Sodder Children — Five Children Vanish in Christmas Eve Fire, Bodies Never Found

On the night of December 24, 1945, a fire destroyed the home of George and Jennie Sodder in Fayetteville, West Virginia. Ten of their children were home that night. Four escaped. One was away. Five — Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty, ranging in age from 5 to 14 — disappeared without a trace in the fire. In the years that followed, the Sodder family became increasingly convinced that their children had not died in the fire but had been abducted before or during the event. Several details were suspicious: the fire ladder was missing, the family's fuse box was in working order, the phone line appeared to have been cut, and George found that his truck and block and tackle — which he had intended to use to rescue children from upper windows — had been tampered with. The bodies of the five children were never found. The fire investigator initially attributed the blaze to faulty wiring but changed his opinion when George demonstrated the electrical system was intact. The remaining debris was bulldozed and buried without a thorough investigation. Excavations of the site decades later turned up some bone fragments that some believe belonged to the children, though no DNA testing has been conclusive. For decades the Sodder family maintained a roadside billboard with photographs of the children and a reward offer. In 1967, Jennie Sodder received a photograph in the mail showing a man who resembled one of her missing sons as an adult. The case was never resolved and remains one of America's most haunting post-war mysteries.