The Missing Sodder Children

On Christmas morning in 1945, a family's holiday joy shattered when flames consumed their home and five children mysteriously vanished. The Sodder family of Fayetteville, West Virginia, faced unthinkable tragedy that sparked theories of conspiracy and kidnapping. Starting with a strange phone call that Jenny Sautter received just before the blaze began, the episode delves into the moments leading to the horrifying fire that would change their lives forever.

We explore the bizarre occurrences that transpired that fateful night. Why did their coal trucks fail to start? Why was the ladder inexplicably missing? Why was the phone line cut? With every twist, the tragic tale morphs into a haunting mystery that captivates and perplexes investigators and listeners alike. The discussions in this episode highlight the unanswered questions that linger in the minds of those who reflect on the Sodder family.

Learn about the family's ongoing search for their missing children as they followed leads from cryptic letters and local sightings. This heartbreaking narrative, intertwined with themes of hope, loss, and the inherent complexities of human nature and community, remains unsolved. Join us as we chronicle this poignant story that stands as a testament to the unyielding pursuit of truth and peace for the Sodder family.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Strange Phone Call Awakens Jenny
• 12:30 The Christmas Morning Inferno
• 25:00 Desperate Attempts to Save the Children
• 37:00 Unanswered Questions After the Fire
• 50:00 Theories of Kidnapping and Conspiracy
• 1:05:00 Ongoing Mystery and Lasting Impact

Transcript

Carole Townsend: 0:06

At just after midnight on Christmas morning 1945, jenny Sautter awoke to answer a strange phone call. At 12.30 am she got out of bed and plodded down the stairs to answer the phone, only to find that the woman caller had rung a wrong number. When she told the caller as much, the person just laughed and hung up. Jenny remembered hearing the sounds of laughter and clinking glasses in the background. On any other day this occurrence might have been dismissed and forgotten, but in the wake of staggering tragedy the call took on an ominous importance. Jenny would later tell the local newspaper that the woman on the other end of the line had a weird laugh, but she dismissed the incident as a prank call and went back to bed. As she crept back up the stairs, something else occurred to her. Five of her nine children who were home that night had stayed up a bit later to continue the Christmas celebration and she had asked them to close the curtains, lock the doors and turn the lights off before they went to bed. Curtains, lock the doors and turn the lights off before they went to bed. Standing on the top step and surveying the quiet first floor of the house, jenny saw that her children had done none of what she asked, which was unusual. She also noticed that their 17-year-old daughter, marion, was asleep on the couch, and Jenny went back downstairs to cover her with a quilt. Her children's disobedience annoyed her at the time, but it would later haunt her for the rest of her life. She went back to bed, assuming that the next time she awoke it would be time to make breakfast or perhaps to receive a Christmas phone call from their second eldest son, joe, who was away in the army. But about an hour later Jenny again woke up, this time to find the bedroom thick with smoke. She bolted out of bed, alarmed by the unmistakable smell. Looking across the hallway, she saw flames devouring her husband's office. Panicked, jenny ran downstairs with George and her little daughter Sylvia, who had fallen asleep with her mother in her parents' bed.

Carole Townsend: 2:36

On Christmas Eve night, jenny told Marion, still asleep on the sofa, to take Sylvia outside, while she and her husband George frantically tried to save their other seven children. As the parents reached the bottom of the steps, two of their children, george Jr and John, flew down the stairs past them. John shouted to his parents that he woke his siblings and told them to get out of their second floor bedrooms where they had been sleeping peacefully, but the staircase was quickly becoming engulfed in flames and the five children were separated from the rest of their family by the raging fire. Their parents heard no screams, no crying and no pleas for help. Desperate to rescue his children, george did not give up. He ran outside to get the ladder that was always propped against the house, but it was nowhere to be found. He and his sons then decided to move one of their two coal trucks up against the house, then try to stand on it to reach the upstairs window, but neither of the trucks would start, even though they had worked just fine. The day before, george tried to scoop water from a rain barrel, but the water had frozen solid. Jenny and George Sautter and the four children who managed to get out of the house could only stand by and watch in despair as the fire raced through their home, reducing the entire five-bedroom two-story structure to ashes and just the foundation in a mere 45 minutes. What would follow the tragedy of this early Christmas morning remains a mystery to this day, 80 years later. In fact, this strange case is considered to be an open, cold case, despite findings that concluded otherwise.

Carole Townsend: 4:46

Here in the South, storytelling is not just an art, it's a way of life, of retelling true things that beg to be shared. Again and again, perhaps as a way of testing their truth. We become entranced by these stories, by Southern legend and history. We're fascinated and riveted by them because there is an element to these stories that can only be described as indescribable, as unique and quirky and sometimes just downright impossible. Why is that? People have asked me countless times during my career as an author and a journalist. My only answer and it falls woefully short is that this is the South, and rarely are events cut and dried here, rarely are they black and white. Southern history is laid against a backdrop of mystery, of obscurity and of the ever-raging battle between good and evil. Join me tonight as we explore another tale of intrigue, a true story cloaked in mystery and riddled with unanswered questions. I've shared many a story from this old front porch, a familiar and tangible refuge from things that really do go bump in the night, and I've saved you a seat.

Carole Townsend: 6:20

The following podcast contains material that may be disturbing Listener discretion is advised.

Carole Townsend: 6:32

The unexpected smell of smoke has the same effect on humans as it does on animals. It ignites alarm and fear, and our first instinct is to flee and fear. And our first instinct is to flee. Perhaps the only exception to this phenomenon is when our children are at risk. A parent will run into the flames to rescue their child without a thought of hesitation or of personal safety. Jenny and George Sauter were such parents.

Carole Townsend: 7:03

In the tight-knit Italian immigrant community of Fayetteville, west Virginia, the Sodder's name was synonymous with family and with hard work. They did, after all, have ten children and they owned a successful coal trucking business that George had built himself. Even among hard-working, god-fearing Appalachians, the Sauter name was respected. Jenny was a shopkeeper's daughter who had migrated from Italy to America with her parents, while George Sauter was an opinionated Italian immigrant from Sardinia. They met and fell in love half a world away and began building their own family. At the time of the tragedy, their children ranged in age from two years old to twenty.

Carole Townsend: 7:57

In the days that followed the fiery destruction of the Sodder family, home questions began to arise. Where was the ladder that was always laid in the same spot, beside the house outside? Strangely, it was found days later at the bottom of an embankment 75 yards from the house. Why wouldn't either of the family's coal trucks start and listen to this, it wouldn't have mattered whether Jenny was able to reach the telephone to call the fire department when she awoke, because the phone line had been cut. In fact, the phone line had been cut by someone who climbed 14 feet up the telephone pole and reached out about two feet to do it. Hardly an accident or coincidence.

Carole Townsend: 8:50

Fire investigators told the Sodders that the fire had started because of faulty wiring in the house. George had recently hired an electrician to do some work on the house. But when Jenny awoke to the smell of smoke and saw the fire, the lights in the house, including the lights on the Christmas tree, were on and they continued to shine as the fire devoured the house. The faulty wiring theory just didn't hold water. Within days a witness came forward claiming he saw a man at the scene of the fire taking a block and tackle used for removing car engines. Could he be the reason George's trucks had refused to start? The man in question was caught and later pleaded guilty to stealing the block and tackle, but emphatically denied any involvement in the fire. Block and tackle, but emphatically denied any involvement in the fire.

Carole Townsend: 9:55

By far the most puzzling question was this when were the remains of the five children who had been sleeping upstairs. Typically, some part of a human body remains after the body has been burned. In fact, even if the skeleton burns to ashes, teeth usually survive the heat of a fire. Jenny even took it upon herself to burn the remains of small animals to see if their bones and organs would be consumed completely. In every case, some trace of the animal remained, but with the Sodder children, nothing, not one single piece of evidence of human remains was found in the ashes and rubble of the home. Now medical science has demonstrated that bones remain after bodies are burned for two hours at 2,000 degrees. The family's house was reportedly destroyed in just 45 minutes. Where then were Maurice, martha, louis, jenny and Betty Sauter?

Carole Townsend: 11:06

When Jenny Sauter couldn't get to the telephone to call the fire department that night, 17-year-old Marion ran to a neighbor's house to call. Neither that call nor a subsequent call placed by a different neighbor was answered by the fire department. In fact, it wasn't until after daybreak, seven hours later, that the first fire truck arrived at the Sodder property, and this was only after a third phone call was made by yet another neighbor. Several reasons were later given as to why the fire department response was so delayed From wartime staffing personnel shortages to an inability to awaken the volunteer firefighters, and the chief of the department didn't know how to operate the fire truck so he had to wait for someone else who could drive it to the scene.

Carole Townsend: 12:00

In the days that followed that Christmas day 1945, jenny and George Sautter were, of course, interviewed at length. Investigators wanted both parents to try to recall anything at all from that night. That seemed unusual, no matter how insignificant the details might seem. Jenny did recall hearing a thump on the roof of the house about a half hour after she answered the prank phone call. She said the noise sounded like a rubber ball hitting the roof and then it rolled and hit the ground with another thump. At the time she didn't worry about the noise and she went back to sleep. But a passenger in a passing car that night told investigators that he saw quote balls of fire being thrown on the tar and wood roof of the Sodder home just before the fire would have started. Interestingly, investigators determined that the fire had started on the roof of the house and a few days after the fire had destroyed the home, little Sylvia. And a few days after the fire had destroyed the home, little Sylvia found a rubber object in the yard, something George later described as looking like quote a type of hand grenade.

Carole Townsend: 13:20

As the site of the tragedy was being examined and investigated, fire chief FJ Morris said that he himself found a body part a heart to be exact at the burned Sodder home site, and he put it in a box and buried it in the ashes and dirt that remained after the fire. During the investigation, that box was found and taken to the local funeral director. It didn't take the man long to discover that not only was the organ not a human heart, it was in fact a beef liver and it had never been touched by a fire. When Morris was questioned about the buried beef liver he had discovered in the ashes and rubble of the fire, he admitted that he had planted the fake remains to help convince George and Jenny that their children were indeed dead and not just missing. But this explanation baffled investigators, as the parents were never even told about the discovery of the fake heart, were never even told about the discovery of the fake heart.

Carole Townsend: 14:33

Four years after the fire, george Sautter bulldozed the home site in order to build a memorial garden for his lost children, and while doing so he made a stunning find Human vertebrae. Unfortunately, there was no way to prove that the bones had been there right after the fire and no way to prove that they belonged to one of the Sodder children. George could have accidentally unearthed the vertebrae during the excavation and it's important to note that the remains also had no evidence of charring. The vertebrae were ultimately sent to the Smithsonian Institute for analysis. Scientists there found that the vertebrae belonged to a single individual and that the vertebrae likely belonged to a male between the ages of 16 and 22. The report went on to state that it was possible but not probable that the bones could have belonged to 14-year-old Maurice, who was one of the missing children. A private investigator reportedly confirmed years later that the vertebrae had been mistakenly moved from a nearby cemetery when George had been moving dirt to fill in the site for a memorial flower garden to honor his missing children. Jenny Sautter wore black for the rest of her life and she tended the flowers of that memorial garden until the day she died.

Carole Townsend: 16:24

Death certificates were issued for the children on December 30, 1945, just five days after the fire. The cause of death on each certificate was, quote fire or suffocation, end quote. Years later, a journalist who covered this mysterious story for NPR said that four people had reported seeing human remains in the rubble. One of these people was Jenny's own brother. But if remains had been found, they were never collected or reported in any official records. George and Jenny Sautter never believed, after those first few days that followed the fire, that their children had perished in the blaze. The facts simply did not support that claim.

Carole Townsend: 17:19

The couple hired a number of private investigators and George himself traveled around the country following up on leads and possible sightings of the children around the country. Following up on leads and possible sightings of the children, it was their sincere belief that the children were kidnapped by the Sicilian mafia or perhaps by others in organized crime. As far-fetched as this might sound, remember that the Sodders came to the United States from Italy. George was very outspoken about atrocities committed by Benito Mussolini and fascist Italy and some believe that other Italians in the States might have taken their revenge on him by kidnapping his children and burning down his house. In fact, in October 1945, just two months before the Sodder home was destroyed by fire, a traveling insurance salesman warned George that his house, quote, would go up in smoke and your children will be destroyed, end quote. The salesman based this warning on the dirty remarks George had been making about Mussolini. His warning was oddly prophetic. Yet another visitor to the Sodder home, who was supposedly looking for work, warned George that a pair of fuse boxes on the back of the house would cause a fire someday soon. This puzzled George, as he had just paid an electrician to rewire the entire house when an electric stove was installed and local inspectors had approved the work. Another cause for concern was this the Sodder's older sons had reported seeing a strange car parked along the main road through town, its occupants watching the Sodder children as they walked home from school. But no matter who was responsible, the Sodders were convinced that their children had been removed from the home before the fire was set. George even went so far as to ask for help from the FBI, and J Edgar Hoover himself responded to his pleas, and I'm quoting here, 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. Hoover went on to say that if local authorities had requested help from the FBI, agents would have promptly assisted, but no such request had ever been made.

Carole Townsend: 20:15

The Sodders' belief that their children were kidnapped was bolstered by possible sightings of the children through the years. For example, a Charleston South Carolina motel manager came forward in 1952 to claim that he had seen four children accompanied by two men and two women who appeared to be of Italian descent. This group arrived at this hotel three days after the fire in West Virginia. The Sodders found this account to be so believable that they erected a billboard near the motel that offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the recovery of any one or all five of their missing children, and not long after that they doubled the reward amount to $10,000. Several other witnesses came forward after the fire, especially once rumors began circulating that the children might still be alive. One woman said that she saw all five children in a passing car as she was driving past the burning house in the wee hours of Christmas morning, 1945. Another woman said that she saw the children having breakfast at a diner just hours after the fire. She said that four adults, two men and two women, were with them.

Carole Townsend: 21:46

But perhaps the most intriguing lead arrived in the mail, and this 1967 letter was addressed to Jenny Sautter. Inside the envelope, which had been mailed from Central City Kentucky, was the photograph of a man who looked strikingly similar to Lewis Sauter. A handwritten note accompanied the photograph. It read, and then it listed a string of undecipherable letters, thought by police to spell Lil or Little, and then A90132 or possibly 35. The Sodders knew in their hearts that the person depicted in the photo was indeed Lewis, even though Lewis did not have a brother named Frank. But Jenny Lewis's mother did have a brother named Frank Cipriani. In fact, at one point the Sodders accused a man named Frank Cipriani of kidnapping the children and raising them as his own, but nothing ever came of this accusation. While the letters referenced to little boys had sleuths scratching their heads and wondering. The reference to A90132 or 35 might possibly represent postal codes. The code 90135 can be found in the city of Palermo, the capital of the Italian island of Sicily.

Carole Townsend: 23:24

Also in 1967, the Sodders received another letter, this time from a woman in Houston, texas, who claimed to have met two men who told her that they were Maurice and Louis Sauter. Sylvia's husband and remember Sylvia was the youngest of the Sauter children drove George Sauter to Houston to meet with the two men, but they denied that they were his missing sons. George died just two years later, in 1969. George died just two years later, in 1969. According to his son-in-law, he wondered if those two men were his boys. Until the day he died, jenny lived for another 20 years after her husband's death and she never wavered in her belief that her children had been kidnapped. In fact, she had a second billboard made that stated her beliefs very clearly. On the billboard she included a photo she believed to be one, of an adult Lewis. On it she stated that her children had been kidnapped and she questioned why the police had failed to investigate. To this day, her surviving relatives and countless amateur sleuths have pursued this mystery and the many bizarre twists and turns in this case. Sadly, it's quite possible that the case will never be solved.

Carole Townsend: 25:15

I'm Carole Townsend, veteran newspaper journalist and six-time award-winning author. You can find me on social media and check out my website at caroltownsendcom. As always, thanks for listening and if you're enjoying these tales of Southern history and lore, I hope you'll tell your friends. And lore I hope you'll tell your friends. Subscribe to this podcast on Spotify, apple Play, iheart and anywhere you listen. My team and I used the following sources to put together this story for you about the missing Sodder children the article what Happened to the Sodder Children, the Siblings who Went Up in Smoke in a West Virginia House Fire in Smithsonian Magazine April 21, 2024. Updated by Abbott Collar. Originally written by Milan Sali. The article Sodder Children Disappearance Strange Events in Christmas House Fire Still Unexplained Decades Later, written by Drusilla Morehouse in HuffPost, december 13, 2023. The show History's Greatest Mysteries the Sodder Children Disappearance, season 3, episode 8, and Sodder Children Disappearance from Wikipedia.