WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.359 What if a fire tore through your home on Christmas 00:00:02.359 --> 00:00:05.559 Eve, and when the smoke cleared, five of your 00:00:05.559 --> 00:00:09.380 children were simply gone? No bodies, no remains, 00:00:09.740 --> 00:00:12.939 just vanished. Would you believe the official 00:00:12.939 --> 00:00:16.000 story, or would you spend the rest of your life 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:20.699 chasing answers? Welcome to Beyond the Silence, 00:00:20.980 --> 00:00:25.640 Whispers Across America. I'm Sammy, and tonight's 00:00:25.640 --> 00:00:27.839 episode is one that gets under my skin every 00:00:27.839 --> 00:00:31.100 single time. We're stepping back into Christmas 00:00:31.100 --> 00:00:36.240 Eve, 1945, Fayetteville, West Virginia. A small 00:00:36.240 --> 00:00:39.659 town, tight -knit, the kind of place where everybody 00:00:39.659 --> 00:00:43.380 knew the Sodder family. George and Jenny, Italian 00:00:43.380 --> 00:00:46.740 immigrants, hardworking, respected, and prosperous. 00:00:47.320 --> 00:00:50.700 Thanks to George's cold business, we're raising 00:00:50.700 --> 00:00:54.740 10 kids under one bustling, love -filled roof. 00:00:56.429 --> 00:00:59.009 So picture the holiday night, Christmas Eve. 00:00:59.170 --> 00:01:02.469 The trees lit, the younger kiddos, Betty, Jenny, 00:01:02.670 --> 00:01:05.569 Louis, Martha, and Maurice are playing with toys 00:01:05.569 --> 00:01:08.609 Marion bought with her paycheck from the dime 00:01:08.609 --> 00:01:12.750 store. It's festive, warm, the kind of moment 00:01:12.750 --> 00:01:15.769 families look back on and treasure. Honestly, 00:01:15.909 --> 00:01:18.769 when I think about my own family's holiday traditions, 00:01:18.890 --> 00:01:21.790 that feeling is exactly what comes to mind, you 00:01:21.790 --> 00:01:25.180 know? That glass of eggnog that someone inevitably 00:01:25.180 --> 00:01:28.739 knocks over, someone sneaking one too many cookies. 00:01:29.159 --> 00:01:31.900 It makes what happened next, it just hits you 00:01:31.900 --> 00:01:35.120 harder. In a split second, one ordinary Christmas 00:01:35.120 --> 00:01:38.140 turned into an unending nightmare, a mystery 00:01:38.140 --> 00:01:42.239 that's haunted generations. Here's how the night 00:01:42.239 --> 00:01:45.000 unfolds, and there are details here that, well, 00:01:45.140 --> 00:01:47.420 they drive you mad if you try to make sense of 00:01:47.420 --> 00:01:50.819 them. The little ones, their chores done, ask 00:01:50.819 --> 00:01:54.000 Jenny and George if they can stay up. The parents 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:57.780 give in. It's Christmas, after all. As long as 00:01:57.780 --> 00:02:01.519 the older boys, Louis and Maurice, lock up the 00:02:01.519 --> 00:02:05.700 coop and feed the cows. Marion, the teenager, 00:02:06.060 --> 00:02:09.139 falls asleep on the couch, and Jenny, the mom, 00:02:09.300 --> 00:02:12.960 takes baby Sylvia upstairs. George and the oldest 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:16.319 boys turn in early. George had been working all 00:02:16.319 --> 00:02:19.680 day. A little after midnight, the phone rings. 00:02:19.939 --> 00:02:23.020 Real late, right? Jenny picks up and there's 00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:25.539 some strange woman asking for somebody who doesn't 00:02:25.539 --> 00:02:28.180 live there. Laughter in the background, then 00:02:28.180 --> 00:02:30.280 a weird laugh from the caller before hanging 00:02:30.280 --> 00:02:33.860 up. Now, I don't know about you, but a late night 00:02:33.860 --> 00:02:36.120 wrong number is never just a funny one -off in 00:02:36.120 --> 00:02:38.719 stories like these. When Jenny puts the phone 00:02:38.719 --> 00:02:41.439 down, she notices the lights downstairs are still 00:02:41.439 --> 00:02:44.759 on, the doors unlocked. Odd for her disciplined 00:02:44.759 --> 00:02:48.650 children. She turns the lights off, locks up, 00:02:48.710 --> 00:02:51.849 but doesn't see the younger kids. Maybe she assumes 00:02:51.849 --> 00:02:55.349 they're up in the attic. About a half hour later, 00:02:55.430 --> 00:02:57.870 she hears this thud, like something hitting the 00:02:57.870 --> 00:03:01.349 roof and rolling off. She's tired, doesn't go 00:03:01.349 --> 00:03:04.750 check, just drifts back to sleep. By around 1 00:03:04.750 --> 00:03:08.189 a .m., though, she's up again, this time to the 00:03:08.189 --> 00:03:11.930 smell of smoke. She wakes George. Chaos erupts. 00:03:12.509 --> 00:03:15.389 Mary ends up and gets Sylvia out while George 00:03:15.389 --> 00:03:18.849 and the older boys, John and George Jr., come 00:03:18.849 --> 00:03:22.490 stumbling down, hair singed by the flames. They're 00:03:22.490 --> 00:03:25.830 yelling, trying to get to everyone. But five 00:03:25.830 --> 00:03:29.289 kids, Maurice, Martha, Jenny, Louis, and little 00:03:29.289 --> 00:03:32.669 Betty, aren't with them. Not in the living room, 00:03:32.770 --> 00:03:36.710 not on the stairs. Just missing. As the fire 00:03:36.710 --> 00:03:39.349 moves fast, swallowing the stairway to the attic. 00:03:39.930 --> 00:03:42.689 Can you imagine tucking your kids in on Christmas 00:03:42.689 --> 00:03:45.949 Eve, only to wake up and half of them are gone? 00:03:46.289 --> 00:03:49.389 At this point, we're talking minutes. Fire is 00:03:49.389 --> 00:03:52.250 blazing, everyone outside, but it's icy cold, 00:03:52.409 --> 00:03:55.810 panic everywhere. Jenny and George realize right 00:03:55.810 --> 00:04:00.689 away, five kids, gone. They try everything, shouting, 00:04:00.969 --> 00:04:03.370 breaking windows, but it's like the house just 00:04:03.370 --> 00:04:06.789 ate them up. That's what makes what follows so 00:04:06.789 --> 00:04:10.650 unsettling. By sunrise, when the fire department 00:04:10.650 --> 00:04:13.590 finally gets there, the place is just a charred, 00:04:13.590 --> 00:04:16.990 smoldering pile of ash and debris. Here's where 00:04:16.990 --> 00:04:20.750 the mystery starts digging in deep. Despite searching 00:04:20.750 --> 00:04:24.430 the ruins, there's, get this, no trace of the 00:04:24.430 --> 00:04:29.029 missing five. No bodies, no bones, not even personal 00:04:29.029 --> 00:04:32.389 items. Not even the smallest remains you'd expect 00:04:32.389 --> 00:04:35.670 after a house fire. I mean, I'm not an expert, 00:04:35.750 --> 00:04:38.350 but I've read enough about fire aftermath to 00:04:38.350 --> 00:04:41.009 know even in the worst blazes, you tend to find 00:04:41.009 --> 00:04:44.129 something. Experts at the time would later say 00:04:44.129 --> 00:04:46.689 a typical fire like this just couldn't fully 00:04:46.689 --> 00:04:50.529 destroy human bone. Appliances were left, bits 00:04:50.529 --> 00:04:53.629 of the tin roof, but not a single piece of these 00:04:53.629 --> 00:04:57.170 kids. This is when the solder family's certainty 00:04:57.170 --> 00:05:00.389 grows. Their children didn't die in that fire. 00:05:00.889 --> 00:05:03.649 Not unless something completely outside the realm 00:05:03.649 --> 00:05:06.850 of normal happened. And to be fair, even the 00:05:06.850 --> 00:05:10.389 cops and fire chiefs seem to shrug it off. Faulty 00:05:10.389 --> 00:05:13.670 wiring, they say, but five kids don't just evaporate. 00:05:13.970 --> 00:05:17.709 Faulty wiring or not. That official story never 00:05:17.709 --> 00:05:20.870 sat right with George or Jenny. How could it? 00:05:21.069 --> 00:05:23.949 How about yourself? Would you accept that official 00:05:23.949 --> 00:05:27.689 explanation or demand the truth? Now, the rescue 00:05:27.689 --> 00:05:30.149 attempts? If you didn't already have chills, 00:05:30.350 --> 00:05:33.470 just wait. George tries to get back in. First, 00:05:33.569 --> 00:05:35.589 he goes for the ladder that's always leaned against 00:05:35.589 --> 00:05:40.089 the house. Can you guess? Gone. Poof. No ladder 00:05:40.089 --> 00:05:42.889 anywhere. And it's not like someone misplaced 00:05:42.889 --> 00:05:45.910 it. Later, they find it tossed down an embankment 00:05:45.910 --> 00:05:49.329 far from where it should have been. George, he's 00:05:49.329 --> 00:05:52.389 desperate. He smashes a window, cutting his arm. 00:05:52.470 --> 00:05:54.810 He tries to start his truck so he can back them 00:05:54.810 --> 00:05:57.259 up and climb in. because at this point the only 00:05:57.259 --> 00:06:00.079 hope is through those upstairs windows. But both 00:06:00.079 --> 00:06:04.279 trucks, both of them, won't start. These are 00:06:04.279 --> 00:06:06.980 vehicles he drove the previous day, no problems, 00:06:07.240 --> 00:06:10.279 suddenly dead. Out in the yard, the barrel for 00:06:10.279 --> 00:06:13.439 water, it's frozen solid. The neighbors, they 00:06:13.439 --> 00:06:15.899 try to help, too, running to use their phones. 00:06:16.199 --> 00:06:19.600 But the line's dead. Marion, the eldest daughter, 00:06:19.720 --> 00:06:21.660 tries from a neighbor's house, still nothing. 00:06:22.319 --> 00:06:24.939 Someone jumps in a car to find the fire chief 00:06:24.939 --> 00:06:28.079 directly, and even then, it takes hours to gather 00:06:28.079 --> 00:06:32.100 the crew and get them there. I mean, seven hours 00:06:32.100 --> 00:06:34.399 it took for the fire department to roll up, even 00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:37.240 though they're only a couple miles away. That's 00:06:37.240 --> 00:06:40.560 not just bad luck. That's incomprehensible. Then 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:42.899 you've got conflicting accounts from some of 00:06:42.899 --> 00:06:45.160 the siblings about whether they tried to shake 00:06:45.160 --> 00:06:47.860 the kids awake or just yelled. But either way, 00:06:48.060 --> 00:06:51.279 those five were never seen after. all while the 00:06:51.279 --> 00:06:53.819 house is reduced to foundation in under an hour. 00:06:54.220 --> 00:06:57.800 It's tragedy piled on top of confusion, with 00:06:57.800 --> 00:07:00.980 a heavy dose of, were things stacked against 00:07:00.980 --> 00:07:04.399 this family from the get -go? Let's rewind a 00:07:04.399 --> 00:07:07.079 few weeks before the fire, because if you're 00:07:07.079 --> 00:07:09.939 me, this is where things start to really itch 00:07:09.939 --> 00:07:14.300 at your brain. October 45, some life insurance 00:07:14.300 --> 00:07:17.860 salesman tries to push a policy on George. He 00:07:17.860 --> 00:07:22.269 refuses. So what does the guy say? Your house 00:07:22.269 --> 00:07:24.550 is going up in smoke and your children are going 00:07:24.550 --> 00:07:27.389 to be destroyed. All thanks to your dirty remarks 00:07:27.389 --> 00:07:32.930 about Mussolini. That's... well, it doesn't get 00:07:32.930 --> 00:07:36.089 any more pointed than that, does it? Then there's 00:07:36.089 --> 00:07:39.610 the fuse box incident. A random visitor comes 00:07:39.610 --> 00:07:42.569 by asking for hauling work, pokes around back, 00:07:42.810 --> 00:07:45.269 and warns George that his fuse boxes are a fire 00:07:45.269 --> 00:07:48.290 hazard. Even though, mind you, the wiring had 00:07:48.290 --> 00:07:51.449 just been professionally checked. And the car? 00:07:52.069 --> 00:07:54.930 The one that gets seen a bunch of times, parked 00:07:54.930 --> 00:07:57.269 near the house, watching the younger kids walk 00:07:57.269 --> 00:08:01.290 home? All these incidents, alone, might just 00:08:01.290 --> 00:08:03.870 be weird, but in the stew of everything else, 00:08:03.930 --> 00:08:06.089 they make you wonder if this was a setup from 00:08:06.089 --> 00:08:08.970 the start. George wasn't quiet about his feelings 00:08:08.970 --> 00:08:12.540 toward Mussolini and fascists. He'd made enemies, 00:08:12.860 --> 00:08:15.060 especially in the Italian -American community 00:08:15.060 --> 00:08:18.100 that didn't all share his views. There's talk 00:08:18.100 --> 00:08:22.180 about organized crime, mafia involvement, retaliation. 00:08:22.540 --> 00:08:25.459 Suddenly the idea of a kidnapping or vengeance 00:08:25.459 --> 00:08:28.860 attack? That's not so wild a theory, at least 00:08:28.860 --> 00:08:32.600 to the Sodders. Was this just bad luck? Or were 00:08:32.600 --> 00:08:35.700 the Sodders marked for something sinister? Now, 00:08:35.740 --> 00:08:38.440 the investigation, or what you'd barely call 00:08:38.440 --> 00:08:43.230 one, gets messy. Fast. Fire officials quickly 00:08:43.230 --> 00:08:46.610 chalk it up to an accident. Faulty wiring and 00:08:46.610 --> 00:08:49.830 wrap things up. Never mind that a professional 00:08:49.830 --> 00:08:52.750 electrician had inspected the place just weeks 00:08:52.750 --> 00:08:56.549 before the fire and found it safe. Oh, and the 00:08:56.549 --> 00:09:00.649 Christmas lights? On. Well into the blaze. Which, 00:09:00.909 --> 00:09:03.889 if it had been electrical, makes no sense at 00:09:03.889 --> 00:09:06.769 all. The power should have gone out right away. 00:09:07.769 --> 00:09:10.860 Then there's the phone line. Local repairmen 00:09:10.860 --> 00:09:14.440 say it was physically cut, not burned, and cut 00:09:14.440 --> 00:09:16.679 in a way that someone would have had to scale 00:09:16.679 --> 00:09:20.600 a pole and reach out two feet to do it. Not exactly 00:09:20.600 --> 00:09:23.299 random. The missing ladder shows up down the 00:09:23.299 --> 00:09:26.259 embankment, like I mentioned. And here's a real 00:09:26.259 --> 00:09:29.320 head -scratcher. That same insurance salesman 00:09:29.320 --> 00:09:32.440 who made those threats, he sat on the coroner's 00:09:32.440 --> 00:09:35.360 jury that decided the fire was accidental. I 00:09:35.360 --> 00:09:38.740 mean, come on. Even in a small town, that's... 00:09:39.070 --> 00:09:42.769 Gosh. I stutter just trying to wrap my mind around 00:09:42.769 --> 00:09:45.549 it. Conflict of interest doesn't even begin to 00:09:45.549 --> 00:09:49.250 cover it. With no remains found, Jenny, she's 00:09:49.250 --> 00:09:52.649 relentless, starts her own mini forensics experiments. 00:09:53.370 --> 00:09:57.009 She burns chicken bones, beef joints, pork chops, 00:09:57.230 --> 00:10:00.330 whatever she can get her hands on. Guess what? 00:10:00.610 --> 00:10:03.669 After hours and all sorts of heat, bones are 00:10:03.669 --> 00:10:06.960 always left. People who specialize in this field 00:10:06.960 --> 00:10:10.580 tell her even at 2 ,000 degrees Fahrenheit for 00:10:10.580 --> 00:10:14.179 hours, you still get bones. The Sodder house 00:10:14.179 --> 00:10:18.840 fire, maybe 45 minutes, are not nearly hot or 00:10:18.840 --> 00:10:21.940 long enough by any scientific standard to destroy 00:10:21.940 --> 00:10:26.720 five skeletons. Fast forward to 1949, four years 00:10:26.720 --> 00:10:30.279 after the fire. The family brings in a D .C. 00:10:30.299 --> 00:10:33.679 pathologist, Oscar Hunter, to excavate the site. 00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:37.240 They find a couple coins, a burned book, and 00:10:37.240 --> 00:10:40.159 some shards of vertebrae. But when experts look 00:10:40.159 --> 00:10:42.820 at the bones, they determine it belonged to, 00:10:42.980 --> 00:10:47.000 well, basically an older teen or young adult, 00:10:47.220 --> 00:10:50.960 not any of the missing kids. And crucially, they 00:10:50.960 --> 00:10:54.500 hadn't even been exposed to fire. Turns out those 00:10:54.500 --> 00:10:57.980 bones most likely came from cemetery dirt that 00:10:57.980 --> 00:10:59.960 George had used to fill in the basement after 00:10:59.960 --> 00:11:03.200 bulldozing. Nothing to do with the kids at all. 00:11:03.789 --> 00:11:05.990 So what you're left with is nothing but more 00:11:05.990 --> 00:11:09.389 questions. No official forensics ever link a 00:11:09.389 --> 00:11:13.190 single trace to a single solder child. Ask yourself, 00:11:13.470 --> 00:11:17.169 how does a fire destroy a house, but leave no 00:11:17.169 --> 00:11:20.629 trace of five small bodies? It's not like this 00:11:20.629 --> 00:11:23.529 story faded after the ashes cooled. Far from 00:11:23.529 --> 00:11:26.389 it. The years that followed were a whirlwind 00:11:26.389 --> 00:11:30.059 of rumors and alleged sightings. There's a woman 00:11:30.059 --> 00:11:32.620 who swears she saw the kids in the backseat of 00:11:32.620 --> 00:11:36.000 a car the night of the fire. Another says she 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:39.200 served them breakfast at a roadside hotel. The 00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:41.940 most detailed was from a woman in Charleston 00:11:41.940 --> 00:11:44.840 running a motel. She claims a group fitting the 00:11:44.840 --> 00:11:47.440 children's description stayed there, with two 00:11:47.440 --> 00:11:50.480 women and two men, all of Italian extraction. 00:11:51.419 --> 00:11:54.940 She tries to talk to the kids, gets stonewalled. 00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:58.889 The group leaves at the crack of dawn. Some theories 00:11:58.889 --> 00:12:03.909 get dark quick. Kidnapping, mafia plots, maybe 00:12:03.909 --> 00:12:06.350 traffickers trying to get the kids out of state 00:12:06.350 --> 00:12:09.690 or even out of country. One of the wild notions, 00:12:09.990 --> 00:12:12.710 someone lured the children out, convinced them 00:12:12.710 --> 00:12:15.129 their home and family were doomed so they wouldn't 00:12:15.129 --> 00:12:18.929 resist leaving. The Sodders chase down every 00:12:18.929 --> 00:12:22.110 hint. Private detectives, front page stories, 00:12:22.409 --> 00:12:25.720 trips across the country. They put up that legendary 00:12:25.720 --> 00:12:28.600 billboard with photos of the children, and a 00:12:28.600 --> 00:12:32.039 hefty reward kept it up for decades. If hope 00:12:32.039 --> 00:12:34.679 and stubbornness could find lost loved ones, 00:12:34.899 --> 00:12:37.360 the Sodders would have cracked this case wide 00:12:37.360 --> 00:12:40.559 open. If strangers told you they'd seen your 00:12:40.559 --> 00:12:43.639 children alive, how far would you chase that 00:12:43.639 --> 00:12:47.480 hope? One of the strangest twists? The so -called 00:12:47.480 --> 00:12:51.379 heart in a box. Two years after the fire, Fire 00:12:51.379 --> 00:12:54.950 Chief Morris says, Oh, by the way, I buried a 00:12:54.950 --> 00:12:58.049 heart I found in the ashes. Leads the family, 00:12:58.190 --> 00:13:02.049 shows them where, so they dig it up. It's a dynamite 00:13:02.049 --> 00:13:05.370 box. Inside, turns out to be beef liver, untouched 00:13:05.370 --> 00:13:08.769 by flames. The fire chief eventually confesses, 00:13:08.809 --> 00:13:11.350 yeah, he faked it to try to give the solders 00:13:11.350 --> 00:13:14.090 closure, or maybe to cover some kind of blunder. 00:13:14.750 --> 00:13:17.110 Either way, it's a low point and a string of 00:13:17.110 --> 00:13:20.450 indignities. Then Sylvia, the youngest, finds 00:13:20.450 --> 00:13:22.889 a rubber object months after the fire when the 00:13:22.889 --> 00:13:26.429 snow melts. It's military green, hollow with 00:13:26.429 --> 00:13:30.409 a cap. Turns out it's likely an incendiary device. 00:13:30.889 --> 00:13:35.730 A so -called pineapple bomb. And witnesses, the 00:13:35.730 --> 00:13:38.309 bus driver, neighbors, recall people tossing 00:13:38.309 --> 00:13:41.370 balls of fire at the house that night. Arson 00:13:41.370 --> 00:13:44.470 starts looking more and more likely. At least 00:13:44.470 --> 00:13:46.450 to the folks with the most reason to believe. 00:13:47.110 --> 00:13:50.649 Nearly 25 years after the fire, Jenny Sauter 00:13:50.649 --> 00:13:53.269 receives a mysterious photograph in the mail. 00:13:54.330 --> 00:13:56.769 Postmarked Kentucky, but with no sender's name. 00:13:56.929 --> 00:14:00.409 It's a young man, dark eyes, the same strong 00:14:00.409 --> 00:14:03.509 brow as her son Luis. At least that's what the 00:14:03.509 --> 00:14:07.490 family believes. The back reads, Luis Sauter. 00:14:07.730 --> 00:14:11.779 I love Brother Frankie. Eh, little boys? A 9 00:14:11.779 --> 00:14:17.320 -0 -1 -3 -2 or 35. Nobody quite knows what any 00:14:17.320 --> 00:14:19.919 of that means, but the message is enough. The 00:14:19.919 --> 00:14:23.320 hope is enough. They add the photo to the billboard, 00:14:23.500 --> 00:14:26.100 hang an enlarged version over their fireplace, 00:14:26.399 --> 00:14:29.399 to keep the story alive in every possible way. 00:14:29.980 --> 00:14:32.580 Their pursuit of the truth turned their family 00:14:32.580 --> 00:14:36.100 into a national icon of cold case perseverance. 00:14:37.059 --> 00:14:40.500 Billboards, flyers, interviews. and memories, 00:14:40.740 --> 00:14:44.740 the kind that won't go away quietly. Even after 00:14:44.740 --> 00:14:47.179 George and Jenny passed, the surviving siblings 00:14:47.179 --> 00:14:50.940 kept pressing, chasing whispers and faint possibilities. 00:14:51.519 --> 00:14:54.779 That pattern of families pulling at every thread, 00:14:54.940 --> 00:14:58.299 refusing to let go, is why so many of these stories 00:14:58.299 --> 00:15:01.960 still demand attention, even generations later. 00:15:02.159 --> 00:15:05.899 It's hard to wrap this one up. No neat ending, 00:15:06.080 --> 00:15:08.639 no answers, just questions lingering over the 00:15:08.639 --> 00:15:11.820 years echoing from the ashes. But this story 00:15:11.820 --> 00:15:15.059 refuses to close, part of the American mythos 00:15:15.059 --> 00:15:18.000 now. What becomes of the lost and what lengths 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:21.080 would you go to for the truth? Sometimes I get 00:15:21.080 --> 00:15:24.039 asked, why dig this stuff up? Why keep going? 00:15:24.299 --> 00:15:28.080 And to that I say, because silence isn't justice. 00:15:28.580 --> 00:15:32.049 Until next time, keep listening. Keep asking 00:15:32.049 --> 00:15:34.509 and never let those whispers fade to nothing. 00:15:34.789 --> 00:15:37.909 What do you believe happened? Share your voice 00:15:37.909 --> 00:15:40.809 because sometimes the smallest detail can spark 00:15:40.809 --> 00:15:44.690 the biggest breakthrough. I'm Sammy and this 00:15:44.690 --> 00:15:47.769 is Beyond the Silence, Whispers Across America. 00:15:48.330 --> 00:15:50.970 Thank you for listening. Stay safe and I'll see 00:15:50.970 --> 00:15:51.570 you next time.