The Sodder children: vanished after Christmas fire
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Quick Facts
Five Sodder children vanished on Christmas Eve 1945
Christmas Eve 1945 became fateful for the [Internal Link Placeholder] family when five of their [Internal Link Placeholder] disappeared without a trace after a fierce fire ravaged their home in Fayetteville, [Internal Link Placeholder]. What should have been an evening filled with Christmas joy for George and Jennie Sodder and their ten children turned into a lifelong nightmare – an [Internal Link Placeholder] deeply rooted in the local community, which to this day defies any explanation. Around 1:30 a.m., Jennie Sodder awoke to the smell of smoke. The flames quickly consumed the family's wooden house, and in the desperate and chaotic evacuation, only George, Jennie, and five of their children managed to [Internal Link Placeholder] to safety. Left behind in the burning inferno were 14-year-old Maurice, 12-year-old Martha, 9-year-old Louis Sodder, 8-year-old Jennie, and 5-year-old Betty Sodder. When the fire was finally extinguished and only a charred ruin [Internal Link Placeholder], rescuers shockingly found no trace of the children's earthly remains – no bones, nothing, apart from a few coins and a dictionary.
Sabotage signs and Fire Chief's questionable actions
The mysterious circumstances surrounding the tragic fire began even as the flames raged. Despite the inferno, the Christmas lights, according to the family, continued to shine. George [Internal Link Placeholder] discovered that the family's two trucks, essential for any rescue attempt, would not start, as if the engines had been sabotaged. The ladder, which usually stood by the house, had mysteriously disappeared. The telephone lines to the house were cut, and shortly before the fire, Jennie Sodder had received a bizarre phone call from an unknown woman asking for a person the family did not know, followed by eerie laughter. The local fire chief, F.J. Morris, quickly declared that no human bodies could have [Internal Link Placeholder] such an intense fire. However, this claim has since been disputed by fire experts, who point out that a fire in a wooden house rarely reaches temperatures high enough to completely obliterate human bones. Suspicion of F.J. Morris's possible involvement or attempt to cover something up, perhaps even a degree of [Internal Link Placeholder], was heightened when a private detective revealed that the fire chief had buried a dynamite box containing beef liver from the fire scene – allegedly in an attempt to make it look like the discovery of a human heart.
Threats to George Sodder: clues of revenge and abduction
The clues in the case of the missing [Internal Link Placeholder] [Internal Link Placeholder] quickly pointed in a direction that suggested more than just a tragic accident. Three months before the fatal fire, George Sodder, an Italian immigrant known for his outspoken criticism of Mussolini, had been threatened by an insurance salesman with fascist sympathies. The salesman had warned that Sodder's house would 'go up in smoke' and his children would 'be destroyed,' possibly as a form of [Internal Link Placeholder] for his political views. Disturbingly, this very man was part of the jury that subsequently concluded the fire was an accident, raising questions of possible [Internal Link Placeholder]. Furthermore, an [Internal Link Placeholder] reported seeing five children getting into a black limousine near the Sodder home while the fire was still raging. In the freshly fallen snow around the fire site, no footprints other than those of the family themselves were found, further strengthening the suspicion that the children did not perish in the flames but might have been abducted.
Parents' search: billboard, 1968 postcard, hope for truth
For George and Jennie [Internal Link Placeholder], the rest of their lives became a relentless and heartbreaking search for the truth about their missing [Internal Link Placeholder]. They invested their fortune in private investigations and traveled across the [Internal Link Placeholder] to pursue every potential lead. The family put up a famous billboard along the main road in [Internal Link Placeholder] with pictures of the five children and an urgent plea for information, accompanied by the promise: 'We will only accept the truth – no matter how painful it is.' One of the most talked-about clues came in 1968 when the family received an anonymous [Internal Link Placeholder], postmarked in West [Internal Link Placeholder], with a photograph of a young man bearing a striking resemblance to their son Louis Sodder as an adult, including a characteristic hereditary cleft chin. George Sodder also traveled to [Internal Link Placeholder] after seeing a school picture of a girl he was convinced was his daughter Betty Sodder, but the girl's presumed adoptive parents refused to speak with him. Until her death, Jennie Sodder held onto hope; on her deathbed, she whispered to her surviving daughter, Sylvia Sodder: 'They are alive. Find them.'
78 years later: granddaughter's DNA search and theories
Although the last surviving [Internal Link Placeholder] child has now passed away, the search for answers continues unabated with the next generation. George and Jennie's granddaughter, Jennie Henthorn, has taken on the task of systemizing the family's extensive archive, working to get DNA samples from potential relatives, and delving deeper into this historic and [Internal Link Placeholder]. She hopes that modern technology can finally shed light on the more than 78-year-old [Internal Link Placeholder]. Despite the [Internal Link Placeholder], under J. Edgar Hoover, declining to investigate the case of the missing [Internal Link Placeholder] at the time, the central questions live on and fuel various conspiracy theories: Was the fire and the children's disappearance a brutal [Internal Link Placeholder] from George Sodder's political opponents, an extreme expression of [Internal Link Placeholder]? Were the children abducted, perhaps in connection with organized crime or even [Internal Link Placeholder]? Or did they simply perish in panic in the surrounding woods after fleeing the flames? In 2022, volunteers searched the old fire site in Fayetteville with metal detectors, but the findings of a rusty keychain and a knife tip provided no definitive answers. Today, a memorial with five white crosses stands on the site where the Sodder family's home once lay – a silent testament to the tragic Christmas Eve fire that extinguished the light for five children and left a family and an entire community in [Internal Link Placeholder] in an unresolved darkness.
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Susanne Sperling
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