A stranger warned their father his house would "go up in smoke." Weeks later, it did — and five children were never seen again.
On Christmas Eve, 1945, a fire tore through the Sodder family home in Fayetteville, West Virginia. Five of George and Jennie Sodder's ten children — Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty, aged 5 to 14 — were never found. Their family spent the rest of their lives believing the children had survived.
Warnings Beforehand
George Sodder, an Italian immigrant who ran a small trucking business, was known locally for his outspoken criticism of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, which put him at odds with some other Italian Americans in the community. In the months before the fire, a stranger visiting about hauling work pointed out the home's fuse boxes and remarked that they'd "cause a fire someday," despite the wiring having recently been inspected and cleared. Separately, a life insurance salesman, angered when George declined to buy a policy, reportedly told him: "Your goddamn house is going up in smoke, and your children are going to be destroyed. You are going to be paid for the dirty remarks you have been making about Mussolini."
The Fire
Around 1 a.m. on Christmas morning, Jennie Sodder woke to a loud thump on the roof and the sound of something rolling, then later to the smell of smoke. George, Jennie, their eldest daughter Marion, 16-year-old George Jr., 23-year-old John, and 2-year-old Sylvia all escaped the burning house. The five other children, sleeping upstairs, did not.
Multiple things went wrong at once. The ladder normally kept against the house was missing. The water in the family's rain barrel was frozen. The telephone line was down, delaying the call for help. George tried to drive his trucks to the house to use as a platform to reach the upstairs windows, but neither vehicle would start, despite both having run fine days earlier. He climbed the side of the house and broke an attic window with his bare hands, cutting his arm badly, but still couldn't reach the children through the smoke.
The Fayetteville fire department didn't arrive until hours later — accounts vary on the exact delay, but it was significant, in part because firefighters weren't stationed overnight and had to be individually contacted and gathered.
A Rushed Investigation, and a Conflict of Interest
The subsequent fire investigation was brief, and no bones were ever recovered from the ashes. Investigators attributed the fire to faulty wiring, a conclusion the Sodders disputed, noting the house had been rewired and inspected shortly before, and that the Christmas lights had remained lit downstairs even as the supposed electrical fault burned upstairs. A coroner's inquest the following day concluded the five children had died in the fire and issued death certificates citing "fire or suffocation" — despite the absence of any physical remains. Among the jurors on that inquest, disturbingly, was the same life insurance salesman who had earlier threatened George's family.
The Beef Liver
Convinced their children had survived, the Sodders hired a private investigator, C.C. Tinsley, who uncovered that Fayetteville's fire chief, F.J. Morris, had privately buried a small box at the fire site. When confronted, Morris admitted he had placed a beef liver in the box, hoping to give the grieving family something to believe had been recovered from the fire so they would stop searching. A local funeral director confirmed the organ showed no signs of ever having been exposed to fire.
Signs of Arson
In the following months, more troubling details emerged. A bus driver passing through the area that night reported seeing people throwing what looked like "balls of fire" at the house. The following spring, young Sylvia found a hard, dark green, rubber-like object in the yard, which George believed resembled an incendiary device rather than ordinary debris. A telephone repairman also told the family the line into the house appeared to have been deliberately cut, not simply burned through.
Sightings and a Photograph
Over the following decades, the family pursued numerous reported sightings of their children, none of which were ever confirmed. In 1968, the family received a photograph in the mail purportedly showing a grown Louis Sodder, along with a note reading "Louis Sodder, I love brother, Frankie," and a partial number some later speculated resembled a Palermo, Sicily postal code — feeding long-standing theories that organized crime figures, possibly connected to pressure on George's trucking business, might have been involved. The photo's authenticity was never established.
State and federal investigators, including the FBI, examined the case at various points, but no one was ever charged, and the case was formally closed at the state level in the early 1950s.
Why DNA Was Never Tested
Despite the rise of forensic genealogy solving numerous other cold cases in recent years, the Sodder family has never submitted DNA for commercial genetic testing. Jennie Henthorn, George and Jennie's granddaughter, has explained the family's reasoning: doing so could reveal genetic information about extended relatives who haven't consented to that kind of exposure. The family has confirmed that Jennie Sodder's own DNA remains on file with West Virginia State Police, but no active testing initiative has moved the case forward using that sample.
The Case Ends With Sylvia
Sylvia Sodder Paxton, the youngest Sodder child and the last surviving sibling, spent her entire life believing her brothers and sisters had survived that night. She died on April 21, 2021, at age 79, having continued publicizing the case alongside her own children and grandchildren for decades. With her passing, the case lost its last living link to that Christmas Eve.
Frequently Asked Questions
Were any remains of the five Sodder children ever found?
No. Despite the coroner issuing death certificates, no human remains were ever recovered from the fire site.
Was the fire ever proven to be arson?
Not conclusively. The family and later investigators found several details suggesting deliberate arson, but it was never formally proven, and official reports attributed the fire to faulty wiring.
Is anyone from the immediate Sodder family still alive to pursue the case?
No living children of George and Jennie Sodder remain; Sylvia, the last survivor, died in 2021. Grandchildren have continued to publicize the case.
Has DNA testing ever been used to try to resolve the case?
Not through commercial genealogy databases. The family has cited privacy concerns for extended relatives as the reason for not pursuing that route, though Jennie Sodder's DNA remains on file with West Virginia State Police.