The Sodder Children

This episode covers the disappearance of the Sodder children.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, I'm Laura and Angel and this it is Crack Divers.
Hello everybody, Welcome to today's pet Jhon episode. Hello everyone,

(00:26):
thanks for joining us. So we're in the world, are
we We're in the USA? What is the the Soldier Children?
Have you heard of the Solder Children before?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Does ring a bell? But you know me, it doesn't
mean a know anything about it?

Speaker 1 (00:42):
Well, I'll tell you now, this is as a mystery,
this one.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
It is a mystery and it's unsolved. Oh no, I'm
gonna really for questions.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah right, okay, I wish good diving then frustrate me.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Sorry, it's just a mystery.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
So I thought, well, well I do like a mystery,
but I still get annoyed about them.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Yeah no, but I thought, well, if I'm going to
be wondering what happened, then you might you know, I
know the stories. I thought that you would have to
know it as well, so we can both wonder together.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Okay, thanks for that. Okay, I'm sure our patrons are
excited to hear this one.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Now, Well, why not? It's a missing everybody else a mystery? No,
but I like to be solved. I like it to
be a mystery. But then you have the answer at
the end for me, So no can do in this one.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Okay, let's just dive in there.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Okay, let's dive in. So I'll start by telling you
about the Soder family. So George Soder was actually born
with the name George will so do I think it
is pronounced in Sardinia, Italy, So he's Italian. In eighteen
ninety five, So when he was thirteen, he immigrated to
the United States with an older brother.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
But his brother went.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Back to Italy as soon as they cleared customs at
Ellis Island and New York Harbor. So something it must
have just been bringing his younger brother over and then
going back again. But so Georgia became George, and he
never really talked about why he left his home country.
So I don't know anything about that. I don't know,

(02:12):
As I said, I don't know why the brother went
straight back.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
I don't know. I just assumed that's why. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
I can't think any reason why would come and then
go straight back. So yeah, So George found work on
the railroads in Pennsylvania. He would bring water and supplies
to the workers, and after a few years of doing that,
he moved on and he started work as a driver
in a place called Smithers in West Virginia.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
He met a woman called Jenny Cipriani.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
She had also immigrated from Italy as a child, and
they got married in nineteen twenty two. So George and
Jenny settled just outside of Fayetteville in West Virginia, as
it had quite a big population of Italian immigrants.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
So it was just a.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Community, you know, they're all kind of had the same
kind of background. And so in nineteen twenty three they
had their first of ten children.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Ten geez, we know why. We always said that it
had the whole you know, back in the day, there
wasn't much to do, No, definitely not.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
The women just popped them out like quite easily. Yeah,
So yeah, they had they had ten children. So the
first child was born in nineteen twenty three.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
The last child was born in nineteen forty three.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
So sometime before nineteen forty George started his own business
called the Dempsey Transfer Company. It specialized in Holland coal
and other materials in and around the Fayet Concreet County area.
Sorry he ran the business from home, so George took
care of the trucks and Jenny was the bookkeeper, so
they worked together and by nineteen forty five they had

(03:52):
six trucks, so they were like they were doing really
well for themselves and the family was like one of
the most respected middle class families around so by this time.
So nineteen forty five, the children were John who was
twenty three, Joe twenty one.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
You're not going to remember all these names.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Probably not, but I'm just kind of give you an idea,
like the rages. Joe was twenty one, Marion was seventeen,
George Junior was sixteen, Maurice was fourteen, Martha twelve, Lewis nine,
Jenny eight, Betty five, and Sylvia two. But I have
seen other sources that Sylvia was three, so I'm not
sure if it was maybe the year that she turned three,

(04:34):
but she was the baby. Yeah, she was the baby.
So that's just just a wee bit background. So it
was Christmas nineteen forty five. The whole family were excited
because this was going to be the first time they'd
all been together since before the war, because remember this
is the Second World War. Because the two eldest sons,

(04:55):
John and Joe, because they were twenty one and twenty
three they'd been in service, so John arrived home the
week before Christmas, but unfortunately Joe got stuck at an
army base in North Carolina and couldn't get home in time,
so George and Jenny and nine of their other nine
children would have to celebrate Christmas without them. So on

(05:16):
Christmas Eve, George, John and George Junior made several deliveries
us in the trucks that were kept and maintained on
the sorrow's property. Marion, who was the eldest daughter, I
think she was seventeen, so she went to work at
a dime store in Faeteville, and the rest of the
family that I think.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
They probably just stayed at home and got ready for Christmas.
So Marian was the last one to come home on
Christmas Eve.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Well, she came home at nine thirty pm and she
gave her younger siblings some toys that she bought from
her work. So at about ten pm, George and Jenny
went to bed, and they took two year old Sylvia
with them, which she slept in their room.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Their bedroom was on the ground floor, so the.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Other children had watched to stay up later to play
with their new toys and listen to the radio. So
since it was Christmas Eve, their parents had said okay,
as long as certainly the older ones made sure that
the younger ones were in bed when they went to bed.
So they were kind of left umb with the older ones,
and they're reminded Maurice and Lewis that they still had
to do their chores, which consisted of getting the cows

(06:20):
in and feeding the chickens before they went to bed.
So John twenty three and George Junior sixteen, they went
to bed sometime between eleven fifteen and eleven thirty, and
their bedroom was upstairs, so you had like the parents'
bedroom was on the ground floor, and then upstairs you
had the girls bedroom and the boys bedroom.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
But for this time, at least not to the boys.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Actually, I think must have been sleeping either in another
room or in with the girls. I'm not quite sure,
because John and George Junior were both sleeping in the
same room and the other boys weren't sleeping.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
In that room. That don't know where they were, but
they were in that room. That's I don't know why.
I don't know what the case was.

Speaker 1 (07:04):
Because I saw a diagram and it just had girls
room and boys rooms. So we're assumed that all the
girls were in one room and all the boys were
in all But what I'm about to tell you there
was only the two boys that were.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
In the one and that one. There must be somebody else. Yeah,
I don't know if they were maybe sleeping in the
girl's room. I don't know where mom dad or not.
The wom with her mom and dad.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
So at some point Marian she had fallen asleep on
the living room couch while.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
Reading a magazine.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Normally she would be responsible for making sure the younger
girls were taken out to bed, but apparently on this
now she dozed off before doing that. At about twelve
thirty am, so the early hours of Christmas Day, the
phone rang, So mum Jenny woke up and went to
answer it. Because, as I said, like, their bedroom was
on the ground floor and across from the across the

(07:49):
hall from their bedroom they had like the office because
they worked from home. Yeah, and that's where the phone was.
So so she woke up and she went across to
chance of the phone, and it was a woman on
the other end of the phone, and she asked for
the name of a man who Jenny didn't know, and
she said she could hear laughter in the background and
like sort of glasses clinking and stuff. So the woman

(08:12):
was probably at Christmas party. But Jenny just thought somebody's drunk.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
They're playing a joke, you know, hung up the phone.

Speaker 1 (08:21):
So before going back to bed, she looked around the
ground floor to make sure that all the kids had
got to bed. She saw Marian was asleep on the
sofa and the other children were nowhere to be seying.
So she was like, right, great, you know Marian's on
the SOM's gonna leave her there. You know, she's signed
a slaps coffee. The other kids are all all got
to bed, so she went she.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Went back to bed. She like happy days. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
So about half an hour later, Jenny was woken up
again and she said it sounded like a rock landing
on the house, the tin roof of the house. She
figured it must just because of the high winds, like
like something.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Must have blown onto the roof and like just made
a noise.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, So she just she just goes up. So another
half an hour later, Jenny was walking out again, and
this time it was because the bedroom was filling up
with smoke, so she jumped out of the bed and
ran across the hall to the office because remember that's
where the phone is. So the desk and the wall
in the rear corner was engulfed in flames, so she
couldn't get to the phone. So she ran back and

(09:23):
woke her husband, George.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Up, because he must be a deep sleeper.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
I know she's getting waken up wherever I would the
same movie and John John sleep forever and it always
wakes up wherever.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
This is true, have been saying it just Actually, yeah,
I think it's just men. They sleep really well. Yeah,
So she ran.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Back and woke her husband up and started shouting up
the stairs to the children, and the fire was spread
on fast, so Jenny and George ran past the fire
into the kitchen onto the back porch. Marion woke up
and ran to her parents' bedroom and grabbed Sylvia and
ran out.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Of the front door with her. Not blaming anybody.

Speaker 1 (10:01):
Or anything, but like, I just find it's change that way.
I was in the same room as the parents, but
not one of them picked her up.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
Well yeah, because like they've done out of the.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
House to save themselves already, then why haven't they picked
their two you know, happen unless.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
I mean, obviously this is back in ninety fourty five.
Unless they were shouting to marry and Marion and get silky.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
I mean that's the case, but it's just the kind
of the way it came across a lot. You've ran
out to save yourself, but you've not sure. I'm sure
that's probably what it was. In a panic they've just thought.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
I don't know, because we're so from what I can gather,
the actions of John and George Junior are kind of
more difficult to describe with certainty.

Speaker 2 (10:43):
So apparently they.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
Woke up with their mum shouting was obviously general was
shouting to the kids.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
So John twenty three, George Jr.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
They woke up, and they made some attempt to get
the attention of the other five children. They were then
able to make their way down the stairs and out
of the house.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
So Dad George he outside.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
He broke a window which led to the where the
stairwell was, because he was going to climb in, climb
back in the window and go up the stairs to
get the kids, but the stairs were actually by this
point they were engulfed in place and he also.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Like he really badly cut his hand as well in
the process.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
So then he looked for his set of ladders because
he thought, right, okay, I can't get back in the house,
I won't get the ladders and I'll climb up to
the window to the window, so you had to set
a ladder, and he always kept them in the same spot.
But when he went to get the ladders, they were gone.
Like these ladders were always in.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
The same spot, so like somebody had moved them on purpose.
So yeah, I mean, there's this one time when he
really needed them, they were there. So George and John
then ran to one of the trucks because they were like, right, okay,
we'll get the truck.

Speaker 1 (11:56):
We'll reverse it back up to the house, shout up
to the kids and get them jump out the window
on the truck onto the truck. But in his panic,
George choked the truck too much and couldn't get started,
which is what it said in one case, but like
in other sources, he just couldn't get started. It was
like someday tamper for that. So just keep that in mind.
So meanwhile, Marion, because she thought she'd obviously got out

(12:18):
okay with Selba.

Speaker 2 (12:20):
She ran.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
As she ran out the front door, she'd managed to
get around out the front door, she ran to the
house of mister and Missus Garfield Davis.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
They were their neighbors, but there were weren't close back. Yeah,
she had to run to get to that because a
big bit of land the mishman. Yeah, not like the neighbors,
like they are just next door there.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Yeah, I mean you can shut outside to your neighbors
and you'll hear them here. But obviously she had to
run to get to her neighbors. So Missus Davis tried
to call the Fayetteville Volunteer Fire Department, but there was.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
No direct dial.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
In ninety forty five, Remembe used to to phone like
the operator and say can you get me the fire
and Missus Davis was able to get through to an operator.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
Yeah, because wouldn't have had just the nine one one
or whatever. No nine one one. Oh. I didn't write
it down actually, but nine.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
One one didn't come into effect until the nineteen fifties something,
So this is nineteen forty five, so there.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
Was no like none mon phone operator tsked, we put
through it through. You couldn't get the volunteer fire department
wasn't going to paid fire department, right, so, but she couldn't.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Get through anything. She couldn't get through the operator.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
So meanwhile, a guy called Thomas Smith was driving home
and he spotted the fire. So he turned round and
drove to a nearby pub as he was going to phone
the fire department from the pub, but the owners told
him that their phone was out of order, so he
so then he then drove drove into fat Ville and
he found a phone there and he managed to get

(13:47):
a hold of the fire chief who was in the
local pub. Remember it's Christmas Eve, like you, Yeah, so
he but he got the feeling that nothing was going
to be done anytime soon, like the fire chief really,
so yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Well we'll get over that.

Speaker 1 (14:00):
So so he left and he drove to the Solder
home and found it engulfed in flames and it was
mostly collapsed by by the time that this guy got there.
But now a lot of other people had seen the
fire and ran to the Solder house. But there was
nothing none they could do without the firefighters.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
You know, they can't put it out. I mean, they
had tried to.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
Go to there was like I think when it first
sort of started in that they had like water barrels,
but it was December, it had been snow and they
were off it was off frozen, so like they coudn't
even use the water barrels to try.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
And I don't know, we're still lucky in this dayage now,
like for one to have a phone that I can
instantly get a hold of people for and you know,
like services that you know they'll come.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Pretty much as soon as you phone. Yeah, and we'll
wait to hear this. The fire department was only a
couple of miles away from I think it was two
and a half miles away from the Solder home, so
you'd think it wouldn't take long for them to get there.
But the fire burned through the night and was reportedly
still going with embers when the our department arrived at
eight age No way, so this fire was what I

(15:05):
think it was about half one in the morning.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
Woke up like seven hours or whatever before they even
turned up.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
I mean, I know it's Christmas.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
Maybe that's why in this day and age they make
sure the merchant services don't get to himself anymore.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
We need them because things can happen at any time
of the year. Yeah, well you'll be wanting to know why.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
So a fire officer said that as the fire department
didn't have a central alarm, they depended on a phne tree.
So that means that one person would so somebody would
phone the fire chief or whatever, and he would phone somebody,
and then that person somebody else.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
So that's how and so on.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
But because of the World War two, for one, there
just wasn't enough firefighters.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
But remember it was Christmas.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Eve, so a lot of them were, you know, maybe
out a party, clubs, or maybe even asleep.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
You know, there was no mobile phones in this dairy exactly.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
And it was reported that Chief Morris didn't know how
to drive the fire truck eight. So by that I'm
not sure if he didn't know how to drive, or
maybe he was too drunk to drive, Okay, I'm not
quite sure, but able to.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Drive it then maybe not. Maybe they was a dedicated driver, I.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Mean, very mine and this times, these volunteers as they are,
they wouldn't have been like properly trained to the standard
that we have them strength. I mean, they're obviously are
just volunteers. So maybe they're all of them.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Drove they were just probably any Tom Dick and Harry
off the street that was villain to volunteers themselves.

Speaker 1 (16:30):
Probably you know, I have no idea, but yeah, it
took some like basically like what's seven hours or whatever
to get there, and when they got I.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
Mean the house was collapsed by the time they got there.

Speaker 1 (16:40):
So when they got their fire Chief Morris directed volunteer
fireman James Rolls and Arnold Dempsey to soak the embers
along with the rest the rest of the debris. The
Soders and their surviving children they went to like a
they had like a small two room shack that was
located on their property, so they end.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
Up going there.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
So the police arrived about nine fifteen am and two
investigators went to speak to George and Jenny and their
adults and John.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
Then about ten am, the debris had.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
Cooled to the point that the area could be searched,
so John and John and George Junior they actually joined
in the search, but the others stayed behind in the shack.
After only two hours of searching, fire Chief Morris had
George and Jenny brought back to the scene and told
them there was no trace of their other five children.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
I think I've heard this somewhere on the line, but
I don't remember anything else, but yeah, okay, And the.

Speaker 1 (17:39):
Cause of the fire was faulty wire, and even though
Georgia had had the wire and checked a few weeks earlier.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
This is after two hours, like seriously, two hours. Do
you think it came out longer than that too?

Speaker 1 (17:49):
So almost Also, the Christmas lights had actually stayed on
as the house burned, so if they had been an
electrical fault, the power would have went out.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Well, but you know they and that's still what they'll
say to.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
This day, that is, and this really pissed me off.
The fire chief told George and Jenny to gather up
five piles of ashes from the debris so that they
could use them for a funeral for their children, because
your children are now ash basically, so just get some debris, ye,

(18:26):
your children, and that'll do.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
That's oh, it is, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
So he seemed to think that the fire had just
completely destroyed the children. But you know, there's a fire chief,
like surely you would.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Know that that probably that's not that's kind of fire.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
I'll get to that. Yeah, But no, because I I've.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
Always assumed that you know, somebody dies in a fire,
that there are some there remains of what would resemble
parts of a body or a body, or.

Speaker 2 (19:03):
At least be bones.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, exactly, you wouldn't think that they were completely ash.
But then I suppose when people get cremated, is.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
That not how they end up. I will explain that.
I'm going to get to it. I have written it down,
so I will get to that.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
So the basement was the only thing left of the house,
so George said that he would rather just remove all
the debris.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
And fill in the basement.

Speaker 1 (19:23):
I was like five feet They would to fill in
the basement with dirt and he was going to just
like make a garden over it as a memorial for
the kids, Okay, because everybody's under the same you know,
the kids have died in the fire.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
So that's what I was going to do.

Speaker 1 (19:36):
So an inquest was held and it concluded that the
five soldier children had perished in the fire, either as
a result of heat or suffocation, and there was a
memorial service held a few days later, and they actually
got the desertyke.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
It's like five days later, I think it was.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
So the five surviving children were there but George and
Jenny they.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Were too emotionally overwrought to attend. They didn't.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
So, feeling that the matter had been handled dwell enough
by the Department of Public Safety, the State Fire Marshal's
office decided not to investigate.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
The matter further.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
So the report of the Department of Public Safety concurred
with the inquest and determined that the five children had
perished in the fire. However, they were unable to conclusively
determine the exact cause of the fire, and it was
listed as undetermined.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
So unfortunately that was that.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Like you know, George and Jenny and the other kids
just had to move on with their lives as best
as they could, just accept that five of the children
had died in a tragic accident, although they did have
doubts of whether it was an accident.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
They thought that the house had been set on fire.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
So the Reverend James Frame, who had held the memorial service,
he heard a rumor, so he had heard that fire
Chief Morris had apparently stated that on the day of
the fire, he had found what he thought was a
human heart in the debris, and he'd later buried it
in the solder's basement Before the had been bailed, okay,
which thinks the question why. Knowing that it was extremely

(21:06):
hard to burn a human heart, Reverend Frame got in
contact with fire Chief Morris and asked.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
Him about it because he was like, well, he was like, yeah,
I do.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
So Reverend Frame told the solders this, of course, and
they were like they were obviously like extremely upset because
they're like, well.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
Why would you do that and not tell us?

Speaker 1 (21:28):
So Reverend Frame had to persuade the fire Chief Morris
to go and see the soders. He was like, no,
you need to go and explain to them. You need
you know, you need to go and speak to them.
So eventually he was like he reluctantly went to see that.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Just gouldn't get away with that. Now you'd be in
her phone investigation exactly.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
So he showed them where he had put the box
with the heart and it maybe I should put it
in a box, put in a box, and just so
when asked why he hadn't told you, like, they're like, well, why.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
Didn't you tell us this before?

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Anyway, I thought I told you, honestly, flipping Boris Johnson
when he's like, oh yeah, well I forgot I thought
I did.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Say that, or it is because you've forgot, You've actually
not got an excuse to exactly that's what people do.
They forgot, or I thought I did tell you.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
So the Chief Morris President, along with the private detective
Oscar Tinsley, who George Soder had hired, they doug They
dug up the wooden box where Morris had shown them,
and it was found.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
It was found right at the botom.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
Of the basement, and Morris confirmed that that was the
box that he had buried. So George and Oscar unwrapped
the box and a piece of a piece of Sorry,
George and Oscar wrapped the box and a piece of topollen,
and for reasons that are unclear, rather than taking the
box to the police, they took it to a man

(22:53):
called Harold Gay who owned a funeral home.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Okay, so, so this Harold Gay.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
He gave us statement saying that when he opened the
box it was a liver inside it, not a heart,
and he said it.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Was sure it was beef liver.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
So from cout Okay, So, Oscar, the private detective wanted
to send it to a professional in Baltimore to get
a positive identification, so he asked Harold to preserve it.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Until he could make the arrangements. So Harold's preserved it with.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
And baman fluid put it back in the box, and
then he put the box on the back porch because
it was a bit smelly so outside. So ten days
later Oscar called Harold and said he was coming to
pick up the box. So Harold moved the box to
the steps of the back porch probably pick up, And
when Oscar arrived the next day, the box was gone.

(23:45):
So it's thought that the box might have been picked
up by the Montgomery Sanitation Department and taken along with
the rest.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Of the rubbish to the city and cinerator. You know,
the rubbish men just came along and lifted it. So
we still that might be the case. But that was
a bit stupid.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
Would have the guy that left on the porch if
you knew the rubbish was getting picked up.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
That that might by accident get obviously. I mean, I
wouldn't leave something like.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
That next to my bins the date it's getting empty,
because I probably.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Would think that the men might take it. I don't
know why.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
I can why he left outside, like surely he could
have put it away somewhere where he didn't.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
Have to smell it, put in a cupboard somewhere or
something until he came to the guy. I mean, it's
if that's going to be like quite a vital piece
of evidence. Well, yeah, exactly, So, I mean, so all
we've got is.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
From his opinion, really, like he thinks that's what it was.
But obviously we've got no no, don't know whether it
was from evidence on that, but yeah, but I think
probably he could probably tell the difference between a heart
and a lover, because I'm sure a little different, probably,
and a cow's.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Liver is probably if a diis human liver, is it
probably I don't know.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
So for the next sixteen months, George Soder had another
private detective, George Swayin. He decided that it was time
to appeal to the public for any information, so on
the fourteenth of November nineteen forty an article was put
in the Charleston Gazette stating that they were looking for
the five children who some thought were dead. There was

(25:13):
a full detailed account of most of the events leading
up to the publication, with photos of the five children included.
So for the next few months, the story was like
in and out of the newspapers, and it was eventually
decided that the best way to settle the matter would
be to excavate the site where the children's remains should be.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
You know, why have they not done this before? Now
that this is like three years no, yeah, three years later.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
So at one point Detective Swaying attempted to retain the
services of a well known former fire Marshal Thomas Broughy. However,
they didn't have the funds needed to retain brothy and
attempts to involve the FBI and the matter were also unsuccessful.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
I mean, people just in the same be interested. It's
like you've had a fire, your children died in it,
and that's it. End of Yeah, that's it. We're not
going to bother find it fun. Yeah it was fully
wire and yeah that's how it happened. Closed, shortcase done.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
So George Soder opted to undertake the excavation and examination
with his own money, and he retained the services of
Washington pathologist Oscar Hunter, and he hired some locals who
had had the right equipment, you know, to excavate the site.
So although with bits and pieces of like inner tube
in roofin and other non flammable material. Six small bones

(26:30):
were found, so doctor Hunter took the bones back to Washington,
and he ultimately determined that four of the six bones
were human and they came from the same person. The
four bones were lumber vertebrae and fit together neatly. However,
the bones didn't show any signs of been exposed in

(26:50):
a fire, and a sub subsequent examination determined that they
had come from somebody who was probably sixteen to seventeen
years of age. But the oldest of the children thought
to have died in the fire was Maurice, and he
was only fourteen, so.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
It was wrong by a few years. Now.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
They were like they could maybe a stretch like fourteen
and a half, but like there was no But they
actually did think that.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
It was probably somebody maybe even up to the age
twenty one. It was like it was definitely an older person.
I don't know who, don't I don't know. I mean
they might have found out, but not to do with
this investigator Becau. Obviously I was only reading about this one,
so I didn't find out who that was. So I
found I did find there was two accounts that.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
I found of where the bones had come from. So
one said that they came from a grave in Mount
Hope and the other one said that they had probably
been in the dirt that George Soddard filled the basement with.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
So it's like somebody's been buried somewhere and they've just
up dug it up. That sounds more like it. I
would that's about worrying that there was a body buried nearby.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
But then back in those days, I mean, I suppose people.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Were just buried. It might be a legitimate death that'sort
of just buried and they led to do that. Maybe
back in those I don't know. I honestly don't know.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
So there was it was somebody else anyway, And I
think that's I did, because like if they were taken
from a grave, that doesn't make sense to me, because
like if you were trying to fop people off saying
that that was five children.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
But yeah, there's only like four bones, so it doesn't
sound intentional. No, Yeah, I say this, it's just been
a total flick that. Yeah, whatever he's dug up has
had That's what it sounds like. Definitely, I would say
that's the more probable.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
So Jenny read she had read an article about another
house fire where all the skeletons were found of the deceased.
So she began because so she was like, right, I'm
gonna I'm looking into this because you know, the remains
of my children should have been found. So she began
conducting experiments in which she tried to like burn chicken, cow,
and pig bones, just to see like what if if? Yeah,

(29:01):
if you can burn bones, And no matter what she did,
the bones always remained. She spoke to someone who worked
at a crematorium and they said that they burn bodies
at two thousand degrees fahrenheit for two hours, and sometimes
even then they didn't get completely destroyed. So she was
convinced that her children didn't die in the fire because well,

(29:24):
I think of written it down later, I must never
wrote it down in this I was a wee bit
over the place because I was kind of reading bits
and pieces that were coming for different times. But I'll
probably get to it layer, but I'll tell you now
as well. I looked it up to see what a
house fire, how hot that would get, and I think
it's I'm sure it said one thousand, five hundred degrees.

(29:45):
That's as hot as it will gets like one thousand,
five hundred degrees. N they're burnout of two thousand degrees
and still not always get burning the wall down, So
it's pretty unlikely.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
So basically, bones are quite and they just you can't
destroy them easily. Basically. No, that's why if you want
to get red of bones, feed them a pig. I
gets them podcast.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
Okay, Anyway, there's murderers last night. So yeah, so, I mean,
so it just didn't add up. There should have you know,
five children. There should have been remains.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
You think at least there had to have been. They're
just they just had to.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Have been That's just there's no as orbots about it.
There should have been remains. So next I'm going to
tell you a few detail looks like could be important.
So when the eldest son, John made a statement to
the police the morning after the fire, he stated that
he woke his brother George up, and they went to
the other room and shook the other kids and then

(30:52):
ran down the stairs. But an account published in the
West Virginia Fire Marshal's Office and then in nineteen fifty
stayed it's that John and George only called for the
other children, and John said that when he called to
his brothers and sisters, he heard one of the boys
shout back, or he thinks he heard one of the
boys shout back.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
So first he said that.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
He'd actually seen them and physically shook them, but then
it changed to you only.

Speaker 2 (31:16):
Shouted on them, so we're not.

Speaker 1 (31:20):
I mean, if he shook them, that is a completely
different cand of worms there, because the kids were definitely there,
but them.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
He could have thought that he heard somebody shouting back,
but they could have been loads of commotion because.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
Well, and Dad would have been shouting, shouting exactly. I
probably was if he did hear that. It probably was
because you know, Jenny said that she was shouting up
to the kids, and I'm.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Sure George probably was as well. Exactly, you'd be panicking,
like scooming.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
On your children to get out. Yea they heard, Yeah,
I think that's probably the case.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
I don't think they actually did see them. You know,
I've lost my play, right And.

Speaker 1 (32:01):
Then so the soldiers remembered that a few months before
the fire, a stranger had appeared at the home looking
for work. He had wandered to the back of the house,
where he had pointed to two separate fuse boxes and
said this is going to cause a fire someday. And
remember I said earlier Georgia just had the wire and

(32:21):
checked and it was fine.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
So that's a really.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
Strange comment to make when your wire has just been
checked that intentionally I'm going to make this cause of
fire one day.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Well you see it's a bit stranger, you know, be
that like or they've come looking for work and I'm
assuming they don't be able to get work. But why
would that then go, oh, that's I'm going to kill
this family because we don't know that person was looking
for work.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
You could have just been under a guy's looking for
work so you co get access to the property so
you could look.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
At the fuse boxes. Think outside the box.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
So also, the older Solder sons had noticed that just
before Christmas, a strange car had been part of on
the road and occupants had been watching the younger children
walk home from school, so they must have noticed them
a few times them for to.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
Think that they were watching them.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
A telephone repair man told the solders that their phone
line had been cut and not burned like they assumed,
because obviously they assumed that obviously the telephone line would
go down but have been burned and I hadn't cut.
So a witness came forward and he said that he
had seen Lonnie Johnson who coned the pub that Tom.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Member Thomas Smith had went.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
Their phone was now working, hen coned the pub. So yeah,
so a witness had saw him stealing a block and
tackle used for removing carriage engines from the sawder's garage.
So he'd obviously went to the fire and he'd stolen this.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
And I think he just made up with their phone
wasn't working because he didn't want them to phone.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
I don't know, No, I don't know. I just think no.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
I do just think the phone wasn't working because it
wasn't just him. It was like there was other people.
I don't I just think that was a coincidence wasn't working.
I don't think he had any do with it, right,
And he's just okay. So he confessed that he stole them,
and he said that he took them from a garage
building and took them up the road and threw them
over an embankment when supposedly helping it the fire.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
But if you remember, though, he could m why would
he go the lengths to steal it and then throw
away because he'll go pick up later. Oh right, I thought,
I thought, you know what, I've realized, I'm just telling
this story.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
You're not a very good criminal. I wouldn't make him
any good one that at all. It's quite scary that
I'm going to the answers. Maybe, so you would be
the brains behind it. I'd be like the door. Yeah,
you'll be the I'll be the brains. You'll be the
brown yeah. Yeah. So he was charged.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
He was charged for that for the for the theft,
and he got a twenty five dollars fine and placed
on probation. He also confessed to cut in the telephone wires,
but he said that he thought there were power lines.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
He thought it was like because maybe the power lines
would catch fire and maybe disrupt other places. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
I don't get the power lines though. Like what I
just said, you know what's right? Because I'm confused now
because he maybe think that the fire would catch the
power lines and it would maybe affect the neighbors or.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Something like that would maybe, I don't know. Criminals are
strange people. The fire.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
The state fire Marshal later stated that Lonna Johnson would
have needed a ladder to accomplish this, as the wires
were fourteen feet off the ground and it had been
cut two feet from the nearest pole. So the ladder,
the missing ladder that was found down an embankment more
than seventy five feet from where.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
It usually was.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
So there is a good chance that it was used
to cut the wires. That's why it wasn't there, because
I just assumed.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
That they be moved so they can get the children.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, but it's been to cut the wires. But no,
but yeah, I don't know why. But nobody believed that
Lonnie had cut the wires. Somebody had but for whatever reason,
it wasn't him or they didn't believe it was him,
and they still don't know who did. They never found
out who had done it. So maybe it was him
because he confessed I don't know of change. Take that, okay,

(36:19):
then yeah, you'll do.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
So one day after the fire, the soldiers were visiting
the sight and Sylvia, you know, the little girl, and
she found a hard rubber object. Now it turns out
that it was a napalm pineapple bomb, which were used
in the war.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
So Jenny, it was like, that's what I heard on
the roof.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
And passers by people they actually saw fireballs being thrown
on the onto the roof, so that's what they've said.
That's what that's what she heard, thrown his bombs onto
the start of the fire. Yeah, so that's why the
fire department, I'll tell you that the fire started at
the bottom the house, actually started at the top of
the house.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
And it wasn't the faulty wiring in that's what it was.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
So there were some reports of sightings of the children.
So while the fire was in progress. Sorry, a woman
said that she'd seen the missing children in a passing car.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
She didn't see who was driving the car, but she
just sort of, you know, must see them looking out
the window or something.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
But I don't know how you could be one hundred
percent sure when somebody just passing the car, like maybe
because it was that time and night, maybe be wondering
why children.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Are in the car in the car. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
But another woman who worked at a rest stop fifty
miles away, said that she saw the children in the
morning after the fire, and she said that she served
the breakfast and they got into a car with Florida
license plates.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
But again she must have seen.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
I don't know if the driver was just stayed in
the car, never got out of the car. So they
got in a car with Florida license plates. Another sighting
was at a Charleston hotel. A woman who worked there
said that she had seen the children's foot was in
the paper, and she said that she'd seen four.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
Of the children a week after the fire.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
She said that they were with two women and two
men who spoke Italian. She didn't remember the exact date,
but she saw them checking at the hotel and stayed
in a room with several beds.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
They registered, and they.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Registered, I mean they checked in at about midnight, and
she said she tried to talk to the children, but
the men were like hostile and they were like nah,
you know, don't talk to them, and like just wouldn'tlet
the children talk to her.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
And then they left the next morning.

Speaker 1 (38:32):
So they only checked in it like midnight, and then
they were away early the next morning. At some point,
the Sodders saw an essay published in a magazine and
one of the photos showed several children in a New
York school, and they couldn't believe how much one of
them looked like one of their children who apparently died
in the fire, five year old Betty.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
They were so convinced that this was their child, they
were like that, yeah, it is.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
So they they traveled to New York, but they weren't
allowed to access to any of the children, which is understandable. Yeah, So,
according to the state of West Virginia, there's no mystery
to investigate. The five Solder children died in the fire.
And their reasons for being sure of this was that one,

(39:19):
the last time the children were staying alive, they were
inside the house. And two, no one witnessed the children
exit the Solder home the Sordier's home after fire.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
Nobodys seen the chive. So that's there. Just that's their
reasons of being sure of that.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
So, however, right up until they died, George and Jenny
still believed that their children did not die in the fire.
So their reasons for not believing the children died and
the fire are as follows. And they raised these points
to authorities. So I'll tell you what the authorities responded
to that as well.

Speaker 2 (39:50):
So not their number one.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
Was well, there was no human remains found in the
debris except the bones.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Obviously, those other bones but there was no other human.

Speaker 1 (39:58):
Remains, and the response was that this was not contested,
so they didn't contest that.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
I agreed that they didn't try. Yeah, so they just
give no explanation for it.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Number two was the fire couldn't have burned hot enough
to fully cremate five bodies, as it only took about
forty five minutes for the house to burn down.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
So and obviously what I told you earlier, and their.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
Response was the house collapsed into the basement and the
fire burned and smoldered for seven hours, effectively destroying the
remains of the five children. And then said, like before, yeah,
so I had a look to see how hot a
house fire gets, and a standard house fire can reach
temperatures of one five hundred degrees fahrenheit, and obviously the
person of the crematorium two thousands of grace, so you

(40:46):
didn't get it at all all the time. Yeah, But
their response was, well, yeah, it did burn for long enough.
It burned for seven hours, whereas no, it's smoldered for
seven hours, It burned down basically forty five minutes.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
Yeah, if it's smaller, you wouldn't think that would complete
remains with.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
And to me, that's sort of cool. And yeah, it
wouldn't be. It's not. It's not. There's not flames if
you're smoller, and I mean, it will still be very hot,
but it will not be like So, I just I
don't believe.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
That they were there anyway. So number three, the ladder
was missing and the phone lines were cut. Response was
that the ladder, the ladder could have been removed at
any time and by anyone.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
That's that means nothing.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
And they never said a bit about the phone lines.
So I don't know what to say it. I mean,
you're right the yeah, I mean it could have been
I mean, there could be another explosion for that easy.
But I mean it's it's just it's.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
All coincidental, exactly. So.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
And number four was the power in the house had
not yet gone out when the fire was first discovered.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Remember I said the Christmas lights, and that was Their
response was, but the home had two fuse boxes and.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
The fault only need only have occurred in one of them,
So they're saying that the fault was in one of
the fuse boxes that started the fire, but the other
box was still okay, so that's why the lights were
still on, which again.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
Could be to be a fair enough argument. I suppose,
well not I'm an electrician, but it sounds well reasonable.
And there's two views. That means there's power and two
separate points.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
So if one's faulting caught fire, then another one's find
then the lights are powered by that.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
Then yeah, I could, I could. I can see that.

Speaker 1 (42:17):
So the solders themselves, they have three feet three theories.
So number one, the children were kidnapped to be sold
on the black market to childish couples.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Now this could have been possible.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
As there was indeed a black market for young children
in the year's following the Second World War War. Second
World War like couples who can have kids of their
own and weren't eligible to adopt would often turn.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
To the black market. So that is that is a possibility.
It was a thing.

Speaker 1 (42:47):
Yeah, you know, because at first you're like, that says
a bit fire fetched, but it was actually I wasn't.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Now. The second theory is that the children were taken.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
From the home and later killed by a former employe
lawyer as revenge. Fiorenzo Janatola was a well known local
businessman who owned a jewelers in Fayetteville and George Soder
told authorities that sometime before the fire, Fiorenzo came to

(43:18):
his house trying to sell the family life insurance, and
when George said that he didn't want it, Fearenzo got
angry and shouted, quote, your goddamn house is going up
in smoke and your children are going to get going
to be destroyed.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
You're going to be paid for the dirty.

Speaker 1 (43:33):
Remarks you've been making about Muzsoleani end quote. And by
this he meant that George had very strong opinions and
wasn't shy about expressing them, and at times they had
had arguments with other members of the community about his
dislike for the Italian dictator Missoleani. So, and he had
very strong opinions, and he'd got up selling a bit

(43:54):
of trouble, you know.

Speaker 2 (43:55):
So that's apparently what this guy was shouting a with
You're getting be paid for the dirty match that you've
been making about Musolini.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
Could remember they're in an Italian community. So and fear
Endso's cousin clean clean tests, clean test Janitole.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
I think I could have that wrong.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
I'm not sure. So his initials so that would be
CE was it CJ His initial CJ. Appear in various
bits of paperwork following the fire, so newspaper's reports from
the time said that he was this clean Tees was
planning to erect a temporary structure for disorders on their property.

(44:50):
He was shown to be on the corner's jury which
rendered the verdict of answer accidental death, and his name
and signature show him to have been in foreman on
the death certificate and death register for each of the
solder children, meaning that he registered the deaths okay, So
of course I found her strange because I'm like, I
thought we had to be a relative that registers are death.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
And he's not.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
This is this guy that's been shouting was his cousin,
So obviously I looked it up and I found that
if someone dies in a private home, the person who
can the people who can register that death are either
a relative, anyone present at the death, or anyone who

(45:35):
has taken responsibility for arranging a funeral. So I'm like, well,
he's not a relative. I'm sure he wasn't at the fire,
so he wasn't president of the death. So has he
taken responsibility for arranging the funeral?

Speaker 2 (45:46):
Why would you do that? If you're not unless it
was somebody the Italian community.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Maybe they I don't know, but it just seems a
better coincidence that his cousin has been shouting off saying
that burned down the children are going to be started
to stems like on all the paperwork, and he's registered
the death Remember there's been no bodies for these children.

Speaker 2 (46:06):
Well exactly, he's registered.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
Like, I find it sot like, I mean, I really
don't think it would happen now, but like to write
to have a death certificate for somebody who's been missing
for five days because you haven't got a body, so
the technically they're not dead, they are missing exactly.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
You wouldn't have a desert it.

Speaker 1 (46:23):
I mean for missing people it's it's like, what ten
years have to been missing before they can be declared.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Dead exactly, so you can't get Yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
So I just find it strange that days it must
be very different. Yeah, of course, like the thing like
times are different. I just find five days when you
haven't got a body, it's very quick to be getting
a deathertica. Yeah, I mean even now with a body,
probably will these things are in the world, you says,
the probably longer than five days to get a death certificate.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
Now, who knows.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Well, I'm just thinking with COVID, I'm sure everyone's all
backlogged and everything, so so yeah, I just I find
that a bit strange. Yes, the third theory was I
find this one strange. But the third theory of the
solders is that the children were kidnapped by or at
the direction of their uncle Frank Cipriani, who is Jenny's brother,

(47:13):
and taking his home in Cortes, Florida.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
Remember that car had Florida, but it was looked at
it obviously.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
It was this allegation that saw the brief involvement of
the FBI and the soorder case. In addition, a private
investigator from Tampa and the sheriff's departments of both Hillsborough
and Manitate County.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Looked into the matter.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
The check like the birth and school records for the
two children that were living with Frank in nineteen fifty one,
and they chased the records back to nineteen forty one,
and they came away convinced that these were the children
of Frank and his wife and they.

Speaker 2 (47:45):
Had always been there, they'd always lived there. But I
don't know why you would blame your brother for taking you,
for taking your five children on you. I must.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
Obviously there must have been a reason why you think
about that, because that's like me saying that you've.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Nicked mad or.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
But I'm like, well, can I reassure you that will
not be happening.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
I can't deal with it.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
For too long, I was sending her back. We had
to follow out, you have your child back. I was
going to kidnapp her, but you rubber back. I didn't,
having no real reason why you would like give me
They must, Yeah, I'm sure they must have a reason.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
But maybe it's just not being public. Yeah, made public.
So and for all of the theories, they said that
the wire, that the wire the fire.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Sorry, they said the fire was set to cover the crime,
and it didn't result from.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Faulty wire or the fuse box.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
So no matter what happened to the children, the fire
was always delivererate.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
It wasn't an accident, it wasn't for wire.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
So it's wondered if the missing it was wondered if
the missing ladder was to take the.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Children out of the house. But while I was researching,
I hadn't.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
Actually thought of that until now, Until I read it
because I thought the ladder had been taken away so
that the solder parents couldn't get the children.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
I just think wouldn't been really difficult, right.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
The children were aged between five and fourteen, and you
would think that at least one of them would have
been woken up by being taken out of their beds
and they would have shouted out. But even if they didn't,
how hard would it be to carry a fourteen year
old boy down a set of ladder and then there
was a twelve year old girl?

Speaker 2 (49:19):
And and you think, like, why would they go willingly
as well? Like it?

Speaker 3 (49:24):
Unless well, that's I'm saying, why weren't the screaming out
unless it was someone.

Speaker 2 (49:28):
They knew and trusted.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
But they would have to have been taken out before
the fire so that you could understand if they were
getting taken out while it was the fire was unless
they were unless they were just told the house was
on fire.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
Yeah, because it had started. They might be said that
there's a fire struck downstairs and take them out they
kild it. Not that way, I suppose, ye. See, that's
the animal thought about that, Yeah, because I say it
could have been something that they knew and they trusted.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Yeah, so then you could carry them out because I
was thinking, because obviously the oldest was fourteen, How the
hell are you going to carry a fourteen you're struggling,
And then they might have took himself out and.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Not being killed.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Yeah, but when even a who was coming out, he
might came out willingly. Somebody could probably carry on willingly
and if it was unwillingly.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
But that's a good point.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
Actually, because I was thinking, they're not going to come
out willingly if the house.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Isn't on fire, because they'd be like, why can we
not just out the front door?

Speaker 3 (50:11):
Because then they might you know, if I say the
fire was just starting, they got out and they've got
a bit of this is the way they could turn
on and then see the house is on fire and
they could This person was going, right, I'm just.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Taking care of safety, that's yeah, and you know before
they know what they've gone.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
Yeah, Because I just don't see how you could take
five children against their will the house down the ladder.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Exactly, especially if the fire because from what you described
the fire when the mum was woken up and it
all happened so quickly.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Well, well technically they would have had about an hour
because but when the last boys went to bed sort
quarter past eleven, half half a living and Jenny woke up,
I have to have the first time.

Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yeah, So technically it.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
Could have been in that hour before the fire, so
the fire might not have started, but they might have.
Obviously the people who have took them know that they
were going to start a fire, so they could have
just said they must have on fire the wires because
obviously she did get a phone call.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
So then so wise they were and cut to laughter half. Well. Yeah,
So in nineteen.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
Fifty two the case was closed, and the following year
the Sauders had a massive billboard placed between their driveway
and what was then US Route twenty one. So the
massive big billboard that had like five pictures of the
five children and above in.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Big letters that said what was their fate? Kidnapped, murdered?
Are they still alive?

Speaker 1 (51:31):
And underneath the pictures it sort of says our house
was set on fire and five our children were being kidnapped,
you know, because I explained it, and it offered a
five thousand dollars reward. They soon increased the reward to
ten thousand dollars, obviously leading to the recovery of their children,
and one day a let her arrived from a woman
in Saint Louis, saying that the oldest girl, Martha, was
in a convent there right. Another tip came in from Texas.

(51:54):
They said they had overheard a conversation in a bar
and had said that the children were worth one of
these distant relatives in Florida.

Speaker 2 (52:02):
There's a Florida connection again.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
In nineteen sixty seven, the soldiers received a photo in
the post and the postmark on the envelope was Central City, Kentucky.
And on the back of the photo, because it was
a photo of a man, and on the back of
the photo were the words Lewis Soder I love brother Frankie.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
Little boys A nine, one, three, and then two or five.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
I don't know what that means, but the soldiers thought
the man in the black and white photo bore a
strong resemblance to their son Lewis, because he'd been ten
just no, no, sorry, he was nine, but he was
ten just five days after the fire.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
Ten.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
So they sent another in private investigator to Central City,
but unfortunately he took the solders money and was never
held from again. So George then went to Central City himself,
but he didn't find it anything. And he also traveled
to the other places that I mentioned, but he just
always came home in Answers. So on the sixteenth of
August nineteen sixty nine, George died, but Jenny's still never

(53:01):
gave up trying to find out what happened to her children.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
Unfortunately, she never found out either.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
She died on the fifteenth of February nineteen eighty nine,
so she was twenty years after George died, and the
billboard was taken down after she died, so it had actually.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
Been up for thirty six years this billboard.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
And the last of the Solder children who survived the fire,
Sylvie had a little one. She just died on the
twenty first to April twenty twenty one.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
So just last year she died. So all of them
that survived the fire are now gone. Some thinking.

Speaker 1 (53:31):
If they did survive the other five children, did they
live to be adults?

Speaker 2 (53:37):
Did Were they were actually dead now yeah?

Speaker 1 (53:41):
Or were they killed at the time. I don't think
they were in that fire though. I definitely thought they
were taking out the house before the fire. But then
you got asked the question, then why why why were they? Well,
they could have been sold on the black market. They
could have been killed by that guy who was sitting.
I don't know because obviously, well I don't know, we

(54:03):
didn't have any major enemies, did they or anything, but.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
Upset people to be annoyed now because they don't. We're
never going to know this answer. We probably not.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
I doubt it, because you know, and it's taking on
this investigation in this day and age.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
Well, they want to dig up the site again and
just in case there is remains there or something du.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
They could have been buried.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
Still, the house is still there, the you know, the
how they had the shack where they went and lived
in afterwards.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
That's that's still there. But obviously that the house burned out.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
But the site where they sort of filled in the
basement and stuff, you know, that could have been excavated
again and had another look.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
And if you think about the people who've done it,
assuming that they were kidnap, they're they're probably they had
to have been gone by now because that was nineteen
forty five, and if they were adults who took took them, definitely, so.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
So actually you've given me a mystery that there's probably
no hope of me ever knowing what the answers are.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
I told you before I even wrote it. I said
to you, do you want a mystery?

Speaker 1 (55:11):
And you say and you and you went yeah, and
I went, mind, it's unsolved, so you don't get to
the answers.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
You're like, I can live with it, So you're just
gonna have to live with it. But I'm like, wondering,
do you anywhere in the fire? I don't. I don't know.
I really don't know.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
Because I say, I would have expected them to find
some remains, but then because it was so long ago,
you don't know what sort of you know, how the
investigation was. So was there remains there and they just
didn't find them?

Speaker 1 (55:44):
Well, if you remember, they searched for two hours and
then it was only a few days later that.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
They filled it in the basement, That's what I mean.
So was that enough time to see?

Speaker 1 (55:56):
Now You've got me thinking, because I was like, no,
there were there, weren't end they were kidnapped?

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Because like I say, you know in this day and
age now, I mean, there would be like a real
thorough investigation. Right. Do you want to just go and
get a plane ticket. We'll fly over there and we'll
get somebody on the case. Become trying to investigators. That's
what we could do, and then we figure it out.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
Right, But they could be how could you be a
private investigator when we just had the conversation about how
you can even be a rubber you'd be a rubbish criminal.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
But to be an investigator, surely you'd have to kind
of think like a criminal, wouldn't you.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Well maybe, I.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
Don't know, I'm not I'm not sure because let's say
I just think because of the time of lightly years
that it was, it was so back then, and the
fact they had volunteers for firemen.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
And all that sort of, these people weren't well trained people. Probably, Yeah,
of course. I mean look at that fact chief he's
burying and what he thinks is a heart, well exactly,
So to me, could they have.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
Come across remains that they didn't realize which remains as
well to take a mistake of heart for.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
A lover, I mean, they could mistake. Do you know what.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
I'm gonna have to go and listen to other people's
podcasts that have done this episode and see what they think,
because I'm not going to say anybody what theories other
people have got, ye because at.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
The end of the day, I mean, obviously the sod
of family.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
I suppose you know quite rightly that we would all
think if there's no remains found, you would start questioning it.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
But my question is was it searched enough to really
determine that?

Speaker 1 (57:24):
See, you surprised me, that's my that's not but that's
that's Trually, I'm actually quite glad that you've done that,
because you've actually got me thinking, because I've just thought,
as I said, like they weren't here in the house,
they've been taking they've been kidnapped, taking out the house,
they weren't and when it burned down, and I was
expecting you to gee and think exactly the same. But
it's quite good that you're actually you're kind of going, well,
I don't know about that.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
I like that, yeah, just just because it's got to be,
like you say, to get five kids out of house
that's either on fire just about to go on fire,
obviously totally disappears, et cetera. And I'm knowing funny, but
you know how many people have like what they call
double gangers in this world that people look like each
other that aren't even know that those people could have been.

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Just looked like them and might not even looked like that.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Somebody might have seen somebody else that had four or
five kids, and because they'd been on their mind, had
been in the paper, Oh there's somebody a few kids.

Speaker 3 (58:14):
You know exactly because I'm not being funny, but I
wouldn't necessarily know if something had happened, say five kids
have been taken, and and I see a car I
just wouldn't put that together in my head, do you
know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (58:24):
I would either I just seen a passing carriage and
kids in it. I wouldn't think when you start.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
Seeing rewards and stuff for things, people are likely to
phone in and say or contact them and well, I've
seen it because they want to record. I'm not saying
that that's their whole motive, but I see. But I
wasn't annoyed until you started talking.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
You annoyed me, and I just thought, that's my theory.
They were taken out of it. But now I was like, oh,
they could have been in the fire.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
My theory is now maybe they were on the fire
and because of the time of life, it was that year.
It was the fact that they couldn't do investigations as
well as they do now were trained thoroughly. Was it
all just rushed, they didn't search properly.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
Yeah, you're right, You're totally right. I just I was
I've never really sort of looked at it from that side.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
I've just always thought, no, no remains children are in there.
So you've got me thinking.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
And I'm going to actually listen to some other people's
podcasts because I know if a few other people have.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
Done it, so I want to see what their opinions
are and I will let you know.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
Yes, I know you won't listen to them, so I'll
listen your job, I'll let you know what if if
my opinion changes or what.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
Other people think. So thank you to our patreons for listening.
Thanks for being a Patreon. You know you.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
We greatly appreciate it, and we'll.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
See in it on the next episode. I would love
to hear your thoughts on this, on your theories. Yeah,
if anybody has a theory, just let us know.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
Or if you think that we're totally wrong and it
could be something completely different, let us know.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
So hope to hear from you, thanks for listening again,
and we'll see that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
Don't do that, don't.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Do that. Don't then