On Christmas Eve of 1945, a fire destroyed the Fayetteville, West Virginia home of George and Jennie Sodder, leading to the disappearance of five of their ten children, including 5-year-old Betty Dolly Sodder. That night, Betty, along with her siblings Maurice, Martha, Louis, and Jennie, had been allowed to stay up late to play with new toys. Their parents and four other siblings escaped the blaze, but the five children who had stayed up were never seen again.
The fire consumed the house in less than forty-five minutes. Several strange events preceded and occurred during the fire. Around midnight, Jennie Sodder was awakened by a phone call from an unknown woman who laughed strangely before hanging up. Later, she heard a loud thump on the roof. When the fire broke out around 1:00 a.m., George Sodder's attempts to rescue the children were thwarted as a ladder that was always kept near the house was missing. It was later discovered in an embankment away from the home.
The initial investigation into the fire concluded that it was caused by faulty wiring, a finding George Sodder disputed as he had recently had the house rewired and inspected. A coroner's jury in 1945 ruled that the five missing children had perished in the fire. However, a search of the ashes yielded no conclusive remains of the children, which puzzled experts who believed a fire of that duration should have left full skeletons. Some reports mentioned the discovery of a few bone fragments and what was thought to be a human organ, but the organ was identified as beef liver, and some rumors suggested it had been planted at the scene. Believing their children had not died in the fire, George and Jennie Sodder suspected arson and that their children had been abducted. Supporting this theory was the discovery that their telephone line had been cut, not burned through, and multiple witnesses claimed to have seen the children after the fire. One woman at a Charleston hotel reported seeing the children with a group of adults of Italian heritage about a week after the disappearance.
In 1949, the Sodders privately excavated the site of their former home. The search uncovered several small bone fragments, identified as human vertebrae. However, an analysis by the Smithsonian Institution concluded the bones likely belonged to an individual between the ages of 16 and 22, older than the eldest missing Sodder child, Maurice, who was 14. The report also noted that the bones showed no signs of being exposed to fire. Later, it was suggested the bones might have been taken from a nearby cemetery. The family's pleas to have the case reopened by local authorities and the FBI were largely unsuccessful, as officials maintained there was no evidence of a crime.
The Sodder family never gave up hope of finding their children. They erected a billboard along Route 16 with the children's pictures and offered a reward for information. A significant development came in 1968 when Jennie Sodder received an anonymous letter from Kentucky containing a photograph of a young man in his mid-20s. On the back was written "Louis Sodder. I love brother Frankie. ilil boys. A90132 or 35." The Sodders believed the man in the photo was their son Louis and hired a private investigator to look into the lead, but the investigator was never heard from again. George and Jennie Sodder continued their search for the rest of their lives, passing away in 1969 and 1989, respectively. The fate of Betty Dolly Sodder and her four siblings remains one of America's most haunting unsolved mysteries.Last Seen: Dec 24, 1945
