0:00

M Hey everyone, it's me Josh,

0:02

your old friend, and for this week's s

0:04

Y s K Selects, I've chosen our

0:07

episode from two thousand sixteen, The

0:09

Unsolved Mystery Disappearance of the Sodder

0:11

Children. Uh. It's a story, a

0:13

very tragic and sad one, but also incredibly

0:16

enthralling about five children

0:18

who disappeared after a house fire on

0:21

Christmas back in It's

0:23

one of my all time favorite episodes, which

0:25

is why I'm choosing it as a select and

0:28

I hope you enjoy it as well. Welcome

0:35

to Stuff You Should Know, a production of

0:37

I Heart Radio. Hey,

0:44

and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh

0:46

Clark and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, Jerry's

0:49

over there. So this is Stuff you should

0:53

Unsolved Mysteries Edition. Yeah. Really,

0:55

are you cool with us? No? I'm

0:58

leaving. Yeah.

1:00

I think it's great. Man. I love me a good

1:02

unsolved mystery. Yeah, and this is super

1:04

sad, So it's not like I love it and I think

1:07

it's hysterical. I

1:09

just I just like unsolved mystery. What's

1:12

a what's an hysterical unsolved

1:14

mystery? Um?

1:17

Like I got pantsed in the second grade and

1:19

I don't know who did it. That's an hysterical

1:22

unsolved mystery. It was just in

1:24

line pants around the ankles turned around

1:27

and like everyone's like, did you

1:29

just go with it? And you're like, check

1:31

it out, check me out him in second

1:34

grade. Yep, good

1:36

for you. That never happened. I made it up. Oh

1:38

really yeah, it's

1:40

called improv, buddy. It's a craft so

1:44

en scene and scene and seen.

1:48

Have we are established which one it is? Yeah?

1:50

A few times and nope,

1:53

it is Chuck. We

1:55

are talking about a

1:57

family called the Solders. Um,

2:00

not the Soldiers right,

2:02

not the welding technique. No, the Solders.

2:05

They are a family out of Fayetteville, West Virginia,

2:08

of Italian extraction,

2:11

as we'll see. Yes, and um,

2:13

very much so. Like you said, this is an unsolved

2:15

mystery. They they they're family, just

2:18

going along totally normally. Has

2:21

turned into one of the stranger unsolved

2:23

mysteries in American history. Yeah,

2:25

and certainly in West Virginia history. Oh

2:28

definitely. And I should say

2:29

I texted our

2:31

friend Justin McElroy of

2:34

the McElroy triplets. Well,

2:37

they're not triplets, they're they're

2:40

they're brothers. Oh yeah, my brother, my

2:42

brother and Me podcast because they are from West

2:44

Virginia. And as you'll see here, there's

2:46

a very famous billboard that

2:48

we're going to talk about about this case. And

2:51

I was like, hey, dude, do you ever do you remember

2:53

where you know seeing this thing? How far are you from Fayettville?

2:56

He said, just a couple of hours, he said, but I've never heard of

2:58

that. And I was like, really,

3:00

this seemed like the kind of cautionary

3:02

tale that would be whispered about all over West Virginia.

3:05

I could see that. But he said

3:07

he never heard of it. And then he looked it up and said, oh

3:10

wow. And I said, I bet your dad

3:12

knows about it, and then he said

3:14

he didn't. He didn't respond. You didn't

3:16

text him back? Answer me, No, that's

3:19

right. I am Facebook friends with his dad. That should have

3:21

SA yeah, ask him. Yeah, go

3:23

go to the source. That's right. So

3:26

well, let's go back to the beginning, Chuck back

3:29

to that's right.

3:31

That's when Georgiros, who

3:34

would become George sodder I,

3:37

was born in Sardinia and

3:39

came to the US and nineteen o eight

3:41

as a young lad of thirteen years old.

3:44

Yeah, and he was a go getter. He really was

3:46

so his. He had an older brother who traveled

3:48

with him from Sardinia to New York. Um.

3:51

I guess he was like, I don't want to do

3:53

this, and right when they made it through Ellis Island,

3:55

he turned right back around and went back to Italy. Yeah,

3:58

he's I don't know, man, Go get a cup of coffee

4:00

and think it over, is what I say. After you made

4:02

that ship's voyage, just mull

4:04

it over for a day or two. Yeah, because what

4:07

if, like you're halfway back, you're like, actually

4:09

I should have stayed. Yeah, you might meet

4:11

a pretty lady from Brooklyn. Did you

4:13

see that movie Brooklyn? No?

4:17

Great? Really? Yeah? Yeah,

4:19

okay, I mean it will

4:21

check it out. You sound it surprised. I was a little

4:23

surprised. Yeah. It was nominated for many

4:25

awards. Yeah that doesn't always

4:27

mean. It usually means it's pretty good. No,

4:31

it depens. Okay, Brooklyn highly recommended

4:34

about young Italian man who

4:36

falls in love with an Irish immigrant.

4:38

Oh well, this has nothing to do with this thing.

4:41

No, not at all, because this man falls in love with

4:43

an Italian immigrant. That's right, right,

4:45

So, um, George, like you said, he was

4:48

a bit of a go getter. He's thirteen, he's

4:50

on his own, literally without any

4:52

any other family in America. Yeah,

4:54

it's kind of mind blowing. But then you think back to there

4:58

there. They didn't really under to what

5:00

childhood was at that point. So he was

5:02

probably like of working age and had been for

5:04

years. But it seems really weird to

5:06

us now. He might have been retiring right

5:09

at thirteen. He was smoking cigars already,

5:12

so he, like I said, it, was a go getter.

5:14

He started working at the on the Pennsylvania

5:17

Railroad and then moved

5:19

to West Virginia to Smithers

5:21

Smithers, West Virginia, and

5:25

worked as a truck driver and then

5:27

said, you know what, this is America,

5:29

darn it. I didn't come here to drive

5:31

a truck for someone. I'm gonna own

5:34

my own trucking business. And the Statue

5:36

of Liberty went, ah yep, nice

5:39

going kid. So he started at

5:41

his own trucking business. Um, and

5:44

he's in West Virginia. So in short order

5:46

he starts hauling cole yeah, coal and dirt.

5:48

And it wasn't like the hugest business. I think he did

5:50

okay for himself. He did it okay for himself solidly

5:53

middle class. Yeah, he didn't become like wealthy or

5:55

anything. And as a matter of fact, later on UM

5:57

a local local government

5:59

official would say that the Sauders were,

6:02

um one of the best

6:04

middle class families in Fayetteville.

6:07

Yeah, and they had a small Italian

6:10

population in Fayetteville, which I think is

6:12

why he ended up there, right in his community.

6:15

Yeah, and he moved there with his wife Jenny,

6:18

right, Yeah, Jenny Cipriani

6:21

who he met, Um. She

6:23

came over from Italy when she was three.

6:25

He met her historic called the music Box, and

6:28

they got married. And like Italian

6:30

families do, they had ten kids.

6:32

Ten kids in twenty years. Yeah, that's

6:36

a lot of kids, pumping them out with great

6:38

regularity. And like you said, when they moved to Fayettville,

6:40

the reason they moved to Fayville. Had no idea that West

6:42

Virginia even had Italian people in it, let

6:45

alone strong Italian communities. But

6:47

they moved to Fayettville and they were

6:49

part of the Italian community, and George

6:52

was well known. Again, they were respected

6:54

middle class family there. He did pretty good for

6:56

himself, UM. And

6:58

he was also well known for his opinions on

7:00

everything including politics and

7:03

UM. During the forties, the United States

7:06

was at war with Italy, and

7:08

not all of the Italian Americans were

7:11

UM feeling it. On the American side,

7:13

there were a lot of disagreements over

7:16

Mussolini and the government that

7:18

he was creating UM among Italian

7:21

Americans, including in Fayetteville, West

7:23

Virginia, and George in particular,

7:26

hated Mussolini and very frequently

7:28

spoke out about him and would get in arguments with

7:30

some of the locals who who felt

7:32

differently about Mussolini. And

7:34

Uh, I guess there were some hard feelings here there, but he

7:36

doesn't seem to have taken them seriously very

7:39

much. No, And we mentioned that,

7:41

Um, if it sounds like we're setting something up

7:43

for later, we indeed are. So just

7:45

tuck that little fact away, um.

7:48

And then can we fast forward in time? Yeah

7:51

too, Uh Christmas Eve, Christmas

7:54

Eve? N So,

7:57

Um, here's what happens.

7:59

It's Christmas Eve. Um.

8:02

As his tradition, in some households, you

8:04

can open up a few gifts on Christmas

8:07

Eve. Yeah, so this is what happened.

8:09

They opened up some presents comes time

8:11

for Betty By and five

8:14

of the children, Maurice fourteen,

8:16

Martha twelve, Louis

8:19

or Louie, ten, Genie

8:22

or Jenny as that was a little confusing

8:25

because that's the mom's name. Eight years

8:27

old, and Betty said, can we please

8:29

stay up late and play with these

8:31

new toys? Yeah, they're older. Sister

8:33

Marian had she worked

8:35

at a five and diamond town two miles

8:38

down the road, and she had surprised

8:40

her younger brothers and sisters with some

8:42

toys that they had not been expecting. That's right, and

8:44

they were very happy. So they asked mom

8:46

if they could stay up. Yeah, and the older,

8:49

the elder Jenny, said yeah, I guess

8:51

you can stay up, turn out the lights, locked the doors

8:53

before you go to bed. I'm

8:56

going to hit the rack with your dad. And are

8:59

two year old daughters Sylvia, twenty

9:01

three year old John In sixteen year old George Jr.

9:03

Were I guess they were just ready for bed too. And

9:06

then if you're thinking there's one missing

9:08

child, he is away

9:11

in the military. The eldest, Yeah, fighting

9:13

either Mussolini or Hitler

9:16

or to Joe, one of

9:18

those guys, right, So he's away and

9:20

I could not, for the life of me find that guy's

9:22

name. Then I couldn't either.

9:25

Actually, So, um, the mom

9:27

goes to bed. Jenny goes to bed, and uh,

9:29

the dad, George and his

9:32

two next oldest sons,

9:34

who had been working with him that day, they'd all

9:36

gone to bed about ten. Um.

9:39

What time did the mom go to bed? Eleven something

9:41

like that. Yeah, but she leaves those

9:43

five youngest children, Um

9:45

and Marian, their older

9:48

sister who I think was seventeen at the time, downstairs

9:50

when she goes to bed. Um.

9:53

And then it about twelve thirty on

9:55

Christmas Morne, because remember that was Christmas Eve,

9:58

about twelve thirty at night, the own rings

10:01

and Um, this is not an

10:03

era where and this kind of to me goes to

10:05

show these people were doing all right. They

10:08

had a phone in in

10:10

West Virginia. They may have been the only

10:12

people in West Virginia with a phone in nineteen

10:17

I'm just saying, I don't think everybody had a

10:19

phone in West Virginia, so

10:22

they certainly didn't have one at their bedside. So Jenny,

10:24

the mom has to get up to answer the phone,

10:27

and on the other line she hears a woman

10:30

asking for somebody she didn't know or recognized,

10:32

and in the background there's obviously a party going

10:34

on. There's laughter, there's clinking of glasses,

10:38

and uh, Jenny says, I don't

10:40

know who you're talking about. You have the wrong number, and the woman

10:42

laughs weirdly and hangs

10:45

up. Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and come out and say,

10:47

I think this means nothing in his total

10:49

coincidence. So supposedly they tracked

10:51

that woman down and she

10:54

said it was just a wrong number. Total

10:56

coincidence, that's what I think. But think about

10:58

that though, Like, had that not

11:00

happened, a lot of other stuff would

11:03

have gone unnoticed. Right, it's

11:05

a big deal. So before she goes back

11:07

to bed, she noticed the lights are on downstairs. She

11:10

said, you know, turn the lights off, locked the door before you go

11:12

to bed. So one of her kids is on the couch asleep.

11:15

She's like, wait a minute, the doors unlocked,

11:17

the lights are on. Um,

11:19

they shouldn't have done that. So let me lock the doors and turn

11:21

off the lights. And she leaves the one

11:24

that's asleep on the couch asleep.

11:26

It was the one that got her toys.

11:29

Sleepy time on the couch. That's fine, But those five

11:31

younger ones who've been playing with their toys, they

11:33

were in ordered to be found, so mom just assumed

11:35

they went upstairs to bed, right, So

11:37

she goes back to bed, and

11:40

then like an hour later, she's

11:42

awoken by like a thump on

11:44

the roof. Yeah, and she

11:46

falls back asleep again. Well, it sounded like a

11:48

heavy thump and a sliding down

11:52

of the roof was

11:54

just something heavy head landed on it and then slid

11:56

off, and she just went

11:58

back to sleep, very important matters. Probably figured

12:00

it was a reindeer or something like that. At being Christmas,

12:03

you never know. Uh. The next time

12:05

she woke up, she woke up to panic and

12:07

chaos because her house was on fire.

12:10

And chuck, we'll talk about the fire right

12:13

after this. All

12:39

right, dude, the house is on

12:41

fire, that's right. So

12:43

Sylvia, a little two year old Sylvia is in their room with her

12:46

the parents, so they get her out, obviously covered

12:49

with them because she's in

12:51

the crib. Uh. And then

12:54

seventeen year old Marion and year

12:56

old John and sixth year old George Jr. Are

12:59

all outside and safe right

13:02

at this point, So everyone is out except

13:04

for these five other kids,

13:06

right, And they were on the

13:09

top floor of the house. I believe in two

13:11

different rooms and the only way down

13:13

is this one single staircase. And George

13:16

tried to go back into the house. He broke through

13:18

a window, cut his arm quite

13:20

badly. UM getting into through

13:23

in through the window or opening the door. UM,

13:26

and runs inside and the entire downstairs

13:29

floor is totally engulfed

13:31

in flame and smoke. He can't see anything,

13:33

but he can see that there's no way he can

13:36

go up the staircase or anyone can

13:38

make it down the staircase. So he runs

13:40

back outside of the house to try to figure out another

13:42

way to get up to those kids on

13:44

the on the top floor. Yeah, and here's

13:46

an interesting point. UM. One of the relatives

13:49

of I think it was the

13:51

guy who ended up marrying the youngest daughter later

13:53

in life. UM Sylvia said

13:56

they did a lot of research on this, and he said the original

13:58

police report said that the very first

14:00

statement said that the two sons, John

14:02

and George, who got out, said they actually

14:04

ran into the other kids rooms and

14:07

physically shook them awake. And

14:09

then later on in interviews they

14:11

said no, they just called out to them.

14:13

UM, and assume they heard.

14:16

But it's still is a mystery as

14:18

to whether or not that really happened. Police

14:21

will say the first statement is usually

14:23

the accurate one, um,

14:25

But that's just speculation. So from

14:28

what I understand, the family rationalized

14:30

that later on by saying that the

14:32

two boys probably

14:35

felt very guilty, and they said that

14:37

they did what they wished they had or felt that they

14:39

should have done. That makes sense, and that

14:41

their revisions later on were actually

14:43

the factual ones. That they tried to rouse

14:45

their um siblings by just shouting

14:48

up the stairs. I can buy that. UM.

14:51

So Papa tries to get in, cuts himself really

14:53

bad. Then he says, wait a minute,

14:56

I have this ladder that leans up against the

14:58

house. Always always let me go grab

15:00

that ladders. Not they're very weird.

15:03

It is very weird, and it would be found in a ditch

15:05

like from the house later on,

15:07

and later on witnesses supposedly

15:10

saw dude stealing it, uh

15:12

from the garage. But

15:15

there's so many things that people say

15:17

about this case that it is hard to know what's

15:19

true and what was invented. That is true that

15:21

they saw a guy a dude, well, they report

15:24

that they saw a guy. Well that guy the guy actually

15:26

was found and was arrested and charged

15:28

for stealing and never questioned

15:31

about the actual fire. The guy

15:33

that stole the ladder. Yeah, okay,

15:35

so they he says,

15:37

the dad says, let me get my trucks, my big

15:40

uh coal Holland trucks and

15:42

pull because those are tall. Let me pull that next to the house,

15:44

climb up on that. Neither one of the

15:46

trucks start, even though they've been using

15:48

him to work earlier that day. Yeah,

15:51

so the thinking by the cops and everyone

15:53

else pretty much is in the panic he and his son

15:55

flooded the engines trying to get him started,

15:57

and that they wouldn't start. Yeah, but

16:00

it became yet

16:02

another like fishy detail that

16:04

made this family suspect like something

16:07

really weird happened here. Yeah,

16:09

and then later there was a totally

16:12

don't understand the whole engine

16:14

removal theory. So it

16:17

doesn't make any sense that guy who stole the

16:19

ladder was caught stealing

16:22

a block and tackle that you would use to remove

16:24

engines. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense, But

16:26

it doesn't mean like he messed with their car or

16:29

used that block and tackle to do anything to

16:31

the engines. They probably just flooded

16:33

him that one. I'm I'm an agreement on.

16:36

So these this family they're watching helplessly

16:39

as the house is going up in flames.

16:41

That was burned to the ground in about forty five

16:43

minutes, ostensibly with

16:45

the children trapped inside. Yeah.

16:48

And if you think, why did in the fire the

16:50

fire trucks come the Fatte Fire

16:52

Department? Uh, you know it was was

16:55

Fayetteville, West Virginia. Was Christmas?

16:58

It was Christmas night or morn I

17:00

guess at this point, um,

17:03

uh, you know, one of the daughters went to a

17:05

neighbor's house, called the fire department.

17:07

No operators on duty even, right,

17:10

And another neighbor who saw

17:12

this didn't have a phone at their house, so they

17:14

went to the local tavern and they called

17:16

the operator to report the fire

17:18

too, and they couldn't get the operator

17:21

either operator was probably at

17:23

home sleeping for Christmas, that's right. So

17:25

eventually someone drives and literally

17:28

physically tracks down uh fire

17:30

Chief F. J. Morris, who

17:32

does not come out smelling well in this, Well

17:35

he doesn't. He said, well, I can't drive

17:37

the fire truck as the fire chief.

17:39

And the way that they don't even have a siren,

17:42

The way that they alerted the fire department

17:44

was it's called a phone tree. They just start calling

17:46

one another. Then they called the next person, which made

17:48

even the last sense because again the solders

17:51

were the only people in West Virginia with a phone

17:53

in their house. It's not true. Uh

17:56

So eventually, seven hours later,

17:58

at eight a m. The fire truck arrives to

18:00

find a smoldering pile of ash,

18:02

and a lot of people are like, well, clearly the fire department

18:05

was paid off or told to halt. From

18:08

what I gather, it was sheer ineptitude.

18:12

And also the sense I think

18:14

the fire marshal or fire chief defended

18:16

himself later saying, yeah,

18:19

he said I couldn't drive the fire trucks side to wait

18:21

for somebody who could. And also

18:23

that house went up so fast there was no there

18:26

wasn't any need for us to get there in any kind of hurry.

18:29

Well, I mean that's probably true. He also

18:31

said burned in like between thirty and

18:33

forty five minutes. Yeah, if you're a fire chief,

18:35

that's not what you want to say, you

18:38

know, like who cares when we get there?

18:40

Also, one of the firemen who showed

18:42

up was Jenny Satter's brother,

18:45

So it's not like there was this conspiracy

18:47

to among the fire department necessarily,

18:50

although that is a common belief in people

18:52

who pay attention to this case. It is so

18:54

what they find eight am as a house burnt

18:56

to the ground. What they don't find are

19:00

any remnants of those five children.

19:02

Yeah, and here in is where the mystery

19:05

really kicks in. The

19:07

family starts like paying attention

19:09

to little weird details.

19:11

At first, they just assumed that the kids

19:13

have they're they're

19:16

just totally gone. They were totally burned

19:18

up. Well, that's what the fire chief said. He was like, there's

19:20

no remains whatsoever because it burned them

19:22

to nothing. They did, like a cursory examination

19:25

of the rubble. They did find some other stuff,

19:27

like they found appliances that were

19:29

recognizable, They found a couple

19:31

other things, but they never found any of

19:33

the kids. Um, And they took

19:36

the fire chief's word at

19:38

face value and said, Okay, well

19:40

our kids are in there. We can't bear to the

19:43

side of this any longer. So George went

19:45

and got a bunch of dirt and

19:47

buried the site in about

19:50

five ft of fill dirt and

19:52

decided to plant a memorial garden there

19:54

on the side of the house. Fire. Yeah, this is on January

19:57

two, so that he wasn't supposed to do this. They're

20:00

supposed to leave it open to continue to investigate.

20:03

Um. The state police

20:05

inspector said it was faulty wiring.

20:08

It's now covered in dirt. Um,

20:10

and so now the family has just left alone,

20:13

saying what happened to our children?

20:15

Are they? Were they in there? Right?

20:17

So that that when they buried the

20:19

place and dirt, they assumed that the children were

20:21

still in there, and this was there. They're

20:24

grave now. They were never going to be found

20:26

um. But then, like you said, they started

20:29

thinking about weird details that emerged.

20:31

Right. One of the first ones was the

20:33

idea that it was faulty wiring. George

20:36

basically knew for a fact that it wasn't faulty

20:38

wiring. He'd recently had um an

20:40

electric stove installed and just

20:43

to make sure again there he

20:45

was doing pretty well, just to make sure that the

20:47

house didn't burn down with this new fangled electric

20:49

stove. He had the wiring in the house redone,

20:52

and then he had it inspected by the power

20:54

company, who sent out an inspector and

20:56

said they did a good job. Wiring is

20:58

fine. So he basically you almost

21:01

for a fact that it wasn't faulty

21:03

wiring in the house. Yeah. Not only that

21:05

after the fire started, when they were outside, there were

21:07

still lights on in the house, right, So remember

21:10

Jenny came down and turned out the lights. She left

21:12

the Christmas tree lights on, and while

21:14

the house was burning, the Christmas tree was

21:16

still the Christmas tree lights were

21:18

on, which must have been like a really ghastly thing

21:21

to see, you know. Uh,

21:24

speaking of the wiring, there was a point a

21:27

few months earlier, and this is definitely

21:29

a strange thing, when this guy

21:31

showed up. He was a stranger, no one knew him,

21:34

and he asked about, you know, working as a driver,

21:37

and he didn't have any work for him, but he was

21:39

sort of just I guess. They had the conversation outdoors,

21:42

wandered around at the back of his house and said, you know, what

21:44

you're wiring here at your fuse box

21:46

is going to cause a fire someday. And

21:48

George thought, well, that's a really

21:51

weird thing to say, because not only did I have

21:53

it just inspected and it's fine,

21:55

it's just a strange thing for you to say,

21:57

Mr stranger, get off my property pretty

22:00

much, but take the cannoli very

22:03

nice, but weird and disconcerting

22:05

after the fact. Obviously, sure he didn't think anything

22:07

of it at the time other than that's a weird thing

22:10

to say. Yeah. Um. Another

22:12

fishy thing that happened that really kind of stuck

22:14

out in retrospect was the

22:16

life insurance salesman, right, Yeah, a

22:18

life insurance salesman came through

22:21

and um tried

22:23

to sell George some life insurance policies for his

22:25

children, and George

22:27

didn't bite and the guy got

22:30

I rate and his quote was

22:33

kind of weird. Actually, he

22:35

said, your house is going to go up and smoke

22:38

your g D house. Yeah, your

22:40

children are going to be destroyed. And

22:43

then here's here's where it really gets

22:45

weird. He says, you will

22:47

be repaid for the dirty things

22:49

you've been saying about Mussolini. Yeah,

22:52

and George just went like, get off my property.

22:55

Yeah, just the usual. Yeah. So remember

22:57

we said that he was outspoken about Mussolina and

23:00

politics. Um, clearly this got

23:02

around to this dude, and

23:04

uh, it's just a

23:06

weird, disconcerting thing to say, especially

23:09

after these kids look like they may

23:11

have perished in this fire. Yeah, especially if

23:13

he didn't like make a big deal out of it at the

23:15

time. Was this like a normal business

23:17

attempt in

23:20

West Virginia among the Italian

23:23

community, Like your kids are gonna die,

23:25

You'll be repaid for what you've been saying about Mussolini.

23:28

Good day to you. I don't know. I'm

23:30

sure that's not in the handbook. What's even fishier, though,

23:33

Chuck, is that same guy served on the

23:35

coroner's inquest jury that ruled

23:37

that the fire was the result of faulty

23:39

wiring. Yeah, it all gets a little weird. Yeah.

23:42

Uh. And then one other, well, not one other, quite

23:45

a few other weird things. Um.

23:47

One of the older sons said that, you know

23:49

what, right before Christmas,

23:51

there was a dude parked right across

23:53

from our house, watching

23:56

the school bus and watching the younger

23:58

kids get off the school bus and come to the

24:00

house. And it was clear that he was sitting there

24:02

watching us, and it was strange. Yeah, he was in

24:04

a van. Was he really?

24:06

No? I bet he was. He would

24:08

have been if it were like the seventies all that. Yeah,

24:10

that's trip sickos and seventies.

24:13

So Chuck, let's take another break, because

24:16

the mystery is about to deepen even more.

24:19

The plot thickens et

24:21

cetera. All

24:47

right, so things are getting a little weird, and all

24:49

of a sudden, now Jenny and George,

24:51

the solder um parents,

24:54

start thinking, like, wait a minute, are

24:56

our kids actually dead? Who

24:59

is the last person to see them alive? The

25:03

if if John and George

25:05

Jr. To be believed they

25:07

were the last ones to see him alive because

25:10

they went and shook them awake, but

25:13

they may not have actually done that well, and

25:15

they changed her story to say that they didn't. So

25:18

then technically Mary

25:20

in, the seventeen year old older sister

25:23

who brought the toys and was downstairs with the kids

25:25

while they were playing with them, would have been the last

25:27

to see them alive. But I could

25:29

never find anybody pressing her for what her

25:31

story was. So the assumption that I'm

25:33

going on is that she just fell asleep on the couch,

25:36

and when she fell asleep, the kids were still downstairs.

25:38

But the solders are starting to wonder, like, wait

25:40

a minute, where those kids even in the house when the house

25:43

went down, And they

25:46

they're backed up by the idea that no remains

25:48

were found. Yeah, that's the one that really is

25:50

bothering them. They're like, something should have been found.

25:52

Yeah, and um, all of a sudden,

25:55

this this story is starting to get national attention

25:57

in the press. And the

25:59

Saw later on would say, George

26:02

would say, if they were burned in

26:04

the house, if they died in that house fire, I

26:06

want to be convinced. And if they

26:08

weren't, I want to know what happened to them.

26:11

Um. And this kind of kicked off like a

26:13

lifelong quest for for George

26:15

and Jenny. Um. And in nine

26:18

to try to literally get to the bottom of it, they

26:21

hired a guy to come in and

26:23

investigate, to basically excavate

26:26

the memorial site and look for

26:28

the remains of the children, and

26:30

he didn't find it. Well. Yeah, and previous

26:33

to that, they did their own experiments

26:35

with burning things, animal bones

26:38

and uh, just sort of self

26:40

experimentation to see what would remained.

26:42

And there was always bones, of course. Yeah, they could

26:44

never get them to just to to turn into

26:46

ash. Uh. They went to a crematorium even

26:48

and said, you know, we're probably just not even getting this thing hot

26:51

enough. And they said, well, actually

26:54

at two thousand degrees it would take

26:56

two hours to completely burn

26:58

a body up. Your how didn't get nearly that

27:01

hot and it only burned for thirty to forty

27:03

five minutes, so there should definitely be human

27:05

remains like all over the place. Jenny

27:08

kind of really turned into like this

27:11

citizen scientist. Actually, she taught

27:13

herself forensics as far as burning

27:16

of remains goes. She um looked

27:18

into other fires. There was another fire

27:20

that happened around the same time that

27:23

killed seven people. Uh, and the

27:25

remains of all seven people were found in

27:27

the in the burned out house as well.

27:30

So she's like getting more and more convinced,

27:32

and so is George that their kids are still alive.

27:35

So in nine

27:38

they had a

27:40

a forensic investigator of some sort of coming

27:42

and do an investigation and an

27:44

excavation of the site. And he

27:47

turned up some stuff. He found some coins, found

27:49

a dictionary that had belonged to the kids,

27:52

and he did actually find some vertebra

27:55

and he had the vertebras

27:57

sent off to the Smithsonian Institution actually,

28:00

and they investigated this and issued

28:02

a report about the bones. Yes

28:05

they did. They said the human bones consist of four

28:07

lumbar vertebrae belonging to

28:09

one individual. The

28:11

transverse recess of fused, so the

28:13

age of this individual death should have been sixteen or

28:15

seventeen top limit twenty two

28:18

UM. And on this basis, the bones show greater

28:20

skepter maturation than what I would

28:22

expect from a fourteen year old who was the

28:24

oldest missing child. So basically,

28:28

it was either placed there by someone, It

28:31

was not charred, it was not a part of the fire, one

28:34

of the fire, It wasn't one of the kids.

28:36

And it was either place

28:38

there by someone or brought it happened

28:41

to be in that dirt. Can you imagine

28:44

that? Like, think about that. George went and

28:46

got a bunch of filled dirt to come and fill in

28:48

this memorial site and ended up disturbing a

28:50

grave, like maybe an unmarked

28:52

grave somewhere that didn't find I didn't

28:54

think that was remarkable. That's crazy.

28:56

If you ain't got filled dirt and you found bones,

29:00

human bones, Yeah, I wouldn't. Can

29:03

you tell by the pitch of my voice

29:05

that that is crazy? I can. The

29:08

other weird thing that they found was

29:10

a, uh, this green rubber

29:13

casing that later

29:15

they found out it was a part of some

29:17

kind of bomb um

29:19

an incendiary device, And some

29:22

people think that that's a weird thing

29:24

to have on your property.

29:27

House had just burned. And they think this could

29:29

have been the sound that Jeanie heard

29:31

in the middle of the night when something hit the roof and rolled off.

29:33

Who knows, but she didn't hear a big boom.

29:36

It seemed like if it was a bomb, that

29:39

would have been pretty obvious. Yeah,

29:42

but I mean, if it was like a napalm

29:44

bombment doesn't necessarily explode it just

29:46

like nites breads. Yeah,

29:49

so then I'll make noise. I

29:51

don't know, we'll go experiment

29:54

with one. UM so

29:56

that that objection speculation right.

29:59

That Smith's Zonian report actually

30:01

said, it's really curious that

30:04

that the bodies weren't recovered or

30:06

found in this pretty good excavation

30:08

that you guys hired this dude to do. UM

30:11

and it actually set off a larger

30:13

investigation in West Virginia. The governor

30:16

and the UM I think the state police

30:19

superintendent both said, what you

30:21

guys are doing is hopeless. The cases

30:23

closed. Your kids died in that

30:25

fire. The case closed.

30:28

And the solders were like, no, we're

30:30

going to go hire a private detective. And

30:32

they did hire a private detective and

30:34

he started sniffing around town. And

30:37

UM, I heard a weird rumor

30:39

that the police that the fire chief had

30:42

said that he actually found a heart

30:44

and had put it in a box and buried it at

30:46

the site, which is a weird

30:48

thing to do, it is. And he

30:51

went to the guy and was like, you gotta show

30:53

me where this thing's buried. Uh.

30:55

He does. He actually dig it up, and they find

30:57

a sort of I wouldn't

30:59

say fresh beef liver, freshish but

31:02

not burned. And then he admits,

31:04

you know what, I put this there hoping

31:07

that someone would find this and just think it

31:09

was a body part of one of their kids. We can close the case,

31:12

very ham fisted way of closing

31:15

a case. Yeah.

31:17

And it's just I don't know why he

31:20

thought that would work. I don't want to say he's

31:22

dumb, but it was a pretty dumb thing to

31:24

do. Uh.

31:26

So previous to this, all sorts of

31:29

weird claims had started to fly in

31:31

reportings of sightings all over

31:33

the country. One woman was

31:36

operating a tour stop about

31:38

fifty miles west and she said, no, I

31:40

saw them the morning after the fire,

31:43

served in breakfast. Uh. They

31:45

got into a car with Florida license plates. Um,

31:48

and and trust me it was your kids.

31:52

Yeah. So that freaks him out, of

31:54

course. Uh. Then

31:56

there was a hotel not too far

31:58

in Charleston, and apparently

32:01

late at night, the UM I

32:03

think four kids had checked in accompanied

32:06

by some adults, two women and two men, all

32:08

Italian. And she said, I tried to

32:10

talk to the kids and tried to be nice, and

32:13

the dudes freaked out and started talking Italian

32:16

and like shuffled the kids out of there real quick. Yeah,

32:18

and they left early the next morning, super

32:21

super sketchy. Some ladies said that she saw

32:23

the kids looking out of a car that

32:25

was driving by as the house was on

32:27

fire. UM.

32:29

And then there were even more tips that kind

32:31

of poured in over the years,

32:34

UM, including one

32:36

uh that said that they were actually being

32:39

held by a distant relative of Jenny's.

32:42

UM. Someone said that Martha

32:44

was in a convent out west I believe

32:47

YEP. In nineteen sixty seven, they got a letter

32:49

from a lady in Houston said

32:51

that, uh, the oldest boy or one

32:54

of the boys Lewis had lived

32:56

in that town, got drunk one night and basically told everyone

32:58

who he was. UM.

33:01

They actually went and in fact, George Sauder

33:03

and sometimes Jenny he would go all over

33:05

the country tracking down these leads and

33:07

always sadly comes back empty

33:09

handed. When he went to Texas, he

33:12

got down there, met with the guy and

33:14

it wasn't his son, obviously, but

33:17

um, you know, I had to go back

33:19

and tell his wife, like another another

33:22

zero in this one. Yeah, and like

33:24

it's really sad when you step

33:26

back and look at it from the perspective of the parents,

33:29

like they were not convinced

33:31

that their kids died in this fire. They were open to

33:33

the possibility, but they weren't convinced,

33:35

and they wanted to know for the rest of their lives.

33:37

So Yeah, he would go all over the country chasing

33:40

down leads. And the reason he would do this,

33:42

Chuck, is because he got no help whatsoever

33:44

from the local authorities. They

33:47

the solders actually wrote to the FBI

33:49

and got a reply from j Edgar Hoover himself

33:51

that said, I'd love to help, but this is out

33:54

of our jurisdiction. If your local

33:56

cops will invite us to help, we'd be

33:58

happy to help investigate. And the local

34:00

cops said, thanks anyway, and

34:02

turn the FBI down. I can't

34:04

imagine how frustrating that must have been for the

34:06

solders to see that to see

34:08

Jack or Hoover say we'll help out, But these

34:10

guys have to invite us and get

34:13

turned down for that, you know. Yeah, so

34:15

that I mean it was the kind of their life obsession,

34:17

and obsession is a really good good

34:19

way to put it. There's a story of George

34:22

seeing a picture in a paper of a ballet

34:24

class in Manhattan, and he became

34:27

convinced that one of the girls in the

34:29

picture was his daughter, Betty,

34:31

and he drove to Manhattan and demanded to

34:33

see his daughter, and the parents

34:35

are the school was like, you need to get

34:37

out of here, dude, you've lost your mind. This

34:40

is our kid. No, you can't see our

34:42

kid. So he had to go back home after that.

34:45

So it gets super

34:47

weird. Jenny comes home, gets

34:50

a male and sees a letter

34:52

addressed to her, not to the family

34:54

or to her and her husband. To Jenny Sawder

34:56

opens it up, post markedin Kentucky, no

34:59

return address, and there was a photo of

35:01

an Italian man. Well, I looked at the Italian

35:04

in his mid twenties, so the age fits. And

35:07

on the back of it it said, in handwriting,

35:09

Louis Solder, I love

35:11

brother Frankie, I

35:14

l I l boys, A little boys,

35:18

A nine zero, one two or

35:21

three five, no

35:23

idea, the most weird, mysterious

35:25

thing you could imagine. And I looked at a picture.

35:28

They were like, this very well could

35:30

be our son. It looks a lot like him. It

35:32

looks more like him than I do. I

35:34

didn't think it was him. I was like, the

35:36

eyebrows didn't match to me, the nose

35:39

didn't match. But you can never

35:41

tell a kid from nine to twenty five,

35:43

you know, because this is almost twenty

35:45

he might have looked like you know, it

35:47

could be true, he might have looked different enough.

35:50

Um. But yeah, that mystery just

35:52

was never ever solved. And so back

35:55

in the fifties, like after they started getting

35:57

shut down by the local cops and then the state

35:59

cops and everybody, they you

36:01

know, they started to take matters in their own hands. And one

36:03

of the things they did was erect that billboard that

36:05

you asked Justin McElroy about. It

36:08

became kind of famous. Aside

36:10

from the McIlroy's, everybody in West Virginia

36:12

knew about it. UM. And it was

36:14

a billboard on the Sawder's

36:17

property with pictures, big

36:19

pictures of the five children UM

36:21

with their name and age and then

36:23

basically uh rundown of what the

36:25

family thought may have happened to them. And

36:28

it was at first they offered a five thousand

36:30

dollar reward and then up to the ten thousand

36:32

dollars. Yeah, and they owned it. So it

36:34

was there for I mean until the eighties

36:37

until um so, George died in

36:39

night and then

36:41

Jenny died in nine And after

36:43

Jenny died, they took the billboard down. That's

36:46

right. What other reports came in. One bus

36:49

driver said he claimed he saw someone

36:51

throwing quote fireballs onto

36:53

the house. Some of this stuff

36:55

reeks that I was pretty wasted at the time.

36:59

Some of the stuff reeks of like that after the fact

37:01

stuff that people kind of invent like

37:03

wait a minute, saw gout throwing fireballs? Right,

37:06

But there was verified after

37:08

the fact weirdness. Oh yeah, for sure.

37:10

You know that keeps this this case alive.

37:12

Like one thing we didn't mention. Their telephone

37:15

line was cut. Yeah,

37:17

and some people say it was a guy that stole the ladder, climbed

37:19

up cut the phone lines so they couldn't

37:21

reach anyone. Uh

37:23

but I mean you said they found the guy. Did he did

37:26

they ask him about that? From what I understand, they didn't

37:28

ask him anything. They just find him for

37:30

for theft, ladder theft and

37:33

block and tackle theft. Oh. The other

37:35

weird thing is, um

37:37

they hired another private investigator at

37:40

one point to track down where that letter

37:42

came from. Yeah, the Kentucky picture of Lewis

37:44

and this guy just disappears. Yeah.

37:46

He may have just been like a CD gum shoe,

37:49

you know, maybe and just took their money. Quite

37:51

possibly, or maybe he was murdered because he

37:53

found out the truth. I don't know, but they said

37:55

that he literally vanished like they couldn't ever reach

37:58

him again. I think it's likely he was a

38:00

seedy gum should we just took some desperate families

38:02

money and hopefully he's burning

38:04

in hell? Did the mafia rub him out? Because that became

38:06

one of the leading theories is that George

38:09

was approached by the mafia, rebuff

38:11

their advances and

38:14

um that was it. They they

38:16

took the kids. Uh well yeah,

38:18

And supposedly it's not just a total flight

38:20

of fancy. Apparently the mafia was really

38:22

big in the coal business and the trucking business

38:25

in the area at that time, so

38:27

it is entirely possible he was approached by the

38:29

mafia, and he does sound like the kind of guy

38:31

who tell him to like go stick it. Yeah,

38:34

you know. He also may have

38:36

made some enemies with the Mussolini cracks.

38:40

Uh. What else was there? Well,

38:42

one thing that that was lost to time was that

38:44

vertebrae, even though it's almost

38:49

that it was not one of the kids.

38:51

At least if they still had that, they could DNA test

38:53

it now. Yeah, but of course they can't. Yeah.

38:56

And so little little baby Sylvia who was two

38:59

maybe three at the time, I think two is

39:01

is what I've seen most Um

39:04

is the last surviving Solder child.

39:07

And she said, like these are her earliest memories

39:09

are of that night of the fire and seeing her father

39:11

like losing his mind, training in his house and bleeding.

39:14

Um. And she promised

39:17

her parents that she would keep the story alive,

39:19

so she she talks about

39:21

it a lot. Um. She goes onto

39:24

the online like online

39:26

sleuth websites that talk

39:28

about the case, and like kind of feeds information

39:31

to people and tries to keep the story

39:33

alive. It's just crazy, man. You go to

39:35

bed, you wake up with a

39:37

fire, and five of your five

39:39

of your children are just vanished,

39:42

and there's no way they burned up to nothing. That's

39:44

just impossible. So I I read this

39:46

blog post. Like a MPR person

39:49

named Stacy Horn did a piece

39:51

on it like years back, and

39:53

she wrote this really long blog post about stuff

39:55

they have been cut from the from the

39:58

piece, and I got the impress and they

40:00

were trying to play up the mystery. And she said that

40:02

she personally came to believe that the children

40:04

did die in the fire, and that there

40:07

was plenty of evidence that supports that idea,

40:09

but that the media tends to play up the other

40:13

But she also said that there's enough weird

40:15

stuff surrounding it that if she learned

40:18

that they were still alive, she wouldn't

40:20

be shocked. Well yeah, and the fact that

40:22

they never got in touch,

40:25

because you you know, it's not like these

40:27

kids were strange from their parents or I

40:29

mean, they were a tight knit family by all accounts, right,

40:31

And the family rationalized that by saying that

40:33

their family was in danger and they were trying

40:35

to protect their parents by never getting

40:37

into which would kind of align with the mafia

40:40

theory. Yeah. Just terrible, man, lose

40:42

half your family without a trace. Yeah,

40:46

Uh, if you want to know more about this. There's plenty

40:48

of sites on the internet that have stuff, but we

40:51

found this really great article that we basedus

40:53

on by Karen Abbott. It was called

40:55

The Children Who Went Up and Smoke. Yeah, the

40:57

NPR wents good and Stacy Hornson

40:59

is pretty old too. You know, it's weird. Does I have a good

41:01

friend named Stacy Horn is not the same

41:03

one? No? But when I clicked, I

41:05

was like, oh, interesting, and I clicked on her thing and it said

41:07

Stacy Horn like cat. She's

41:10

a cat person. My friend Stacy

41:12

is a noted cat person and it's not the same

41:14

person, you know, And I was like, weird doppelganger?

41:17

Yeah, no, no, maybe

41:21

the name doppelganger. Yeah, I'd have to see

41:23

her face. I think I said

41:25

something, well, how about this search bar?

41:27

And since I since search bar, it's time for listener

41:30

mail, Chuck handy

41:33

dandy search bar. People

41:35

said that they miss that. I used to say that the

41:38

handy search bar. Yeah. I don't think I

41:40

said handy dandy did ida? I don't know. Maybe

41:42

Jerry said yes, that's

41:45

back when she listened, so I would

41:47

take that better word. Hey,

41:50

guys, huge fan of the show

41:52

too. Exclamation points. Yeah.

41:55

I've been listening to your show for about a year now, and

41:57

I turned my wife and kids onto the program,

42:00

and they're all hooked. We had a stuff you Should Know marathon

42:02

even in our car ride back to Chicago

42:04

from Athens, Georgia. We look forward

42:07

to your new episodes and are burning through them quickly

42:09

to pick up the pace. You guys made

42:12

reference to lead paints being on roadside signs.

42:14

That is highly unlikely, says

42:17

Sean. Uh. Those signs are changed

42:19

quite frequently in our base, predominantly uh.

42:22

And then he goes on to name like eight

42:25

different types of pigment

42:28

chemistries which I won't read out, and

42:31

other mixtures of iron oxides uh.

42:34

He said. Lead chromates can still be found,

42:36

however, in road markings like yellow

42:39

and white lines on the street. Any

42:41

new road markings are now done with the chemistries

42:44

I mentioned previously, but there are many

42:46

states across the country that still haven't gotten around replacing

42:49

removing the lead chromate based paints on the street.

42:52

Not trying to knitpick. It's common misconception of

42:54

people outside the color industry, and based

42:56

on my nerd ing out with the chemistry name dropping,

42:58

I bet you can't guess what industry I'm in. Here's

43:01

a hint. I don't dance. So

43:04

he's saying he's a chemistry nerd.

43:07

Was ever dood dancing? Chemistry nerds don't

43:09

dance. I

43:12

think that may be a reference. Is something we said that I'm

43:14

not picking up on. Maybe maybe

43:16

Sean can clear it up. Yeah, we need to follow

43:19

up listener mail. All right, that's from Sean Mula.

43:22

Oh it was German. He didn't

43:25

he dropped the room out. Okay, so

43:27

Mueller he didn't want that association. Well,

43:31

thanks Shan, we appreciate that. Uh,

43:34

let us know about the dancing thing. I

43:36

think we're not the only ones who are curious, right,

43:38

Yeah, I'm not sure what that means.

43:41

If you know what Shaan is talking about, you can tweet

43:43

to us at s y s K podcast. You can join

43:45

us on Facebook, dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know,

43:47

You can send us an email and stuff podcast at how Stuff

43:50

Works dot com, and there's always joined us at at home on

43:52

the web. Stuff you Should Know dot Com.

43:56

Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio

43:59

from our podcasts My Heart Radio, visit

44:01

the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts

44:04

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows h

44:12

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