ten children, you're never off.
I'm sure her brain was like wired to be like awake for the children.
That's like a scientific thing with moms.
They're like, women in general are scientifically lighter sleepers.
But when you're a mom, that like postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, like we know now, is really like an ancestral trait.
Evolutionary trait.
Yeah.
To prevent your baby from being eaten by a bear.
Yeah.
Being like awake enough and alert enough.
But now we're just like so safe, we have nowhere for that anxiety to go.
So she was a notoriously light sleeper.
So the phone rang in her husband's office, and she went down to answer it.
And she said when she picked up the phone, there was like maniacal laughter and clinking glasses.
Whoa.
And a female asked to speak with someone by name.
And Jennie said, wrong number, and she hangs up.
If you read a story that's trying to spin this as maybe more sinister, this was like a creepy phone call.
And other people were like, it was Christmas.
It was 12.30 in the morning on Christmas day.
I'm sure there were cocktails being consumed.
Yeah, or this is someone from a bar thinking she's calling.
Well, we do find out who this was, but hold that thought.
So then Jennie went back into the living room, and she said she saw her daughter Marion asleep on the couch alone.
I guess she slept on the couch a lot.
But the lights were on, the blinds were open, and the door was unlocked.
Oh.
Generally, her sons would lock the doors and close the blinds after those evening chores of the cows and the chickens.
So she said she was annoyed, but she assumed that the five children had gone to bed.
And so she locked the door and closed the blinds.
She was going to turn the light off, but she left it on because Marion was asleep on the couch.
She's like, well, Marion will wake up, and she'll need the lights.
Okay.
Also important to note, then, that the lights were on.
Okay.
Important to note that the lights were on.
And it's 1945, and lights existed in 1945.
Okay, Colleen.
Lights did exist in 1945.
Electricity.
Did TVs exist?
No.
Radios.
I feel like everybody sat around the radio and heard about the war.
There were TVs in 1945.
They were rare, but production picked up at the end of World War II.
Oh, okay.
So there were lights.
There was electricity.
Back in 1876, an old boy named Bell, that's the telephone, invented a contraption that we know so well.
You know that song?
Why haven't I heard from you?
It's a Reba song.
Okay.
She goes back to bed 30 minutes go by.
She woke up again to the sound of a heavy object striking the roof and rolling off.
Whoa.
Oh, like a torch?
Yeah.
A torch, like some kind of incendiary device, some kind of fire starter, maybe?
Yeah, I'm thinking torch.
Large torch.
What if it...
A large torch hit the ceiling and rolled off?
Oh, you think they just like...
You're thinking it's like 1800.
Yeah.
And they hang like the torch.
They have a wood-burning torch.
Okay.
At 130, though.
So then she goes back to sleep.
Okay.
30 minutes go by.
I'm sorry.
She heard something loud hit the roof and she didn't wake up her husband and was like, what was that?
She probably didn't.
Her husband was probably like, go back to sleep.
Also, you know, it's a different time.
These wives weren't princesses then, right?
I'd have been like, get your shotgun, because I know you have one.
We're on a farm.
And go investigate.
So then, 1.30 in the morning, she wakes up to the smell of smoke.
So 12.30, the phone rings.
What a gosh.
She hears something on the roof.
She hears something on the roof.
1.30, she smells smoke.
Oh, okay.
So she awoke to the smell of smoke and discovered a fire originating from George's office.
Whoa.
She tried to call for help, but the phone wasn't working.
Oh my gosh.
The couple evacuated Sylvia and Marion, but were unable to climb the stairs to get to their other kids.
And so this is very confusing.
Oh, so they're on different levels.
So they're on different levels.
And I will say, trying to look at a layout of this house, the sources say different things.
So most of my sources say that the parents up on the main floor, the four oldest kids shared a room on the second floor, and the five younger kids shared an attic room, which I thought was weird because I think they would do like girls and boys, but like Marion was with her...
Her brothers?
Brothers, yeah.
Farms.
But then I actually listened to an interview with the daughter of one of the survivors, Sylvia, the youngest daughter, and she said the boys were in one room and the girls in another.
And if that's the case, that actually makes this story more confusing to me.
Right, because the how did three girls and two boys end up...
Wait, and also, wasn't Sylvia like two?
Well, Sylvia was like two or three and she slept in her parents' room and Marion was asleep on the couch.
On the couch, but Marion made it out.
Marion made it out.
Okay.
So again, Marion's on the couch, she made it out.
Sylvia sleeps with Jennie and George, she makes it out.
John and George Jr., who had been asleep in their second floor room, escaped, claiming that they had been unable to get to their sibling's bedroom in the attic.
If the two older boys are sharing a room with younger boys, then they would have all gotten out if they got out.
It's weird, like the two older boys got out and then they're like, we couldn't get to our...
Right, our younger siblings.
Younger siblings, yeah.
So there were different stories, because at first they claimed that they went up and they shook their siblings awake.
And then later on, the story changed and they were like, oh no, we yelled up the stairs to them.
And that becomes important because if they shook their siblings awake, then they saw them.
Right.
Like they couldn't have not been in the house.
But at the same time, I think people are like, they probably felt, they probably had regret like...
I should have.
I should have.
But instead, I just yelled at them.
And so maybe they just like, they were embarrassed that they had done what they thought they were supposed to do.
George Senior, he had a barrel of rainwater outside.
So he thought, okay, maybe I can dust the fire with that.
He ran out, but unfortunately it was frozen.
So then it is just like a perfect, like nothing he does works.
So he ran around to try to get, to try to access the attic with a ladder, but the ladder was gone.
The ladder was gone?
So then he thought, I'll move my truck and I will climb into the attic window by sitting on top of my truck.
But he's got two trucks for his business.
Neither one will start.
And he and his sons had driven them earlier that day.
Oh my gosh.
So this is fishy.
Suspicious.
What do we think that the person who called was checking the phones to see?
If they were home?
If they were home and if the phones were still working.
Oh, maybe.
In the meantime, Marion ran to the neighbor's house to call for help.
But the neighbor's phone wasn't working.
A passerby offered to drive to town to alert the volunteer fire department.
And this is where people, I mean, this is also so fishy, but also this is a different time.
And again, it's completely volunteer.
So like, you got to phone tree this.
It takes a while.
Right.
The fire station again, two and a half miles from the house, okay?
So this passerby in his car drives and he notifies Chief Morris.
Morris activates the telephone tree to get all of his volunteers in.
He said he could-
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
So a telephone tree?
So nobody's sleeping at the fire station right now?
Right, because it's a volunteer.
Which I do know like in some of these small towns even now, my friend told me like that in Delaware or whatever, they would like ring a bell and then people are like, oh, I got to get to the fire station.
It's not like a small town volunteer.
I know volunteer now people spell the night, but this is like a small town volunteer situation.
Oh my gosh.
So the chief said he could not find anybody who was certified to drive the fire truck.
What?
Why can the fire chief not drive the fire truck?
That's a big deal.
Yeah.
Maybe he was drunk.
Yes.
Well, that's the theory about maybe people are like, maybe that's why it took so long.
It was Christmas night, people were.
Yeah.
Guess how long it took for the fire department to get the two and a half miles to this house?
45 minutes.
Seven hours.
What?
The house was incinerated by seven hours.
I'm sure of it.
The house was incinerated within 45 minutes.
Yeah.
So by the time they showed up, the house was destroyed, the fire was out.
There are investigators who are like, this was not abnormal for the time.
It seems to me like, again, I get it taking a long time, but even if it takes them an hour to mobilize, that's a long time, but seven hours?
That's like, it is daylight at this point.
Yeah.
So then they spent a few hours surveying the scene, but they didn't locate any remains.
And so Chief Morris said, you know, the children were probably all cremated, and it's Christmas.
It's the holidays.
Right.
We're all going to head out, and the fire marshal will come by in a couple of days, and they'll do an investigation.
So at first, the family actually accepted this story.
They were like, yes, we lost our five children in this fire.
But then they started to get a little bit more suspicious because of the lack of remains.
So did the family start looking through the ashes and like look for the remains?
I think it was them and the firefighters.
They might have looked a little bit.
But actually, after four days of waiting for a fire marshal who never showed up, the parents said they couldn't look at this destroyed home anymore.
So George bulldozed five feet of dirt over the site to convert it into a memorial garden.
So the house had burned and collapsed into the basement.
Okay.
And so he bulldozed all this dirt to cover it.
And he's like, I'm going to make a memorial garden.
And so people are like, well, that's weird.
Why didn't you wait?
But he's like, initially, we weren't really suspicious because is a fire marshal ever going to come out and investigate this?
Or are we just going to be staring at this?
I mean, their houses, they had to live in like their barn.
Now they had like a little shack that they would like sell their farm.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And they like lived in that while they built a new house and stuff.
But nonetheless, the state inspector claimed that the fire was caused by faulty wiring, but the wiring had just been checked and approved by the power company.
Still, the parents couldn't believe it.
But the surviving family remembered, remember I told you, that when she locked the door, she left the lights on for Mary and she went to bed.
Yes.
When she woke up and the rest of the family who survived agree, when she woke up to the smell of smoke, the lights were still on.
So like if this was an electric fire, then the lights would be off.
A fire would have started and the lights would be off immediately.
Then the family is like, we're starting to get a little dubious here, right?
So Jennie actually, she spoke to a crematorium and they said, to cremate a corpse, it requires very high temperatures for a prolonged period of time, temperatures twice as hot as this fire likely reached, and it usually takes hours, not 45 minutes like this fire burned for.
They said even then, usually when they remove the body, there's still bone fragments, and then they have to manually like grind up.
Oh my God.
And so then she was like, well, then these bodies shouldn't have, there should be some sort of evidence that these bodies burned.
Why is she the one that's doing this research?
Why is there no investigation into this?
This is like, listen, I know it's 1945, but come on guys.
Yeah.
Seven hours to get to the scene of a fire when you're not even needed anymore.
And now the fire marshal with what?
All of the fires that are happening can't get there?
Yeah, I'm like, okay.
So it was Christmas.
Well, it's really the day after Christmas, right?
Maybe people are hung over or whatever.
I'm like, but the 27th, 28th, 29th, are these all holidays still?
I mean, maybe, I don't know.
They're not holidays for us.
They are these days.
Yeah.
These kids don't go to school, you know?
We didn't go to school that either.
But for real.
And then they did find the ladder in an embankment, 75 feet away.
What?
So some people are like, oh, it wasn't that far.
It just must have blown over.
But I'm like, 75 feet, unless there was like an explosion, not blown over, like an explosion that like projected it.
75 feet blowing?
Yeah.
That's a long way to blow.
Yeah.
That seems, everything about this is fishy.
And I think that this, they definitely, something fishy definitely happened here.
Do you think the kids did it?
That's one of the theories.
Hold on.
The telephone company came out to inspect the phone lines, and found that the phone, because the phones didn't work.
Right.
The phone line was not burned.
It was cut.
A jury convened, and they declared the fire accidental, and death certificates were issued for the five children on December 30th.
But again, the family, this family was dubious.
Right.
Marion later said, I never smelled burning flesh.
They say you can smell burning flesh miles away, but I never did.
The family actually did their own experience.
They burned animals, but they never observed the carcasses being completely destroyed.
So no matter how much they tried, there would still be some kind of remains.
Oh my gosh.
They did their own experience.
Yeah.
They also claim that they were recognizable kitchen appliances and roof pieces that survived.
There was like rubble, and they're like, how did my, I don't know what the kitchen appliance in the 1945, how did my like-
A stove?
I'm like, how did my kitchen aid?
Yeah.
How did my stove survive?
Right.
But no bones survived.
Right.
So it's possible they were in denial, but the oddities kept on coming.
It all started when George hired his first PI, CC.
Tinsley, who uncovered the following.
He noted that several months prior in October, an insurance salesman, Rosser Long, threatened George after they rejected his sales pitch.
So Armstead Rosser Long was the president of Rosser Long Insurance, and he tried to sell George Insurance, but George declined.
And Long said, quote, Your GD house is going up in smoke.
Your children are going to be destroyed.
That feels very specific.
That does feel very specific.
Also, though, like maybe he's like Matt, he's just like, you're going to regret this because you know your house is going to go up in flames and you're not going to be insured.
Right.
So was that a threat or was that just like an angry man?
Right.
He also said, you are going to be paid for the dirty remarks you've been making about Mussolini.
Interestingly, though, this man, Roster Long, he was on the coroner's journey, the one that declared the fire accidental.
And he was a member of the Fayetteville Rotary Club along with Fiorenzo and Solante Giannulli Tolo, which they are other potential suspects.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
He also looked into Fire Chief FJ.
Morris.
This is the guy who took seven hours to mobilize.
He was a fire chief from 1937 to 1947.
So he had been a fire chief for eight years and he sort of couldn't drive a firetruck.
Yeah, that's ridiculous.
Doesn't make sense.
So this PI also heard from the local minister that Morris was telling people that he had in fact found remains, including an intact heart, but that he hadn't wanted to upset the family, so he just buried it on the property.
What?
Yeah.
You can't do that.
An intact heart?
Yeah.
Lies.
Heart would go up in flames way faster Than bones?
Than bones.
So George and the PI convinced him to dig up these remains and lo and behold, there was a heart.
Whoa.
Shut up.
Was it a cow heart?
Was it a pig heart?
Was it a chicken heart?
You're on the right track.
Because then the family takes us to a funeral home director, and the funeral home director is like, that's not a heart, that is beef liver.
Okay.
And it has been untouched by fire.
Oh.
So he just told this, the theory is that he's like, tell this lie to shut people up, there were remains, and then he got called on it.
So he, like, buried this liver.
I don't know.
It's weird.
It's so weird.
So then Morris was like, I'm not helping anymore now that this all happened.
So again, the question is like, was he a little sociopath?
Trying to stir up drama?
Was he trying to bring closure to the parents?
Was he trying to block further investigation?
Was he bought and paid for?
The oldest son said, the fire marshal was either paid off or they didn't push it.
It's a way of life in Fayette County.
If they want to get rid of you, they get rid of you.
Whoa, I believe that.
There were also rumors that this man was on the corridors jury.
Here's the thing.
I think this must be, I mean, I think I looked it up, it was like population at this time on the census, like a thousand or something.
Yeah.
But like it had to be small because how are all of these people on the 12 person jury?
It's giving very small town.
Berenzo Genitolo was an Italian immigrant who had previously employed George in his construction company, and he was the director of the Fayette County National Bank.
He co-signed the mortgage, meaning he would have been the recipient of $1,500, which would be $20,000 today, in insurance payout for the loss of the house.
So there are rumors that he had political disagreements and that he was irritated that the Sodders had not settled the estate of Jennie's deceased father.
So by the way, he had financial incentive.
Right.
If something happened to the house, he was going to get $20,000.
Yeah.
But $20,000 doesn't feel like a lot.
There's no evidence that he actually had any financial issues.
There was some, they were professional rivals because they now owned competing hauling businesses.
But again, apparently he was very well respected and liked in the community.
No evidence of financial issues.
His cousin was on the coroner's jury.
Lonnie Johnson is another suspect, again, and by suspect, I mean, if you were on our side where you're like, this whole story was fishy and this wasn't just an electrical fire that killed everybody, who would have motive?
Right.
A neighbor reported witnessing a theft from the sodder yard during the time of the fire, and police tracked down Lonnie Johnson, who admitted to stealing automotive block and tackles, which are tools that were used by George DeHal Cole.
So his version is like, there was a fire, there was chaos, and I took advantage.
But also I'm like...
At least he was honest.
These houses seem so far apart that they can't get a fire truck there.
But you can just stumble upon a fire and steal something?
Yeah.
I don't know.
Well, he sounds like not a very good neighbor.
He pled guilty, he paid a fine, but he denied any involvement in the fire.
He said he had cut the phone line because he was trying to cut the power line.
So that would maybe explain why we have a cut in the phone line and not fire.
Why was he trying to cut the power line?
Another source said he claimed that he used the ladder to cut the telephone line so they couldn't report it if he was caught.
I don't know, but he was adamant, he just stumbled upon the spire and took advantage.
Oh, okay.
So he's-
I don't know, there's two different stories.
As part of this robbery, also though, I'm like, if you stumbled upon this spire and there was chaos, why would you need to cut any lines?
If you stumbled upon the spire and there was chaos, wasn't it before then that she tried to-
Yes.
As soon as she smelled smoke, she tried to call for help.
Right.
Yeah.
Doesn't line up.
Yeah.
This story is just weird.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Then actually at one point, Jennie made accusations against her brother in Florida merely based on the fact that the witnesses claimed they may have seen a car with Florida plates fleeing the fire, and there were young children in the car.
Jennie said, Well, I have a brother in Florida.
So they went down there, the police went down there, and there was a young Martha, but it was his biologic daughter.
He was able to prove that his children were all his children.
They weren't like her children living as his children.
Yeah.
And so I don't know about that.
And there was no other motive except that it sounds, I'm not sure if these parents, I'm like, they have some points, but also how much, is there some, like, I don't know.
It just seems weird to be like, wait, Florida plates?
I know someone in Florida, and that area they go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There was another interesting reaction preceding the fire.
A man had come to the house looking for work, but then seemed to loiter around the house.
He pointed to the fuse box and said, that will start a fire someday.
But George said, oh no, I just had someone out the house to inspect the wiring.
And he was like, he just thought this guy was crazy.
And Jennie remembered seeing the kids coming back from school and seeing a guy parked on the side of the road watching them creepily, but the car drove off after the kids entered the house.
So that's what we see.
All of these leads are poorly investigated.
No new information comes to light.
I'm going to come and tell you about the sightings now of these kids over the years.
In 1947, the couple reached out to the FBI, but J.
Edgar Hoover, which we've talked about in this podcast a lot, never positively, he said, Oh, that's not within the FBI's jurisdiction.
They did say they'd be willing to assist if local law enforcement asked for their help, but the fire and the police, they declined the offer.
Yeah, the locals were so understaffed that it took the fire seven hours to arrive, were not interested in any help.
So the family put up a billboard off the highway near their home and offered a reward.
Initially it was $5,000, later it was $10,000, and it has all their pictures.
It's very famous, and it was there until after both of them died.
Wow.
So the reports over the years have started coming in.
Someone reported seeing an unknown male lobbing balls of fire onto the roof on the night of the fire.
Also though, if you saw someone lobbing fireballs at the house, why didn't you just tell someone?
Yeah.
See something, say something, you know?
Yeah.
In 1947, George saw a newspaper article with a photo of school children and recognized his daughter, Betty.
He drove, and this is the sad part of this, is that every time he would get tip, George would get in the car and drive cross-country to investigate it.
So he drove to New York City and demanded to see the student in the photo, but they were like, we're not going to show you her photo, or we're not going to do she, we're not going to tell you her name.
Right.
It's private.
Right.
Also, I guess it's a fine line, but if I drove all that way, I would sit in my car and wait for her to come outside and be like, is that her?
Right.
You have to interact.
But if you drove all the way to New York City and the teacher was like, no, and you're like, okay, and you turned around.
No.
Yeah.
You perform a stakeout.
Exactly.
Yeah.
You would not be good at a stakeout.
No.
You'd be excited, you'd have the snacks and then 10 minutes and you'd be like, this is boring.
What's happening?
Yeah.
Can I go for a walk?
Yeah.
I do always think when I watch the TV shows and they're on a stakeout, I'm like, that is so boring.
In 1952, Ida Crutchfield, a hotel manager in Charleston, West Virginia, came forward to say that four children had stayed in the hotel overnight after the fire.
She saw photos in the news and thought they looked alike.
The children were accompanied by two men and two women who appeared Italian.
She described the children as being friendly, but the men were hostile.
She said when she tried to talk to them, they all freaked out, they went to the room and they checked out early in the morning.
Whoa.
But also I'm like, four children?
Yeah.
Where's the fifth?
Where's the fifth child?
Maybe one did die.
Also, why did they wait five years?
Like again, these people didn't come forward initially?
I don't know.
Right.
In 1967, the family got a letter from Kentucky with a photo of a man in his 20s that looked like Lewis.
It was sent to Jennie and on the back of the photo it said, Lewis Sodder, I love brother Frankie, IL boys, A9-0132 or 35.
So they hired a PI to investigate, but never heard anything.
It sounds more like he went off to investigate and never came back, but it sounds more like he was a fraud than like he went on and was murdered or something.
Right.
That's kind of creepy.
Whatever that.
There is no brother Frankie, but Frank Cipriani was Jennie's brother, whom the couple accused of kidnapping the kids and taking them to Florida to raise.
And then there's like another theory about what that message meant, but we'll get back to that.
Yeah.
Hold on.
Someone from St.
Louis wrote that the oldest daughter Martha was in a convent there.
George drove there.
No results.
Right.
This is creepy now.
Okay.
So several years later, George asked a pathologist from DC to come perform an excavation of that garden of the scene.
Right.
This is when they found the only human remains.
And what they found was random vertebrae.
What?
So the Smithsonian actually studied this.
Yeah.
They said, the human bones consist of four lumbar vertebrae belonging to one individual.
Since the transverse recesses are fused, the age of this individual at death should have been 16 or 17 years old.
The top limit of age should be 22 since the centra, which normally appears at 23, are still unfused.
On this basis, the bones show greater skeletal maturation than one would expect for a 14-year-old boy who was the oldest missing child.
Whoa.
It is strange that no other bones were found in the allegedly careful excavation of the basement of the house.
Given the short time of the fire, one would expect to find the full skeletons of the five children rather than only four vertebrae.
So the Smithsonian concluded in their report that most likely these bones didn't belong to the kids.
Yes.
And they were in the dirt that George used to fill in the basement to create the memorial for his children.
So like, I'm sorry, I don't know where he got this dirt, but he just like got some random dirt, which happened to have human remains in it and then threw them through it to fill in this basement.
No, this is that's crazy.
Yes.
So what else happened?
Yes.
Where did he get the dirt?
Right.
Was it planted?
You're asking a good question.
Yeah.
All right.
So then we'll, now we'll wrap it up here with our theories, okay?
So what could have happened?
Maybe they died in a fire that was totally accidental.
So John believes, John is the oldest son, he's the only member of his family who thought this was an electrical fire and the kids died and just like his parents couldn't move on.
He initially claimed, as I mentioned, that he had run upstairs to shake his siblings awake before he fled the fire, and then he later changed his story to, no, I yelled up the stairs for them to flee.
So as I mentioned, if he saw the kids, then we can assume they definitely died.
But why didn't he carry one out with them?
Alternatively, did he just have survivors guilt?
That he didn't do more, which maybe he could have done more, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have survivors guilt about looking back and right.
NPR did a review of the case for the 60th anniversary, and Stacey Horn, who's an NPR reporter, she said that the fire had smoldered all night, and they didn't have ample opportunity to search the ash.
Even though we're talking about the spiral, they lasted 45 minutes, if it all collapsed into the basement, and it was just like embers, was it enough to like, was it hotter than normal underneath?
And the pressure and everything?
And was there not really a good search?
Like you said, they were only there for two hours, and that was it, and then if the family's searching, like me.
Right.
So she said, I think it probably was just a tragedy, it was electrical fire, and the kids died.
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.
The phone call I told you, apparently she did trace who made that phone call, and it was a neighbor, and it was a, let's say mistyled, but it was really, it's connected by an operator.
And so they were able to verify, like this was just a neighbor who was like, no, I tried to call someone else, and I got connected to the wrong number.
Right.
But I was with you, I was like, also wouldn't it be, yeah, good to be like, are they home?
I didn't even think about it as a phone working.
Yeah.
And then as far as like the car is not starting, I guess the father did one time say, you know, it's possible I was like so panicked that I just flooded the car.
Like we didn't have evidence that like, oh, someone drained anything or cut anything.
Right.
So maybe it's like not as suspicious about the truck.
Right.
The ladder was 75 feet away.
Again, but they just do frazzle to find it.
But also like, 75 feet, we already talked about that.
That's kind of a long way to go.
Right.
The layout of the house was such that the fire could easily travel up walls.
And then when they're like one of the parents, like we never heard the kids screaming, which is why they're like, maybe they weren't in the house.
But if they had just died of smoke inhalation, carbon monoxide poisoning.
Just fallen asleep.
Yeah.
It was a very peaceful death, maybe.
Yeah.
Or they said a lot of times young children in a fire get scared, they'll just hide.
So did they just like climb under the bed and they hid and they weren't like trying to get out.
They were just scared.
Oh, that's so sad.
I prefer to think that if they did die.
They just fell asleep.
They just fell asleep.
Yeah.
The granddaughter said the family stored gasoline drums in the basement.
So when that house caved in to the basement and the fire did smolder and they covered it with dirt, maybe it was like they built their own crematorium, like the oven, they just built their own oven.
But it is where the crematoriums were like, we have to grind bone.
Right.
And it has to be much hotter.
Yeah.
I feel like embers aren't enough to...
Yeah.
Yeah.
You mentioned a theory.
Did the kids start the fire?
Yeah.
Why would they?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, like, we don't...
We haven't heard anything about, like, they weren't...
The kids weren't happy.
The parents were crazy.
Like, this family dynamic was kind of weird.
Like, it seems like it was just a healthy family.
Yeah.
It seems...
I don't know what the mode would be.
Now, in 1967, a woman claimed that she was at a bar in eastern Texas, and there were two people who identified themselves as Maurice and Louis Sodder, which would be the two boys who were missing.
And when I told you that on the back of that picture of Louis, there was, like, a bunch of numbers.
Yeah.
So 90132 and 90135 are postal codes in Mexico, and this bar was just over the border in Texas.
So was it possible that they were living in Mexico, and they didn't come forward, so you'd have to theorize, they didn't want to be found.
If this was them, they must have fled, right?
In fact, George and his son-in-law actually drove, they got this tip, and they went, and they found these two men.
Apparently, George thought they looked like his sons, but the two men were like, we're not your sons.
So he said, I took their word for it, and he came back, and then he died.
It would be, again-
They spent their whole lives trying to find their kids.
That's so sad.
So again, if they fled and they're living in Mexico, and they're in this bar in Texas, now they're denying to their dad that their dad is their dad.
Then if they really are them, why are they lying about all that?
Why did they flee?
Unless we have Stockholm syndrome.
I don't know.
Also, the youngest was five years old.
So I'm trying to picture a five-year-old running away, or even a 10-year-old with a five-year-old.
Yeah.
It'd be more believable if it was the 17-year-old.
Yeah.
Then there's a theory that the fire could have been started by Mussolini supporters.
But I'm not really buying this based on, like everyone keeps talking about how he was so anti-Mussolini and people in the community agree with him.
But I just want to share why people would care that much about what this one man is saying.
He's just like a random middle-class dude living his life.
Also, again, Mussolini is already dead.
And also, you're in America.
Yeah.
It's not like he's like, I mean, I hate to compare it to my-
and none of it's acceptable.
It's not even like he's a politician or someone who's out there being out there.
Right.
He's just some random dude.
Right.
And who has no opinion.
Who has no opinion.
I mean, Mussolini is dead, so none of it even matters.
Right.
So I don't know why anyone would be so enraged.
They're not even kill him, we're going to kill his five children?
We're just like, start a fire.
Okay, we're going to kill his family of 12?
Unless they just wanted to do damage to him and not his?
Oh, I want the family to die.
They wanted to do damage to his property.
Yeah.
And like the kids were like...
Yeah.
They didn't realize it would be that bad.
But the thump on the roof, very suspicious.
So the theory that all of the Sodders believe, except for the one son who's like, no, it was just a tragedy.
Yeah.
Is mafia.
So George believes that the Italian mafia kidnapped his five children and set the fire to cover it up.
Again, he links this to his criticism of Mussolini, whatever.
Or was this like a human trafficking situation?
Right.
So that seems crazy to us.
West Virginia, the mafia.
But apparently like, like the mafia was much more prevalent back then.
And this was a big Italian community.
So there probably were connections.
He worked in transport.
So people are like, even if he wasn't mafia, he probably interacted with people who worked in the mafia.
Nobody really knows why he left Italy or anything about his childhood before coming to America.
So some people think that he was like, maybe he was like an errand boy or something.
Right.
By the mafia back in the day.
And then, so one of the theories here is either the mafia did it, like kidnapped his children and set the fire to cover up, or did someone else know that the mafia was setting the fire?
And so they helped the children escape knowing that people would assume they were dead.
Oh.
What if the wrong number was a warning?
Were they calling to see if anyone was home, or were they calling to maybe be like, wake up?
You know?
Yeah.
I told you investigators located the woman who made the call, and she confirmed there had been a wrong number.
In the spring, so again, the family used to go back and just like look for things.
Right.
And in the spring, after the snow had melted, their son, the one son who was not present at the time, who was in the military, he was with them.
One of the daughters picked up this like, what looked, they said, like an incendiary device.
And the son, who was in the military, was like, oh, that looks like a grenade type situation.
Oh, my goodness.
So is that what was sort of the the attic?
I mean, I think, regardless of the second mystery of like what happened to the kids, I'm definitely not buying electric fire.
I think somebody set a fire to the top.
Somebody set a fire.
Yeah.
Again, those numbers I told you, 90132 and 90135.
90132 is the zip code for Palermo, the capital of Sicily and the home base of La Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia.
What?
Yeah.
This is wild.
I will say that if they're, I don't even know what I believe on this.
Yeah.
But if I believe kidnapping, and people are like, how could you get five kids out of this house?
But if two of them went out to do their chores, they left the house, the door to not get locked like they usually do, where they kidnapped out doing their chores, now we just have three kids.
The three kids were allegedly playing in the living room, and Marion was asleep on the couch.
Much easier to just pop it and get them out of the living room as opposed to going up to the attic and getting these five kids.
Oh yeah.
I feel like there is opportunity.
Lots of opportunity.
I'm not really sure on the motive.
We see, we have a means.
Anyway, I don't know.
I mean, we also don't know like, if he pissed off the mob.
I mean, the mafia could do it.
What could he have done to piss off?
He probably could have, I don't know.
I mean, it would have to be a business thing maybe.
Right, a business thing.
Maybe he supplied the mob with cows.
And you think the guy who showed up at the house, who was like, I'm looking for work, and then he just like lingered around?
Maybe he was working for the mafia?
Maybe.
I mean, I feel like then the mob always has connections.
Right?
The fire chief might have something on him.
Yeah.
I mean, who could pay off like the police, the fire chief?
Right.
All the people.
Could be mob.
Okay.
You're convinced.
And then you think the kids did not die?
You think the kids?
I have no idea what happened to the kids.
I don't know.
I don't know if they're still alive.
I feel like the mob, do they like take people captive and like?
Well, it would have to be, was there like trafficking in 1945?
I'm sure.
I mean, I guess you have to also wonder, is, was there, even though he, he filled in the basement with dirt, again, the pathologist came and did a whole excavation.
Right.
So I'm like, on the one hand, maybe the family, the family didn't have very much time to really like look for remains, but I can't believe that not one, you know, one finger bone was found or something.
Teeth.
Yeah.
Teeth, yeah.
Yeah.
I just don't think, I think it's fishy.
Maybe it was like a two-fold thing, like they kidnapped the kids and we're going to kill them anyway.
Set fire to their house.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Well, and if the mafia was setting fire and someone kidnapped them to be a hero, like they knew about it, like we're going to get these kids out.
Yeah.
And then what?
The kids just think they have to stay away to protect their parents?
I mean, now their parents are dead.
No, I feel like, yeah, if they were alive, they would have re-emerged, right?
So sadly, I feel like they were killed either in the fire or-
After the fire?
Away from the fire.
Yeah.
Well, that seems like, why would you wait the energy to kill?
What if it was people?
What if it was two things?
What if somebody kidnapped the kids and then somebody set fire to the house?
Or if the three kids were kidnapped and then the two boys saw it and they ran away?
But again, it's been so long.
I feel like-
Somebody would have come for-
I mean, the youngest, Sylvia, is still alive.
No, Sylvia just died.
Sylvia was alive.
She would have been like 80, right?
Yeah, but it was kind of sad because then they taught her-
So there's a podcast that's her daughter.
It was like when her grandparents died, they were like, Sylvia.
But the dad died first, mom lived for a while.
Once the mom died, the sign came down.
That had been there.
It was there again for decades.
Right.
But the mom was like, you have to continue the search.
And now Sylvia has died, so Sylvia's daughter feels like she has to continue the search.
So anyway, I couldn't find any evidence of any DNA searches, but I hope the children...
Because now they've all died.
I hope Sylvia or I hope Sylvia's daughter has uploaded their DNA into a database, into 23andMe or whatever.
And so maybe someday we'll get a match from a distant descendant, and then we can say, oh my gosh, Lewis went on to have children.
So Lewis must have survived.
Right.
I was thinking that too.
So I didn't see anywhere that it happened, but I assume if they're searching so hard, the DNA has got to be.
I hope so.
And then I also wanted some, I couldn't find anywhere.
There's this picture of Lewis that the family was like, that's him.
But I couldn't find anywhere where they got like a tech guy to do like facial analysis and be like, can this guy in his 20s be the same as this kid as a child?
So I want that to happen if it hasn't happened.
I'm sure AI can do it.
But like, they can, you know, like when they do these like ear analyses and things.
Yes.
And they're like, this ear couldn't belong to this person, but it definitely belongs to, the ear is like your fingerprint.
So can someone compare the ears, please?
I don't know.
Your ear is like a fingerprint?
Yes, your ears are a big thing they use to identify criminals in photos and stuff.
They can use the ear.
Whoa.
It's not a, you can see his ears, but it's a front-on picture.
It does look like a similar kid.
Oh, no.
Okay.
Well, unless they completely brainwashed the kids, do you think they were part of Mod Doc?
Well, we're in West Virginia.
It's a long wind up.
Although the one girl was allegedly at a ballet class in New York City.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Maybe anything could be possible.
I mean, 1945, that was, you know, the time of...
Time to disappear.
That was the time of the Edgewood experiments and...
I don't know.
You just threw a whole other twist in there that I hadn't thought of.
That's getting real conspiracy.
I have no proof of evidence, just vibes.
All right.
Well, we're still stumped.
Something fishy happened.
I guess I'm with you.
You've got me leaning more towards mafia mob stuff now.
But again, I'm still like, I want more of her on the motive.
I guess George would have come forward and said he had issues with the mob, but maybe not.
This was the theory that all of the surviving family, except for the one, believed is that it was mafia.
The mafia did this and they kidnapped the kids.
Yeah.
And then brainwashed them.
Maybe.
Yeah.
I mean, for sure.
I guess what I keep being like, why didn't they acknowledge who they were?
I mean, you're right.
If you get kidnapped when you're five years old, it's probably pretty easy to brainwash you.
And then again, I think now we're so far away from this.
And they're probably all dead now again, which is why I think our best luck is if one of them had a child, but were they just like treading the family, and they were staying away to protect their parents and their other siblings.
Right.
All right.
Well, you guys let us know what you think, because this is a real mystery.
This is a real mystery.
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Kait, what should the people do?
Yeah.
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Yeah.
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