February 27, 2025 • 26 mins
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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Carole Townsend (00:06):
At just after midnight on Christmas morning
1945, jenny Sautter awoke toanswer a strange phone call.
At 12.30 am she got out of bedand plodded down the stairs to
answer the phone, only to findthat the woman caller had rung a
wrong number.
When she told the caller asmuch, the person just laughed
(00:31):
and hung up.
Jenny remembered hearing thesounds of laughter and clinking
glasses in the background.
On any other day thisoccurrence might have been
dismissed and forgotten, but inthe wake of staggering tragedy
the call took on an ominousimportance.
Jenny would later tell thelocal newspaper that the woman
(00:56):
on the other end of the line hada weird laugh, but she
dismissed the incident as aprank call and went back to bed.
As she crept back up the stairs, something else occurred to her
.
Five of her nine children whowere home that night had stayed
up a bit later to continue theChristmas celebration and she
(01:18):
had asked them to close thecurtains, lock the doors and
turn the lights off before theywent to bed.
Curtains, lock the doors andturn the lights off before they
went to bed.
Standing on the top step andsurveying the quiet first floor
of the house, jenny saw that herchildren had done none of what
she asked, which was unusual.
She also noticed that their17-year-old daughter, marion,
(01:40):
was asleep on the couch, andJenny went back downstairs to
cover her with a quilt.
Her children's disobedienceannoyed her at the time, but it
would later haunt her for therest of her life.
She went back to bed, assumingthat the next time she awoke it
would be time to make breakfastor perhaps to receive a
(02:03):
Christmas phone call from theirsecond eldest son, joe, who was
away in the army.
But about an hour later Jennyagain woke up, this time to find
the bedroom thick with smoke.
She bolted out of bed, alarmedby the unmistakable smell.
Looking across the hallway, shesaw flames devouring her
(02:25):
husband's office.
Panicked, jenny ran downstairswith George and her little
daughter Sylvia, who had fallenasleep with her mother in her
parents' bed.
On Christmas Eve night, jennytold Marion, still asleep on the
sofa, to take Sylvia outside,while she and her husband George
frantically tried to save theirother seven children.
(02:48):
As the parents reached thebottom of the steps, two of
their children, george Jr andJohn, flew down the stairs past
them.
John shouted to his parentsthat he woke his siblings and
told them to get out of theirsecond floor bedrooms where they
had been sleeping peacefully,but the staircase was quickly
becoming engulfed in flames andthe five children were separated
(03:12):
from the rest of their familyby the raging fire.
Their parents heard no screams,no crying and no pleas for help
.
Desperate to rescue hischildren, george did not give up
.
He ran outside to get theladder that was always propped
against the house, but it wasnowhere to be found.
(03:33):
He and his sons then decided tomove one of their two coal
trucks up against the house,then try to stand on it to reach
the upstairs window, butneither of the trucks would
start, even though they hadworked just fine.
The day before, george tried toscoop water from a rain barrel,
but the water had frozen solid.
(03:54):
Jenny and George Sautter andthe four children who managed to
get out of the house could onlystand by and watch in despair
as the fire raced through theirhome, reducing the entire
five-bedroom two-story structureto ashes and just the
foundation in a mere 45 minutes.
(04:16):
What would follow the tragedyof this early Christmas morning
remains a mystery to this day,80 years later.
In fact, this strange case isconsidered to be an open, cold
case, despite findings thatconcluded otherwise.
(04:46):
Here in the South, storytellingis not just an art, it's a way
of life, of retelling truethings that beg to be shared.
Again and again, perhaps as away of testing their truth.
We become entranced by thesestories, by Southern legend and
history.
We're fascinated and riveted bythem because there is an
(05:10):
element to these stories thatcan only be described as
indescribable, as unique andquirky and sometimes just
downright impossible.
Why is that?
People have asked me countlesstimes during my career as an
(05:31):
author and a journalist.
My only answer and it fallswoefully short is that this is
the South, and rarely are eventscut and dried here, rarely are
they black and white.
Southern history is laidagainst a backdrop of mystery,
of obscurity and of theever-raging battle between good
and evil.
(05:51):
Join me tonight as we exploreanother tale of intrigue, a true
story cloaked in mystery andriddled with unanswered
questions.
I've shared many a story fromthis old front porch, a familiar
and tangible refuge from thingsthat really do go bump in the
(06:12):
night, and I've saved you a seat.
The following podcast containsmaterial that may be disturbing
Listener discretion is advised.
(06:32):
The unexpected smell of smokehas the same effect on humans as
it does on animals.
It ignites alarm and fear, andour first instinct is to flee
and fear.
And our first instinct is toflee.
Perhaps the only exception tothis phenomenon is when our
children are at risk.
A parent will run into theflames to rescue their child
(06:55):
without a thought of hesitationor of personal safety.
Jenny and George Sauter weresuch parents.
In the tight-knit Italianimmigrant community of
Fayetteville, west Virginia, theSodder's name was synonymous
with family and with hard work.
They did, after all, have tenchildren and they owned a
(07:17):
successful coal truckingbusiness that George had built
himself.
Even among hard-working,god-fearing Appalachians, the
Sauter name was respected.
Jenny was a shopkeeper'sdaughter who had migrated from
Italy to America with herparents, while George Sauter was
an opinionated Italianimmigrant from Sardinia.
(07:40):
They met and fell in love halfa 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.
In the days that followed thefiery destruction of the Sodder
family, home questions began toarise.
(08:03):
Where was the ladder that wasalways laid in the same spot,
beside the house outside?
Strangely, it was found dayslater at the bottom of an
embankment 75 yards from thehouse.
Why wouldn't either of thefamily's coal trucks start and
(08:23):
listen to this, it wouldn't havemattered whether Jenny was able
to reach the telephone to callthe fire department when she
awoke, because the phone linehad been cut.
In fact, the phone line hadbeen cut by someone who climbed
14 feet up the telephone poleand reached out about two feet
(08:44):
to do it.
Hardly an accident orcoincidence.
Fire investigators told theSodders that the fire had
started because of faulty wiringin the house.
George had recently hired anelectrician to do some work on
the house.
But when Jenny awoke to thesmell of smoke and saw the fire,
(09:04):
the lights in the house,including the lights on the
Christmas tree, were on and theycontinued to shine as the fire
devoured the house.
The faulty wiring theory justdidn't hold water.
Within days a witness cameforward claiming he saw a man at
(09:29):
the scene of the fire taking ablock and tackle used for
removing car engines.
Could he be the reason George'strucks had refused to start?
The man in question was caughtand later pleaded guilty to
stealing the block and tackle,but emphatically denied any
involvement in the fire.
Block and tackle, butemphatically denied any
(09:53):
involvement in the fire.
By far the most puzzlingquestion was this when were the
remains of the five children whohad been sleeping upstairs.
Typically, some part of a humanbody remains after the body has
been burned.
In fact, even if the skeletonburns to ashes, teeth usually
(10:15):
survive the heat of a fire.
Jenny even took it upon herselfto burn the remains of small
animals to see if their bonesand organs would be consumed
completely.
In every case, some trace ofthe animal remained, but with
the Sodder children, nothing,not one single piece of evidence
of human remains was found inthe ashes and rubble of the home
(10:43):
.
Now medical science hasdemonstrated that bones remain
after bodies are burned for twohours at 2,000 degrees.
The family's house wasreportedly destroyed in just 45
minutes.
Where then were Maurice, martha, louis, jenny and Betty Sauter?
(11:06):
When Jenny Sauter couldn't getto 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 asubsequent call placed by a
different neighbor was answeredby the fire department.
In fact, it wasn't until afterdaybreak, seven hours later,
(11:27):
that the first fire truckarrived at the Sodder property,
and this was only after a thirdphone call was made by yet
another neighbor.
Several reasons were latergiven as to why the fire
department response was sodelayed From wartime staffing
(11:48):
personnel shortages to aninability to awaken the
volunteer firefighters, and thechief of the department didn't
know how to operate the firetruck so he had to wait for
someone else who could drive itto the scene.
In the days that followed thatChristmas day 1945, jenny and
George Sautter were, of course,interviewed at length.
(12:08):
Investigators wanted bothparents to try to recall
anything at all from that night.
That seemed unusual, no matterhow insignificant the details
might seem.
Jenny did recall hearing athump on the roof of the house
(12:29):
about a half hour after sheanswered the prank phone call.
She said the noise sounded likea rubber ball hitting the roof
and then it rolled and hit theground with another thump.
At the time she didn't worryabout the noise and she went
back to sleep.
But a passenger in a passingcar that night told
investigators that he saw quoteballs of fire being thrown on
(12:51):
the tar and wood roof of theSodder home just before the fire
would have started.
Interestingly, investigatorsdetermined that the fire had
started on the roof of the houseand a few days after the fire
had destroyed the home, littleSylvia.
And a few days after the firehad destroyed the home, little
(13:14):
Sylvia found a rubber object inthe yard, something George later
described as looking like quotea type of hand grenade.
As the site of the tragedy wasbeing examined and investigated,
fire chief FJ Morris said thathe himself found a body part a
heart to be exact at the burnedSodder home site, and he put it
(13:36):
in a box and buried it in theashes and dirt that remained
after the fire.
During the investigation, thatbox was found and taken to the
local funeral director.
It didn't take the man long todiscover that not only was the
organ not a human heart, it wasin fact a beef liver and it had
(13:59):
never been touched by a fire.
When Morris was questionedabout the buried beef liver he
had discovered in the ashes andrubble of the fire, he admitted
that he had planted the fakeremains to help convince George
and Jenny that their childrenwere indeed dead and not just
missing.
But this explanation baffledinvestigators, as the parents
(14:24):
were never even told about thediscovery of the fake heart,
were never even told about thediscovery of the fake heart.
Four years after the fire,george Sautter bulldozed the
home site in order to build amemorial garden for his lost
children, and while doing so hemade a stunning find Human
vertebrae.
Unfortunately, there was no wayto prove that the bones had
(14:58):
been there right after the fireand no way to prove that they
belonged to one of the Sodderchildren.
George could have accidentallyunearthed the vertebrae during
the excavation and it'simportant to note that the
remains also had no evidence ofcharring.
The vertebrae were ultimatelysent to the Smithsonian
Institute for analysis.
Scientists there found that thevertebrae belonged to a single
(15:21):
individual and that thevertebrae likely belonged to a
male between the ages of 16 and22.
The report went on to statethat it was possible but not
probable that the bones couldhave belonged to 14-year-old
Maurice, who was one of themissing children.
(15:47):
A private investigatorreportedly confirmed years later
that the vertebrae had beenmistakenly moved from a nearby
cemetery when George had beenmoving dirt to fill in the site
for a memorial flower garden tohonor his missing children.
Jenny Sautter wore black forthe rest of her life and she
(16:20):
tended the flowers of thatmemorial garden until the day
she died.
Death certificates were issuedfor the children on December 30,
1945, just five days after thefire.
The cause of death on eachcertificate was, quote fire or
suffocation, end quote.
(16:40):
Years later, a journalist whocovered this mysterious story
for NPR said that four peoplehad reported seeing human
remains in the rubble.
One of these people was Jenny'sown brother.
But if remains had been found,they were never collected or
(17:00):
reported in any official records.
George and Jenny Sautter neverbelieved, after those first few
days that followed the fire,that their children had perished
in the blaze.
The facts simply did notsupport that claim.
The couple hired a number ofprivate investigators and George
(17:22):
himself traveled around thecountry following up on leads
and possible sightings of thechildren around the country.
Following up on leads andpossible sightings of the
children, it was their sincerebelief that the children were
kidnapped by the Sicilian mafiaor perhaps by others in
organized crime.
As far-fetched as this mightsound, remember that the Sodders
(17:43):
came to the United States fromItaly.
George was very outspoken aboutatrocities committed by Benito
Mussolini and fascist Italy andsome believe that other Italians
in the States might have takentheir revenge on him by
kidnapping his children andburning down his house.
In fact, in October 1945, justtwo months before the Sodder
(18:19):
home was destroyed by fire, atraveling 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 warningon the dirty remarks George had
been making about Mussolini.
His warning was oddly prophetic.
(18:39):
Yet another visitor to theSodder home, who was supposedly
looking for work, warned Georgethat a pair of fuse boxes on the
back of the house would cause afire someday soon.
This puzzled George, as he hadjust paid an electrician to
rewire the entire house when anelectric stove was installed and
(19:04):
local inspectors had approvedthe work.
Another cause for concern wasthis the Sodder's older sons had
reported seeing a strange carparked along the main road
through town, its occupantswatching the Sodder children as
they walked home from school.
But no matter who wasresponsible, the Sodders were
(19:30):
convinced that their childrenhad been removed from the home
before the fire was set.
George even went so far as toask for help from the FBI, and J
Edgar Hoover himself respondedto his pleas, and I'm quoting
here, although I would like tobe of service.
(19:50):
The matter related appears tobe of local character and does
not come within theinvestigative jurisdiction of
this bureau.
Hoover went on to say that iflocal authorities had requested
help from the FBI, agents wouldhave promptly assisted, but no
such request had ever been made.
(20:15):
The Sodders' belief that theirchildren were kidnapped was
bolstered by possible sightingsof the children through the
years.
For example, a Charleston SouthCarolina motel manager came
forward in 1952 to claim that hehad seen four children
accompanied by two men and twowomen who appeared to be of
(20:37):
Italian descent.
This group arrived at thishotel three days after the fire
in West Virginia.
The Sodders found this accountto be so believable that they
erected a billboard near themotel that offered a $5,000
reward for information leadingto the recovery of any one or
(20:58):
all five of their missingchildren, and not long after
that they doubled the rewardamount to $10,000.
Several other witnesses cameforward after the fire,
especially once rumors begancirculating that the children
might still be alive.
One woman said that she saw allfive children in a passing car
(21:23):
as she was driving past theburning house in the wee hours
of Christmas morning, 1945.
Another woman said that she sawthe children having breakfast
at a diner just hours after thefire.
She said that four adults, twomen and two women, were with
them.
(21:46):
But perhaps the most intriguinglead arrived in the mail, and
this 1967 letter was addressedto Jenny Sautter.
Inside the envelope, which hadbeen mailed from Central City
Kentucky, was the photograph ofa man who looked strikingly
similar to Lewis Sauter.
A handwritten note accompaniedthe photograph.
(22:08):
It read, and then it listed astring of undecipherable letters
, thought by police to spell Lilor Little, and then A90132 or
possibly 35.
The Sodders knew in theirhearts that the person depicted
(22:33):
in the photo was indeed Lewis,even though Lewis did not have a
brother named Frank.
But Jenny Lewis's mother didhave a brother named Frank
Cipriani.
In fact, at one point theSodders accused a man named
Frank Cipriani of kidnapping thechildren and raising them as
his own, but nothing ever cameof this accusation.
(22:57):
While the letters referenced tolittle boys had sleuths
scratching their heads andwondering.
The reference to A90132 or 35might possibly represent postal
codes.
The code 90135 can be found inthe city of Palermo, the capital
(23:22):
of the Italian island of Sicily.
Also in 1967, the Soddersreceived another letter, this
time from a woman in Houston,texas, who claimed to have met
two men who told her that theywere Maurice and Louis Sauter.
Sylvia's husband and rememberSylvia was the youngest of the
(23:44):
Sauter children drove GeorgeSauter to Houston to meet with
the two men, but they deniedthat they were his missing sons.
George died just two yearslater, in 1969.
George died just two yearslater, in 1969.
According to his son-in-law, hewondered if those two men were
(24:08):
his boys.
Until the day he died, jennylived for another 20 years after
her husband's death and shenever wavered in her belief that
her children had been kidnapped.
In fact, she had a secondbillboard made that stated her
beliefs very clearly.
On the billboard she included aphoto she believed to be one,
of an adult Lewis.
On it she stated that herchildren had been kidnapped and
(24:33):
she questioned why the policehad failed to investigate.
To this day, her survivingrelatives and countless amateur
sleuths have pursued thismystery and the many bizarre
twists and turns in this case.
Sadly, it's quite possible thatthe case will never be solved.
(25:15):
I'm Carole Townsend, veterannewspaper journalist and
six-time award-winning author.
You can find me on social mediaand check out my website at
caroltownsendcom.
As always, thanks for listeningand if you're enjoying these
tales of Southern history andlore, I hope you'll tell your
(25:35):
friends.
And lore I hope you'll tellyour friends.
Subscribe to this podcast onSpotify, apple Play, iheart and
anywhere you listen.
My team and I used thefollowing sources to put
(25:58):
together this story for youabout the missing Sodder
children the article whatHappened to the Sodder Children,
the Siblings who Went Up inSmoke in a West Virginia House
Fire in Smithsonian MagazineApril 21, 2024.
Updated by Abbott Collar.
Originally written by MilanSali.
The article Sodder ChildrenDisappearance Strange Events in
(26:25):
Christmas House Fire StillUnexplained Decades Later,
written by Drusilla Morehouse inHuffPost, december 13, 2023.
The show History's GreatestMysteries the Sodder Children
Disappearance, season 3, episode8, and Sodder Children
Disappearance from Wikipedia.
At just after midnight on Christmas morning
1945, jenny Sautter awoke toanswer a strange phone call.
At 12.30 am she got out of bedand plodded down the stairs to
answer the phone, only to findthat the woman caller had rung a
wrong number.
When she told the caller asmuch, the person just laughed
(00:31):
and hung up.
Jenny remembered hearing thesounds of laughter and clinking
glasses in the background.
On any other day thisoccurrence might have been
dismissed and forgotten, but inthe wake of staggering tragedy
the call took on an ominousimportance.
Jenny would later tell thelocal newspaper that the woman
(00:56):
on the other end of the line hada weird laugh, but she
dismissed the incident as aprank call and went back to bed.
As she crept back up the stairs, something else occurred to her
.
Five of her nine children whowere home that night had stayed
up a bit later to continue theChristmas celebration and she
(01:18):
had asked them to close thecurtains, lock the doors and
turn the lights off before theywent to bed.
Curtains, lock the doors andturn the lights off before they
went to bed.
Standing on the top step andsurveying the quiet first floor
of the house, jenny saw that herchildren had done none of what
she asked, which was unusual.
She also noticed that their17-year-old daughter, marion,
(01:40):
was asleep on the couch, andJenny went back downstairs to
cover her with a quilt.
Her children's disobedienceannoyed her at the time, but it
would later haunt her for therest of her life.
She went back to bed, assumingthat the next time she awoke it
would be time to make breakfastor perhaps to receive a
(02:03):
Christmas phone call from theirsecond eldest son, joe, who was
away in the army.
But about an hour later Jennyagain woke up, this time to find
the bedroom thick with smoke.
She bolted out of bed, alarmedby the unmistakable smell.
Looking across the hallway, shesaw flames devouring her
(02:25):
husband's office.
Panicked, jenny ran downstairswith George and her little
daughter Sylvia, who had fallenasleep with her mother in her
parents' bed.
On Christmas Eve night, jennytold Marion, still asleep on the
sofa, to take Sylvia outside,while she and her husband George
frantically tried to save theirother seven children.
(02:48):
As the parents reached thebottom of the steps, two of
their children, george Jr andJohn, flew down the stairs past
them.
John shouted to his parentsthat he woke his siblings and
told them to get out of theirsecond floor bedrooms where they
had been sleeping peacefully,but the staircase was quickly
becoming engulfed in flames andthe five children were separated
(03:12):
from the rest of their familyby the raging fire.
Their parents heard no screams,no crying and no pleas for help
.
Desperate to rescue hischildren, george did not give up
.
He ran outside to get theladder that was always propped
against the house, but it wasnowhere to be found.
(03:33):
He and his sons then decided tomove one of their two coal
trucks up against the house,then try to stand on it to reach
the upstairs window, butneither of the trucks would
start, even though they hadworked just fine.
The day before, george tried toscoop water from a rain barrel,
but the water had frozen solid.
(03:54):
Jenny and George Sautter andthe four children who managed to
get out of the house could onlystand by and watch in despair
as the fire raced through theirhome, reducing the entire
five-bedroom two-story structureto ashes and just the
foundation in a mere 45 minutes.
(04:16):
What would follow the tragedyof this early Christmas morning
remains a mystery to this day,80 years later.
In fact, this strange case isconsidered to be an open, cold
case, despite findings thatconcluded otherwise.
(04:46):
Here in the South, storytellingis not just an art, it's a way
of life, of retelling truethings that beg to be shared.
Again and again, perhaps as away of testing their truth.
We become entranced by thesestories, by Southern legend and
history.
We're fascinated and riveted bythem because there is an
(05:10):
element to these stories thatcan only be described as
indescribable, as unique andquirky and sometimes just
downright impossible.
Why is that?
People have asked me countlesstimes during my career as an
(05:31):
author and a journalist.
My only answer and it fallswoefully short is that this is
the South, and rarely are eventscut and dried here, rarely are
they black and white.
Southern history is laidagainst a backdrop of mystery,
of obscurity and of theever-raging battle between good
and evil.
(05:51):
Join me tonight as we exploreanother tale of intrigue, a true
story cloaked in mystery andriddled with unanswered
questions.
I've shared many a story fromthis old front porch, a familiar
and tangible refuge from thingsthat really do go bump in the
(06:12):
night, and I've saved you a seat.
The following podcast containsmaterial that may be disturbing
Listener discretion is advised.
(06:32):
The unexpected smell of smokehas the same effect on humans as
it does on animals.
It ignites alarm and fear, andour first instinct is to flee
and fear.
And our first instinct is toflee.
Perhaps the only exception tothis phenomenon is when our
children are at risk.
A parent will run into theflames to rescue their child
(06:55):
without a thought of hesitationor of personal safety.
Jenny and George Sauter weresuch parents.
In the tight-knit Italianimmigrant community of
Fayetteville, west Virginia, theSodder's name was synonymous
with family and with hard work.
They did, after all, have tenchildren and they owned a
(07:17):
successful coal truckingbusiness that George had built
himself.
Even among hard-working,god-fearing Appalachians, the
Sauter name was respected.
Jenny was a shopkeeper'sdaughter who had migrated from
Italy to America with herparents, while George Sauter was
an opinionated Italianimmigrant from Sardinia.
(07:40):
They met and fell in love halfa 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.
In the days that followed thefiery destruction of the Sodder
family, home questions began toarise.
(08:03):
Where was the ladder that wasalways laid in the same spot,
beside the house outside?
Strangely, it was found dayslater at the bottom of an
embankment 75 yards from thehouse.
Why wouldn't either of thefamily's coal trucks start and
(08:23):
listen to this, it wouldn't havemattered whether Jenny was able
to reach the telephone to callthe fire department when she
awoke, because the phone linehad been cut.
In fact, the phone line hadbeen cut by someone who climbed
14 feet up the telephone poleand reached out about two feet
(08:44):
to do it.
Hardly an accident orcoincidence.
Fire investigators told theSodders that the fire had
started because of faulty wiringin the house.
George had recently hired anelectrician to do some work on
the house.
But when Jenny awoke to thesmell of smoke and saw the fire,
(09:04):
the lights in the house,including the lights on the
Christmas tree, were on and theycontinued to shine as the fire
devoured the house.
The faulty wiring theory justdidn't hold water.
Within days a witness cameforward claiming he saw a man at
(09:29):
the scene of the fire taking ablock and tackle used for
removing car engines.
Could he be the reason George'strucks had refused to start?
The man in question was caughtand later pleaded guilty to
stealing the block and tackle,but emphatically denied any
involvement in the fire.
Block and tackle, butemphatically denied any
(09:53):
involvement in the fire.
By far the most puzzlingquestion was this when were the
remains of the five children whohad been sleeping upstairs.
Typically, some part of a humanbody remains after the body has
been burned.
In fact, even if the skeletonburns to ashes, teeth usually
(10:15):
survive the heat of a fire.
Jenny even took it upon herselfto burn the remains of small
animals to see if their bonesand organs would be consumed
completely.
In every case, some trace ofthe animal remained, but with
the Sodder children, nothing,not one single piece of evidence
of human remains was found inthe ashes and rubble of the home
(10:43):
.
Now medical science hasdemonstrated that bones remain
after bodies are burned for twohours at 2,000 degrees.
The family's house wasreportedly destroyed in just 45
minutes.
Where then were Maurice, martha, louis, jenny and Betty Sauter?
(11:06):
When Jenny Sauter couldn't getto 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 asubsequent call placed by a
different neighbor was answeredby the fire department.
In fact, it wasn't until afterdaybreak, seven hours later,
(11:27):
that the first fire truckarrived at the Sodder property,
and this was only after a thirdphone call was made by yet
another neighbor.
Several reasons were latergiven as to why the fire
department response was sodelayed From wartime staffing
(11:48):
personnel shortages to aninability to awaken the
volunteer firefighters, and thechief of the department didn't
know how to operate the firetruck so he had to wait for
someone else who could drive itto the scene.
In the days that followed thatChristmas day 1945, jenny and
George Sautter were, of course,interviewed at length.
(12:08):
Investigators wanted bothparents to try to recall
anything at all from that night.
That seemed unusual, no matterhow insignificant the details
might seem.
Jenny did recall hearing athump on the roof of the house
(12:29):
about a half hour after sheanswered the prank phone call.
She said the noise sounded likea rubber ball hitting the roof
and then it rolled and hit theground with another thump.
At the time she didn't worryabout the noise and she went
back to sleep.
But a passenger in a passingcar that night told
investigators that he saw quoteballs of fire being thrown on
(12:51):
the tar and wood roof of theSodder home just before the fire
would have started.
Interestingly, investigatorsdetermined that the fire had
started on the roof of the houseand a few days after the fire
had destroyed the home, littleSylvia.
And a few days after the firehad destroyed the home, little
(13:14):
Sylvia found a rubber object inthe yard, something George later
described as looking like quotea type of hand grenade.
As the site of the tragedy wasbeing examined and investigated,
fire chief FJ Morris said thathe himself found a body part a
heart to be exact at the burnedSodder home site, and he put it
(13:36):
in a box and buried it in theashes and dirt that remained
after the fire.
During the investigation, thatbox was found and taken to the
local funeral director.
It didn't take the man long todiscover that not only was the
organ not a human heart, it wasin fact a beef liver and it had
(13:59):
never been touched by a fire.
When Morris was questionedabout the buried beef liver he
had discovered in the ashes andrubble of the fire, he admitted
that he had planted the fakeremains to help convince George
and Jenny that their childrenwere indeed dead and not just
missing.
But this explanation baffledinvestigators, as the parents
(14:24):
were never even told about thediscovery of the fake heart,
were never even told about thediscovery of the fake heart.
Four years after the fire,george Sautter bulldozed the
home site in order to build amemorial garden for his lost
children, and while doing so hemade a stunning find Human
vertebrae.
Unfortunately, there was no wayto prove that the bones had
(14:58):
been there right after the fireand no way to prove that they
belonged to one of the Sodderchildren.
George could have accidentallyunearthed the vertebrae during
the excavation and it'simportant to note that the
remains also had no evidence ofcharring.
The vertebrae were ultimatelysent to the Smithsonian
Institute for analysis.
Scientists there found that thevertebrae belonged to a single
(15:21):
individual and that thevertebrae likely belonged to a
male between the ages of 16 and22.
The report went on to statethat it was possible but not
probable that the bones couldhave belonged to 14-year-old
Maurice, who was one of themissing children.
(15:47):
A private investigatorreportedly confirmed years later
that the vertebrae had beenmistakenly moved from a nearby
cemetery when George had beenmoving dirt to fill in the site
for a memorial flower garden tohonor his missing children.
Jenny Sautter wore black forthe rest of her life and she
(16:20):
tended the flowers of thatmemorial garden until the day
she died.
Death certificates were issuedfor the children on December 30,
1945, just five days after thefire.
The cause of death on eachcertificate was, quote fire or
suffocation, end quote.
(16:40):
Years later, a journalist whocovered this mysterious story
for NPR said that four peoplehad reported seeing human
remains in the rubble.
One of these people was Jenny'sown brother.
But if remains had been found,they were never collected or
(17:00):
reported in any official records.
George and Jenny Sautter neverbelieved, after those first few
days that followed the fire,that their children had perished
in the blaze.
The facts simply did notsupport that claim.
The couple hired a number ofprivate investigators and George
(17:22):
himself traveled around thecountry following up on leads
and possible sightings of thechildren around the country.
Following up on leads andpossible sightings of the
children, it was their sincerebelief that the children were
kidnapped by the Sicilian mafiaor perhaps by others in
organized crime.
As far-fetched as this mightsound, remember that the Sodders
(17:43):
came to the United States fromItaly.
George was very outspoken aboutatrocities committed by Benito
Mussolini and fascist Italy andsome believe that other Italians
in the States might have takentheir revenge on him by
kidnapping his children andburning down his house.
In fact, in October 1945, justtwo months before the Sodder
(18:19):
home was destroyed by fire, atraveling 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 warningon the dirty remarks George had
been making about Mussolini.
His warning was oddly prophetic.
(18:39):
Yet another visitor to theSodder home, who was supposedly
looking for work, warned Georgethat a pair of fuse boxes on the
back of the house would cause afire someday soon.
This puzzled George, as he hadjust paid an electrician to
rewire the entire house when anelectric stove was installed and
(19:04):
local inspectors had approvedthe work.
Another cause for concern wasthis the Sodder's older sons had
reported seeing a strange carparked along the main road
through town, its occupantswatching the Sodder children as
they walked home from school.
But no matter who wasresponsible, the Sodders were
(19:30):
convinced that their childrenhad been removed from the home
before the fire was set.
George even went so far as toask for help from the FBI, and J
Edgar Hoover himself respondedto his pleas, and I'm quoting
here, although I would like tobe of service.
(19:50):
The matter related appears tobe of local character and does
not come within theinvestigative jurisdiction of
this bureau.
Hoover went on to say that iflocal authorities had requested
help from the FBI, agents wouldhave promptly assisted, but no
such request had ever been made.
(20:15):
The Sodders' belief that theirchildren were kidnapped was
bolstered by possible sightingsof the children through the
years.
For example, a Charleston SouthCarolina motel manager came
forward in 1952 to claim that hehad seen four children
accompanied by two men and twowomen who appeared to be of
(20:37):
Italian descent.
This group arrived at thishotel three days after the fire
in West Virginia.
The Sodders found this accountto be so believable that they
erected a billboard near themotel that offered a $5,000
reward for information leadingto the recovery of any one or
(20:58):
all five of their missingchildren, and not long after
that they doubled the rewardamount to $10,000.
Several other witnesses cameforward after the fire,
especially once rumors begancirculating that the children
might still be alive.
One woman said that she saw allfive children in a passing car
(21:23):
as she was driving past theburning house in the wee hours
of Christmas morning, 1945.
Another woman said that she sawthe children having breakfast
at a diner just hours after thefire.
She said that four adults, twomen and two women, were with
them.
(21:46):
But perhaps the most intriguinglead arrived in the mail, and
this 1967 letter was addressedto Jenny Sautter.
Inside the envelope, which hadbeen mailed from Central City
Kentucky, was the photograph ofa man who looked strikingly
similar to Lewis Sauter.
A handwritten note accompaniedthe photograph.
(22:08):
It read, and then it listed astring of undecipherable letters
, thought by police to spell Lilor Little, and then A90132 or
possibly 35.
The Sodders knew in theirhearts that the person depicted
(22:33):
in the photo was indeed Lewis,even though Lewis did not have a
brother named Frank.
But Jenny Lewis's mother didhave a brother named Frank
Cipriani.
In fact, at one point theSodders accused a man named
Frank Cipriani of kidnapping thechildren and raising them as
his own, but nothing ever cameof this accusation.
(22:57):
While the letters referenced tolittle boys had sleuths
scratching their heads andwondering.
The reference to A90132 or 35might possibly represent postal
codes.
The code 90135 can be found inthe city of Palermo, the capital
(23:22):
of the Italian island of Sicily.
Also in 1967, the Soddersreceived another letter, this
time from a woman in Houston,texas, who claimed to have met
two men who told her that theywere Maurice and Louis Sauter.
Sylvia's husband and rememberSylvia was the youngest of the
(23:44):
Sauter children drove GeorgeSauter to Houston to meet with
the two men, but they deniedthat they were his missing sons.
George died just two yearslater, in 1969.
George died just two yearslater, in 1969.
According to his son-in-law, hewondered if those two men were
(24:08):
his boys.
Until the day he died, jennylived for another 20 years after
her husband's death and shenever wavered in her belief that
her children had been kidnapped.
In fact, she had a secondbillboard made that stated her
beliefs very clearly.
On the billboard she included aphoto she believed to be one,
of an adult Lewis.
On it she stated that herchildren had been kidnapped and
(24:33):
she questioned why the policehad failed to investigate.
To this day, her survivingrelatives and countless amateur
sleuths have pursued thismystery and the many bizarre
twists and turns in this case.
Sadly, it's quite possible thatthe case will never be solved.
(25:15):
I'm Carole Townsend, veterannewspaper journalist and
six-time award-winning author.
You can find me on social mediaand check out my website at
caroltownsendcom.
As always, thanks for listeningand if you're enjoying these
tales of Southern history andlore, I hope you'll tell your
(25:35):
friends.
And lore I hope you'll tellyour friends.
Subscribe to this podcast onSpotify, apple Play, iheart and
anywhere you listen.
My team and I used thefollowing sources to put
(25:58):
together this story for youabout the missing Sodder
children the article whatHappened to the Sodder Children,
the Siblings who Went Up inSmoke in a West Virginia House
Fire in Smithsonian MagazineApril 21, 2024.
Updated by Abbott Collar.
Originally written by MilanSali.
The article Sodder ChildrenDisappearance Strange Events in
(26:25):
Christmas House Fire StillUnexplained Decades Later,
written by Drusilla Morehouse inHuffPost, december 13, 2023.
The show History's GreatestMysteries the Sodder Children
Disappearance, season 3, episode8, and Sodder Children
Disappearance from Wikipedia.
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