OT: Talking Unsolved Legends / Events Wednesday - The Missing Sodder Children
Happy Hump Day Everyone!
Today let’s talk about the missing Sodder children.
For those that don’t know the story here’s the skinny....
The home of George Sodder of Fayetteville, WV went up in flames on Christmas Eve 1945. Him, his wife and 9 children were home at the time. 4 of the children and him and his wife made it out safely, but 5 didn’t, or did they?
George tried to rescue the other 5, but could not get into the portion of the house they were sleeping in. The response time of the fire department was poor and when the house was inspected they could not find the remains of the 5 children. It was thought that skeletal remains would have been found, but nothing ever was. Similar instances have always turned up bones.
George was outspoken about his hatred for Mussolini and being an Italian immigrant, many believed the Italian mob was upset with him. Some mysterious things happened leading up to the fire and after. I’ll cover a few, you can look more up if interested.
Before - A traveling insurance man tried to sell George life insurance and when George refused the man was angry and told him his house and children would burn or something to that effect.
A woman called a short time before the fire and Mrs. Sodder heard laughing and glasses clinking in the background. The woman claimed to have a wrong number (not sure why, but this is chilling to me)
Mrs. Sodder heard something hit the roof shortly before the fire, but just went back to bed.
After - The state refused to let the FBI help, despite J Edgar Hoover telling Mr. Sodder they would if asked.
About 20 years later the family received an envelope with a picture containing what looked like one of their sons grown up, but believed to be dead years earlier.
Many people stepped forward claiming to see the 5 children shortly after the fire, one even saying she saw them driven away as the house was on fire.
There are several more mysteries surrounding this. I personally feel the children were kidnapped then the house set on fire. If not, this was a horrific troll job by many people leading up to and after the fire.
What do you all think happened?
Thanks, haven't heard of this one before. I agree bones should have been found. What were the ages of the 5 missing children? If all young, it could explain why none of them ever came forward.
No problem. Age range was 5-14.
If one of the missing kids was 14, I can't imagine that person never speaking up. Sounds like murder after kidnapping.
suggestion for next week though its not quite 'unsolved' but it has a U of M connection: Loeb and Leopold murder
I’ll look into it and try to hit on it at some point.
The murder of Bobby Franks has at least two connections to UM. Richard Loeb was a graduate of UM (at 17 years of age). Clarence Darrow, who defended Leopold and Loeb, attended UM Law School (but did not earn a degree).
That is an interesting story! I heard about that one growing up in Charlevoix.
Jimmy Hoffa and Sasquatch took them
as to no bones found, a fire hot enough would make those poor children into dust - think: cremation by house fire. sad, but not surprising.
Occam's razor is no fun.
Way better to speculate that the angry insurance salesman threw something burning at the house shortly after the scary wrong number lady was toasting the impending kidnapping of 5 of their 9 children so that 20 years later they could send a random pic of one of them to the parents.
They were told the house could not have gotten hot enough to equal cremation status, also this doesn’t explain that bones are usually found in these cases.
A house fire would not turn the bones into "dust". The actual process of cremation in a crematory does not reduce bones to dust either. Bones are what is left over after the process. They are then mechanically pulverized. Short answer with all due respect to xtramelanin is that bones would be left over after a house fire.
I know this because I have been a licensed funeral director for 33 years and the current funeral home company I work for owns two crematories in addition to their funeral homes.
Funeral director stuck in Ohio? Hmm...
yeah, I moved here from Michigan 5 years ago. Don't do the funeral directing stuff. The guy I work for has an ambulance company, 8 funeral homes and a law office. I take care of all of company financials.
Sounds like the guy wants to have an all-service business... cradle-to-grave customer service indeed.
good to know, and note to self: when planning arson/homicide, will have to make plans for the bones....
No problem - you have connections to some dude in Ohio.
The Michigan Difference!
LOL, I wasn't trying to call you out in my reply xtramelanin
you were very gracious about it. it occurs that i never have handled an arson-homicide like the one described in the OP. lots of others, but not an actual burning of a body.
incidentally, sorry you are stuck in ohio. is there anything we can do to get you back to the homeland? i have at least two folks/friends who own or run large (by northern michigan standards) funeral home 'chains'. send me a resume, i could make a call...
Thanks for the offer. I probably know your friends in Northern Michigan. Actually, my wife and I are happy here. We live in the Youngstown area. Cost of living is ridiculously cheap. I get back to Michigan frequently to deal with my elderly parents and I still have my football season tickets and go to every home game.. When I retire in four or five years we will probably move back. I've got a pretty good gig here. Work mon-Fri and can pretty much come and go as I please. I don't miss doing the funeral directing thing....on call nights, weekends, holidays got pretty wearing on me. In fact next year I probably will not renew my Michigan license to practice anymore.
you can always serve the victims as hamburgers at a barbeque a la Betty Cochrane, x
Shit, is that you Sarver?
Colonel Mustard did it in the Billiard Room with a candlestick.....
Who was the guy that didn’t like these? Screw that guy.
100% cosigned. This has quickly become one of my favorite bits of user-created content each week.
Definitely worthwhile content for the slow time of year. July is usually completely dead on the board
Pun intended?
If the 5 other kids survived, surely one of them would have tracked down the parents when into adulthood... no chance they all had amnesia. None. So the envelope photo 20 years from now, was likely some sick redneck playing a joke. There weren't many italian immigrants in redneck West Va, especially in the 1940s, so I wonder if this were a hate crime, especially if the multiple kids were unruly.
BUT... if some of this info is true... http://darkmatter69.blogspot.com/2018/12/1n-1945-christmas-even-fire-destroyed.html
then I'd chalk it up to perhaps the mob controlled trucking tied in with an old world beef back in Sardinia... if they controlled it, that is, back in 1945. Read about the cut telephone wires. The smoking gun? Sodder was from Sardinia, (I'm going there next month), and the mob is f**king nuts there. I think Sodder hasn't been fully open here.
I'm in Fayetteville often, New River Gorge is the prettiest place in the midwest in my opinion, and people still talk about this case. Almost nobody believes the children died in the fire. Its definitely an interesting case
Never heard of this one, definitely will read up on it today! Was really hoping there was a Bedtime Stories video on this topic but alas there is not. That guy's voice is fantastic.
Anyway, here's a link to the Wikipedia page: LINK
Was it you that mentioned Bedtime Stories on here a few weeks ago? Now I'm into it. Some of them are a bit annoying - they'll tell an entire spooky, compelling story but then say, 'did this ever happen? there's no evidence to suggest it did' and then I say 'goddamn it'. But most of it is pretty good - I dig it.
'Twas me, yeah. Some of them are a bit long-winded (and troll-ish as you note) but overall it's good stuff.
Read the wikipedia page. It is wild all the crazy coincidences that happened before, during, and after the fire.
yep, sounds like they got bumped off by the mob (or at least kidnapped).
Ever read "The Charm School" by Nelson Demille?
it was the damn Russians!
If I had a ruble for every Russian mafia member in West Virginia in 1945...
0 rubles?
No, 0 scruples.
Maybe the mom was ironing clothes, the Solder kids got too close and they melted.
So many weird circumstances. Arson and a hate crime (and a system that exacerbated the crime) but the children probably died in the fire. Sad.
The most likely solution sure seems to be death in a fire, but the lack of any skeletal remains is a big pause for me more than anything else
Why would the FBI offer to help them? That's interesting.
George called and asked them to get involved and Hoover said we will if asked. It was a big national story at the time.
This is one of the most bizarre cases, right up there with Brian Shaffer and Jason Jolkowski (OP: either would make great discussion threads for next time).
The evidence points towards arson, certainly. But I struggle with one thing: one daughter slept on the couch that night on the first level near the door. All the children that went missing were “upstairs”. I find it hard to believe a kidnapper set-up a ladder, climbed up it, got inside (middle of winter) a presumably closed window and took multiple kids outside without making a large noise or having a single child scream or run away. And if they did come in the front door, why didn’t they take the daughter asleep right by it or wake her up?
Truly bizarre.
Good shit Eli!
Episode 25 of the Conspirators podcast covered this story. “Nate Hale” tells a good tale.