May 18, 2016 • 45 mins
In 1945 a house fire took the lives of five children - except that no trace of their bodies was ever found. Dive into the longstanding mystery of the odd circumstances surrounding the disappearance of the Sodder children.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode is brought to you by square Space. Start
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square Space. Set your website apart. Hey, new shows coming
your way, live shows that is. Yeah, we're going back
to d C and Boston, that's right this fall October Thursday.
(00:23):
We're gonna be at the Wilbur Theater in Boston, where
we've performed before. And that's why we're going back because
Boston was like one of the best shows off the
chain I think is what they called. It was very
much off the chain. And uh, we're also going back
to Washington, d C. On Saturday, October twenty nine as
part of the Benson Ball Comedy Festival. Yeah, and we're
gonna be at the Lincoln Theater again. Yeah. That was
(00:45):
off the chain as what boy. That was a great show.
So big ups to you Boston and d C. That's
why we're coming back. So tickets go on sale tomorrow Friday,
and um you can find out the information at our
square Space Live show home on the web s y
s K live dot com. And if I happen to
not have the links up for that yet, just go
(01:07):
to the Wilbur Theater website or go to the Benson
Ball or Lincoln Theater websites and get your tickets because
these are gonna be reserved seating. So if you want
to get up close and smell us, then you gotta
be Johnny on the spot. You don't want to do that.
So we look forward to seeing you guys. Uh this
wall Yep, welcome to you Stuff you should know from
(01:29):
house stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, Jerry's
over there. So this is Stuff you should Unsolved Mysteries Edition, Yeah. Really,
are you cool with this? No? I'm leaving. Yeah. I
(01:52):
think it's great. Man. I love me a good unsolved mystery. Yeah,
and this is super sad. So it's not like I
love it and I think it's hysterical. I just I
just like unsolved mystery. What's a what's an hysterical unsolved mystery? Um? Like,
I got pants in the second grade and I don't
know who did it. That's an hysterical unsolved mystery. I
(02:16):
was just in line pants around the ankles turned around
and like everyone's like did you just go with it
and you're like, check it out, check me out of
in second crate. Yep, God for that never happened. I
made it up. Oh really yeah, it's called improv, buddy.
It's a crowd. So end scene and scene and seen.
(02:40):
Have we are established which one it is? Yeah? A
few times and nope it is Chuck. We are talking
about a family called the Solders. Um, not the Soldiers right,
not the welding technique. No, the Solders. They are a
family out of Fayetteville, West Virginia, UH of Italian extraction,
(03:03):
as we'll see, Yes, and um very much so. Like
you said, this is an unsolved mystery. They their family
just going along totally normally has turned into one of
the stranger unsolved mysteries in American history. Yeah, and certainly
in West Virginia history. Definitely. And I should say I
texted our friend Justin McElroy of the McElroy triplets. Well,
(03:29):
they're not triplets, they're there. They're brothers of my brother,
my brother and me podcast because they are from West Virginia.
And as you'll see here there's a very famous billboard
that we're going to talk about about this case and
I was like, hey, dude, do you ever do you
remember where you know seeing this thing? How far are
you from Fayettville. He said, just a couple of hours,
(03:49):
he said, but I've never heard of that. And I
was like, really, this seems like the kind of cautionary
tale that would be whispered about all over West Virginia.
I can see that. But he said he never heard
of it. And then he looked it up and said
oh wow. And I said, I that your dad knows
about it, and then he said he didn't. He didn't respond.
You didn't text him back? Answer me, No, that's right.
(04:12):
I am Facebook friends with his dad, though, should have
says yeah, ask him, Yeah, go go to the source.
That's right. So well, let's go back to the beginning.
Chuck back to that's right. That's when Georgeiros who had
become George sodder I was born in Sardinia and came
to the US and nineteen o eight as a young
(04:34):
lad of thirteen years old. Yeah, and he was a
go getter, he really was. So his He had an
older brother who traveled with him from Sardinia to New York. Um,
I guess he was like, I don't want to do this,
and right when they made it through Ellis Island, he
turned right back around and went back to Italy. Yeah,
he's I don't know, man, Go get a cup of
coffee and think it over. What I say, if you
made that ship's voyage, just mull it over for a
(04:57):
day or two. Yeah, because what if, like you're half
way back, you're like, actually I should have stayed. Yeah,
you might meet a pretty lady from Brooklyn. You see
that movie bok No great? Really? Yeah? Yeah, okay, it
sound surprised. I was a little surprised. Yeah. It was
nominated for many awards. That doesn't always mean it usually
(05:20):
means it's pretty good. No, it's Pence Brooklyn, highly recommended
about young Italian man who falls in love with an
Irish immigrant. Oh well, this has nothing to do with
this thing. No, not at all, because this man falls
in love with an Italian immigrant. That's right, right? So, um, George,
like you said, he was a bit of a go getter.
(05:41):
He's thirteen, he's on his own, literally, without any any
other family in America. It's kind of mind blowing. But
then you think back to there there, they didn't really
understand what childhood was at that point. So he's probably
like of working age and have been for years. But
it seems really weird to us now. He might have
been retiring, right. He was smoking cigars already, so he,
(06:05):
like I said, was a go getter. He started working
at on the Pennsylvania Railroad and then moved to West
Virginia to Smithers Smithers, West Virginia and worked as a
truck driver and then said, you know what, this is America.
Darn it. I didn't come here to drive a truck
for someone. I'm gonna own my own trucking business. And
(06:27):
the statue of Liberty went up, nice going king. So
he started his own trucking business. Um, and he's in
West Virginia. So in short order he starts hauling cole yeah,
coal and dirt. And it wasn't like the hugest business.
I think he did okay for himself. He did it
okay for himself, like solidly middle class. Yeah, he didn't
become like wealthy or anything. And as a matter of fact,
(06:48):
later on um a local local government official would say
that the Sauders were, um one of the best middle
class families in Fayetteville, and they had a small Italian
population in Fayetteville, which I think is why he ended
up there in his community. Yeah, and he moved there
with his wife Jenny, right, Yeah, Jenny Cipriani who he
(07:14):
met UM. She came over from Italy when she was three.
He met her historic called the music box and they
got married. And like Italian families do, they had ten kids.
Ten kids in twenty years. That's a lot of kids,
pumping them out with great regularity. And like you said,
when they moved to Fayettville, the reason they moved to
Fatville had no idea that West Virginia even had Italian
(07:36):
people in it, let alone strong Italian communities. But they
moved to Fayettville and they were part of the Italian community,
and George was well known. Again, they were a respected
middle class family there. He did pretty good for himself.
UM and he was also well known for his opinions
and everything, including politics and UM. During the forties, the
(07:57):
United States was at war with Italy and not all
of the Italian Americans were UM feeling it. On the
American side, there were a lot of disagreements over Mussolini
and the government that he was creating. UM. Among Italian Americans,
including in Fayetteville, West Virginia, and George in particular, hated
(08:18):
Mussolini and very frequently spoke out about him and would
get in arguments with some of the locals who who
felt differently about Mussolini. And uh, I guess there were
some hard feelings here there, but he doesn't seem to
have taken them seriously very much. No, And we mentioned that, Um,
if it sounds like we're setting something up for later,
we indeed are, so just tuck that little fact away. Um,
(08:40):
and then can we fast forward in time? Yeah? Too?
Uh Christmas Eve? Christmas Eve? Right, so, um, here's what happens.
It's Christmas Eve. Um. As his tradition, in some households,
you can open up a few gifts on Christmas Eve. Yeah,
(09:00):
so this is what happened. They opened up some presents
comes time for Betty by and five of the children,
Maurice fourteen, Martha twelve, Louis or Louie ten, Genie or
Jenny as that was a little confusing because that's the
mom's name. Eight years old. And Betty said, can we
(09:21):
please stay up late and play with these new toys? Yeah,
they're older, sister Marian had. She worked at a five
and diameond Town two miles down the road, and she
had surprised her younger brothers and sisters with some toys
that they had not been expecting. That's right, and they
were very happy. So they asked mom if they could
stay up. Yeah, and the older, the elder, Jenny, said yeah,
(09:43):
I guess you can stay up. Turn out the lights,
locked the doors before you go to bed. I'm going
to hit the rack with your dad. And are two
year old daughter Sylvia, twenty three year old John and
sixteen year old George Jr. Were I guess they were
just ready for bed too. And then if you're thinking
there's one missing child, he is away in the military,
(10:03):
the eldest. Yeah, fighting either Mussolini or Hitler or to Joe,
one of those guys. So he's away. Uh. And I
could not, for the life of me find that guy's name. So, Um,
the mom goes to bed, Jenny goes to bed, and Uh.
The dad, George and his two next oldest sons who
(10:26):
had been working with him that day, they'd all gone
to bed about ten. Um, what time did the mom
go to bed? At eleven? Something like that? Yeah, but
she leaves those five youngest children, Um and Marian, they're
older sister who I think was seventeen at the time,
downstairs when she goes to bed Um. And then at
about twelve thirty on Christmas Morne, because remember that was
(10:49):
Christmas Eve, about twelve thirty at night, the phone rings,
and um, this is not an era where and this
kind of to me goes to show these people were
doing all right. They had a phone in in West Virginia.
They may have been the only people in West Virginia
with the phone in nineteen I'm just saying, I don't
(11:10):
think everybody had a phone in West Virginia, n so
they certainly didn't have one at their bedside. So Jenny,
the mom has to get up to answer the phone,
and on the other line she hears a woman asking
for somebody she didn't know or recognized, and in the
background there's obviously a party going on. There's laughter, there's
clinking of glasses, and uh, Jenny says, I don't know
(11:32):
who you're talking about. You have the wrong number, and
the woman laughs weirdly and hangs up. Yeah, I'm gonna
go ahead and come out and say I think this
means nothing, and it's total coincidence. So supposedly they tracked
that woman down and she said it was just a
wrong number. Potal coincidence, that's what I think. But think
about that though, Like, had that not happened, a lot
(11:53):
of other stuff would have gone unnoticed. Right, it's a
big deal. So before she goes back to bed, she
noticed the lights are on downstairs. She said, you know,
turn the lights off, locked the door before you go
to bed. So one of her kids is on the
couch asleep. She's like, wait a minute, the doors unlocked,
the lights are on. Um, they shouldn't have done that.
So let me lock the doors and turn off the lights.
(12:14):
And she leaves the one that's asleep on the couch asleep.
It was the one that got her to sleepy time
on the couch. That's fine. But those five younger ones
who've been playing with their toys, they were not ordered
to be found, so mom just assumed they went upstairs
to bed. So she goes back to bed, and then
like an hour later she's awoken by like a thump
(12:36):
on the roof. Yeah, and she falls back asleep again. Well,
it sounded like a heavy thump and a sliding down
of the roof. This was just something heavy head landed
on it and then slid off, and she just went
back to sleep. Very important matter. She probably figured it
was a reindeer or something like that at being Christmas,
you never know. Uh. The next time she woke up,
(12:58):
she woke up to panic and chaos because their house
was on fire. And Chuck, we'll talk about the fire
right after this. All right, dude, the house is on fire,
(13:34):
that's right. So Sylvia a litt two year old Sylvia
is in their room with her the parents, so they
get her out obviously with them because she's in the crib. Uh.
And then seventeen year old Marion and twenty year old
John and sixth year old George Jr. Are all outside
and safe right at this point. So everyone is out
(13:55):
except for these five other kids, right. And they were
the top floor of the house, I believe, in two
different rooms, and the only way down is this one
single staircase. And George tried to go back into the house.
He broke through a window, cut his arm quite badly.
Um getting into through in through the window or opening
(14:16):
the door. Um, and runs inside and the entire downstairs
floor is totally engulfed in flame and smoke. He can't
see anything, but he can see that there's no way
he can go up the staircase or anyone can make
it down the staircase, So he runs back outside of
the house to try to figure out another way to
get up to those kids on the on the top floor. Yeah,
(14:38):
and here's an interesting point, Um. One of the relatives
of I think it was the guy who ended up
marrying the youngest daughter later in life. UM Sylvia said
they did a lot of research on this, and he
said the original police report said that the very first
statement said that the two sons, John and George, who
got out, said they actually ran into the other kid's
rooms and physically took them awake. And then later on
(15:02):
in interviews they said no, they just called out to them, UM,
and assume they heard. But it's still is a mystery
as to whether or not that really happened. Police will
say the first statement is usually the accurate one, UM,
but that's just speculation. So from what I understand, the
family rationalized that later on by saying that the two
(15:25):
boys probably felt very guilty, and they said that they
did what they wished. They had or felt that they
should have done. That makes sense, and that their revisions
later on were actually the factual ones that they tried
to rouse their siblings by just shouting up the stairs.
I can buy that. Um. So Papa tries to get in,
cuts himself really bad. Then he says, wait a minute,
(15:48):
I have this ladder that leans up against the house.
Always always let me go grab that ladders not they're
very weird. It is very weird. They would be found
in a ditch like from the house later on, and
later on witnesses supposedly saw dude stealing it, uh from
the garage. But there's so many things that people say
(16:09):
about this case that it's hard to know what's true
and what was invented. That is true that they saw
a guy a dude, well they report that they saw
a guy. Well that guy the guy actually was found
and was arrested and charged for stealing and never questioned
about the actual fire. The guy that stole the ladder. Yeah, okay,
so they he says. The dad says, let me get
(16:30):
my trucks, my big uh coal Holland trucks and pull
because those are tall. Let me pull that next to
the house. Climb up on that. Uh, neither one of
the trucks start, even though they've been using them to
work earlier that day. Yeah. So the thinking by the
cops and everyone else pretty much is in the panic
he and his son flooded the engines trying to get
him started, and that they wouldn't start. Yeah, but it
(16:52):
became yet another like fishy detail that made this family
suspect like something really weird happened here. Yeah, and then
later there was a totally don't understand the whole engine
removal theory. So it doesn't make any sense that guy
who stole the ladder was caught stealing a block and
(17:15):
tackle that you would use to remove engines. Yeah, that
doesn't make any sense. But it doesn't mean like he
messed with their car or used that block and tackle
to do anything to the engines. They probably just flooded
him that one. I'm I'm in Green Mountain. So this
this family they're watching helplessly as the house is going
up in flames that was burned to the ground in
about forty five minutes, ostensibly with the children trapped inside. Yeah,
(17:40):
and if you think why didn't the fire the fire
trucks come the Faettville Fire Department. Uh you know, it
was was Fayetteville, West Virginia, Christmas. It was Christmas night
or morning, I guess. At this point, um, uh you know,
one of the daughters went to a neighbor's house called
the fire department. No operators on duty even right, And
(18:02):
another neighbor who saw this didn't have a phone at
their house, so they went to the local tavern and
they called the operator to report the fire too, and
they couldn't get the operator either operator was probably at
home sleeping for Christmas, that's right. So eventually someone drives
and literally physically tracks down uh fire Chief F. J. Morris,
(18:24):
who does not come out smelling well in this, Well
he doesn't. He said, no, I can't drive the fire
truck as the fire chief. And the way that they
don't even have a siren. The way that they alerted
the fire department was it's called a phone tree. They
just start calling one another, then they called the next person,
which made even the last sense because again the statters
were the only people in West Virginia with a phone
(18:45):
in their house. That's not true. Uh So eventually, seven
hours later, at eight a m. The fire truck arrives
to find a smoldering pile of ash, and a lot
of people are like, well, clearly the fire department was
paid off or told to halt. From what I gather,
it was sheer ineptitude. And also the sense I think
(19:06):
the fire marshal or fire chief defended himself later saying, yeah,
he said I couldn't drive the fire truckside to wait
for somebody who could. And also that house went up
so fast there was no there wasn't any need for
us to get there in any kind of hurry. Well,
I mean that's probably true. He also said burned in
like between thirty and forty five minutes. Yeah, if you're
(19:27):
a fire chief, that's not what you want to say,
you know, like who cares when we get there? Also,
one of the firemen who showed up was Jenny Satter's brother,
So it's not like there was this conspiracy to among
the fire department necessarily, although that is a common belief
in people who pay attention to this case. Is so,
what they find eight am as a house burn't to
(19:48):
the ground, what they don't find are any remnants of
those five children. Yeah, and here in is where the
mystery really kicks in the family starts like paying attention
to little weird details. At first, they just assumed that
the kids have they're they're just totally gone. They were
(20:09):
totally burned up. Well that's what the fire chief said.
He was like, there's no remains whatsoever because it burned
them to nothing. They did like a cursory examination of
the rubble. They did find some other stuff, like they
found appliances that were recognizable. They found a couple other things,
but they never found any of the kids. Um. And
they took the fire chief's word at face value and said, Okay,
(20:32):
well our kids are in there. We can't bear to
the side of this any longer. So George went and
got a bunch of dirt and buried this site in
about five ft of fill dirt and decided to plant
a memorial garden there on the side of the house. Fire. Yeah,
this is on January two, so that he wasn't supposed
to do this. They're supposed to leave it open to
(20:53):
continue to investigate. Um. The state police inspector said it
was faulty wiring. It's now covered in dirt. Um And
so now the family has just left alone saying what
happened to our children? Are they were they in there? Right?
So that that when they buried the place and dirt,
they assumed that the children were still in there and
(21:14):
this was there. They're grave now, they were never going
to be found. Um. But then, like you said, they
started thinking about weird details that emerged. Right. One of
the first ones was the idea that it was faulty wiring.
George basically knew for a fact that it wasn't faulty wiring.
He'd recently had um an electric stove installed and just
(21:35):
to make sure again there he was doing pretty well,
just to make sure that the house didn't burn down
with this new fangled electric stove, he had the wiring
in the house redone and then he had it inspected
by the power company who sent out an inspector and
said they did a good job. The wiring is fine.
So he basically knew almost for a fact that it
wasn't faulty wiring in the house. Yeah. Not only that
(21:57):
after the fire started, when they were outside, there were
still lights on in the house, right, So remember Jenny
came down and turned out the lights. She left the
Christmas tree lights on, and while the house was burning.
The Christmas tree was still the Christmas tree lights are on,
which must have been like a really ghastly thing to see,
you know. Uh. Speaking of the wiring, there was a
(22:18):
point a few months earlier, and this is definitely a
strange thing, when this guy showed up. He was a stranger,
no one knew him, and he asked about, you know,
working as a driver, and he didn't have any work
for him, but he was sort of just I guess.
They had the conversation outdoors, wandered around at the back
of his house and said, you know what you're wiring
here at your fuse box is going to cause a
(22:39):
fire someday. And George thought, well, that's a really weird
thing to say, because not only did I have it
just inspected and it's fine, it's just a strange thing
for you to say, Mr stranger, get off my property
pretty much, but take the CONNOTI very nice, but weird
and disconcerting after the fact. Obviously, sure he didn't think
(22:59):
anything of at the time other than that's a weird
thing to say. Yeah. Um. Another fishy thing that happened
that really kind of stuck out in retrospect was the
life insurance salesman. Right, a life insurance salesman came through
and um tried to sell George some life insurance policies
for his children, and George didn't bite, and the guy
(23:21):
got I rate and his quote was kind of weird. Actually, Yeah,
he said, your house is going to go up and
smoke your g D house. Yeah, your children are going
to be destroyed. And then here's here's where it really
gets weird. He says, you will be repaid for the
dirty things you've been saying about Mussolini. And George just
(23:45):
went like, get off my property. Yeah, just the usual. Yea.
So remember we said that he was outspoken about Mussolina
and his politics. Um, clearly this got around to this dude,
and uh, it's just a weird dis consort any thing
to say, especially after these kids look like they may
have perished in this fire. Yeah, especially if he didn't
(24:05):
like make a big deal out of it at the time.
Was this like a normal business attempt in West Virginia
among the Italian community, Like your kids are gonna die,
You'll be repaid for what you've been saying about Mussolini.
Good day to you. I don't know, I'm sure that's
not in the handbook. What's even fishier, though, Chuck, is
that same guy served on the coroner's inquest jury that
(24:29):
ruled that the fire was the result of faulty wiring.
It all gets a little weird, uh, And then one other, well,
not one other, quite a few other weird things. Um.
One of the older sons said that, you know what,
right before Christmas, there was a dude parked right across
from our house, watching the school bus and watching the
(24:49):
younger kids get off the school bus and come to
the house. And it was clear that he was sitting
there watching us, and it was strange. Yeah, he was
in a van. Bet he was. He would have been
if it were like the seventies, all that sickos and seventies. So, Chuck,
let's take another break, because the mystery is about to
deepen even more. The plot thickens, et cetera. All right,
(25:39):
so thanks for getting a little weird. And all of
a sudden, now Jenny and George the solder Um parents
start thinking like, wait a minute, are our kids actually dead?
Who was the last person to see them alive? That
if if John and George Jr. To be believed they
(25:59):
were the lasked ones to see him alive because they
went and shook them awake, But they may not have
actually done that well, and they changed her story to
say that they didn't. So then technically Mary in, the
seventeen year old older sister who brought the toys and
was downstairs with the kids while they were playing with them,
would have been the last to see them alive. But
(26:21):
I could never find anybody pressing her for what her
story was. So the assumption that I'm going on is
that she just fell asleep on the couch, and when
she fell asleep, the kids were still downstairs. But the
solders are starting to wonder, like, wait a minute, where
those kids even in the house when the house went down,
And they they're backed up by the idea that no
remains were found. Yeah, that's the one that really is
(26:42):
bothering them. They're like, something should have been found. Yeah,
and um, all of a sudden, this this story is
starting to get national attention in the press, and the
Sawders later on would say, George would say, if they
were burned in the house, if they died in that
house fire, I want to be convinced. And if they weren't,
I want to know what happened to them. Um, and
(27:03):
this kind of kicked off like a lifelong quest for
for George and Jenny UM. And in nine to try
to literally get to the bottom of it, they hired
a guy to come in and investigate, to basically excavate
the memorial site and look for the remains of the children,
and he didn't find it. Well. Yeah, and previous to that,
(27:25):
they did their own experiments with burning things, animal bones
and uh, this sort of self experimentation to see what
would remained. And there was always bones of course. Yeah,
they could never get them to just to to turn
into ash. Uh. They went to a crematorium even and said,
you know, we're probably just not even getting missing hot
enough and they said, well, actually, at two thousand degrees
(27:47):
it would take two hours to completely burn a body up.
Your house didn't get nearly that hot and it only
burned for thirty to forty five minutes, so there should
definitely be human remains like all over the place. Jenny
kind of really turned into like this citizen scientist. Actually,
she taught herself forensics as far as burning of remains goes.
(28:09):
She um looked into other fires. There was another fire
that happened around the same time that killed seven people. Uh,
and the remains of all seven people were found in
the in the burned out house as well. So She's
like getting more and more convinced, and so is George
that their kids are still alive. So in ninety nine
(28:29):
they had a a forensic investigator of some sort come
and do an investigation and an excavation of the site.
And he turned up some stuff. He found some coins,
found a dictionary that had belonged to the kids, and
he did actually find some vertebrae, and he had the
vertebrates sent off to the Smithsonian Institution actually, and they
(28:52):
investigated this and issued a report about the bones. Yes
they did. They said the human bones consist of four
lumbar vertebrae belonging to one individual. The transfers recess of fused,
so the age of this individual death should have been
sixteen or seventeen top limit twenty two UM. And on
this basis, the bones show greater skelepter maturation than what
(29:14):
I would expect from a fourteen year old who was
the oldest missing child. So basically it was either placed
there by someone, it was not charred. It was not
a part of the fire. It wasn't one of the kids,
and it was either place there by someone or brought
it happened to be in that dirt. Can you imagine that? Like,
(29:36):
think about that. George went and got a bunch of
filled dirt to come and fill in this memorial site
and ended up disturbing a grave, like maybe an unmarked
grave somewhere that didn't find. I didn't think that was remarkable.
That's crazy. If you went and got filled dirt and
you found bones, human bones, Yeah, I wouldn't. Can you
tell by the pitch of my voice that that is crazy?
(29:58):
I can uh. The The weird thing that they found
was a uh this green rubber casing that later they
found out it was a part of some kind of
bomb um an incendiary device. And some people think that
that's a weird thing to have on your property house
(30:19):
that just burned. And they think this could have been
the sound that Jeanie heard in the middle of the
night when something hit the roof and roll off. Who knows,
but she didn't hear a big boom. It seemed like
if it was a bomb, that would have been pretty obvious. Yeah,
But I mean if it was like a napalm bomment
doesn't necessarily explode it just like nites threads. Yeah, so
(30:41):
they don't make noise. I don't know. We'll go experiment
with one. UM. So that that objection speculation, right. That
Smithsonian report actually said it's really curious that that the
bodies weren't recovered or found in this pretty good excavation
that you guys hired this dude to do UM and
(31:03):
it actually set off a larger investigation in West Virginia.
The governor and the UM I think the state police
superintendent both said, what you guys are doing is hopeless.
The cases closed. Your kids died in that fire. The
case closed, and the solders were like, no, we're gonna
go hire a private detective. And they did hire a
(31:25):
private detective. And he started sniffing around town and UM
heard a weird rumor that the police that the fire
chief had said that he actually found a heart and
had put it in a box and buried it at
the site, which is a weird thing to do, it is,
and he went to the guy and was like, you
gotta show me where this thing is buried. Uh, he
(31:47):
does he actually dig it up and they find a
sort of I wouldn't say fresh beef liver, fresh ish
but not burned. And then he admits, you know what,
I put this there hoping that someone would find this
and just think it was a body part of one
of their kids. We can close the case, very ham
fisted way of closing a case. Jerk. Yeah, And it's
(32:10):
just I don't know why he thought that would work.
I don't want to say he's dumb, but it was
a pretty dumb thing to do. Uh. So previous to this,
all sorts of weird claims had started to fly in
reportings of sightings all over the country. One woman was
operating a tour stop about fifty miles west and she said, no,
(32:32):
I saw them the morning after the fire, served in breakfast.
Uh they got into a car with Florida license plates.
Um and and trust me it was your kids. So
that freaks him out of course. Uh. Then there was
a hotel not too far in Charleston, and apparently late
(32:53):
at night, the I think four kids had checked in
accompanied by some adults, two women and two men, all Italian.
And she said I tried to talk to the kids
and tried to be nice, and the dudes freaked out
and started talking Italian and like shuffled the kids out
of there real quick. Yeah, and they left early the
next morning, super super sketchy. Some ladies said that she
(33:14):
saw the kids looking out of a car that was
driving by as the house was on fire. Um. And
then there were even more tips that kind of poured
in over the years, um, including one uh that said
that they were actually being held by a distant relative
of Jenny's. Um. Someone said that Martha was in a
(33:37):
convent out west I believe yep. In nineteen sixty seven,
they got a letter from a lady in Houston said that, uh,
the oldest boy or one of the boys Lewis had
lived in that town, got drunk one night and basically
told everyone who he was. Um. They actually went and
in fact, George Solder and sometimes Jenny, he would go
all over the country tracking down these leads and always
(34:00):
sadly comes back empty handed. When he went to Texas,
he got down there, met with the guy and it
wasn't his son, obviously, but um, you know I had
to go back and tell his wife, like another another
zero in this one. Yeah, and like it's really sad
when you step back and look at it from the
perspective of the parents, like, they were not convinced that
(34:23):
their kids died in this fire. They were open to
the possibility, but they weren't convinced, and they wanted to
know for the rest of their lives. So, Yeah, he
would go all over the country chasing down leads. And
the reason he would do this, Chuck, is because he
got no help whatsoever from the local authorities. They The
Sawders actually wrote to the FBI and got a reply
from j Edgar Hoover himself that said, I'd love to help,
(34:45):
but this is out of our jurisdiction. If your local
cops will invite us to help, we'd be happy to
help investigate. And the local cops said, thanks anyway, and
turn the FBI down. I'm I can't imagine how frustrating
that must have been for the Sawders to see that,
to see Jagger Hoover say we'll help out, but these
guys have to invite us and get turned down for that,
(35:05):
you know. Yeah, so that, I mean it was the
kind of their life obsession, and obsession is a really
good good way to put it. There's a story of
George seeing a picture in a paper of a ballet
class in Manhattan, and he became convinced that one of
the girls in the picture was his daughter, Betty, and
he drove to Manhattan and demanded to see his daughter,
(35:26):
and the parents are the school was like, you need
to get out of here, dude, you've lost your mind.
This is our kid. No, you can't see our kid.
So he had to go back home after that. So
it gets super weird. Jenny comes home, gets a male
and sees a letter addressed to her, not to the
family or to her and her husband. To Jenny Sawder
(35:48):
opens it up post markedin Kentucky, no return address, and
there was a photo of an Italian man. Well looked
at the Italian in his mid twenties, so the age pits,
and on the back of it said, in handwriting, Louis Solder,
I love brother Frankie. I l I l boys A
little boys A nine zero, one, three two or three five,
(36:15):
no idea, the most weird, mysterious thing you could imagine.
And I looked at a picture. They were like, this
very well could be our son. It looks a lot
like him. It looks more like him than I do.
I didn't think it was him. I was like, the
eyebrows didn't match to me, the nose didn't match. But
you can never tell a kid from nine to twenty five,
you know, because this is like almost twenty he might
(36:37):
have looked like you know, it could be true, he
might have looked different enough. Um. But yeah, that mystery
just was never ever solved. And so back in the fifties,
like after they started getting shut down by the local
cops and then the state cops and everybody, they you know,
they started to take matters in their own hands. And
one of the things they did was erect that billboard
that you asked Justin McElroy about. It became kind of famous.
(37:02):
Aside from the mcilroys, everybody in West Virginia knew about it, um.
And it was a billboard on the Solder's property with pictures,
big pictures of the five children, um, with their name
and age and then basically uh rundown of what the
family thought may have happened to them. And it was
at first they offered a five thousand dollar reward and
(37:23):
then up to the ten thousand dollars. Yeah, and they
owned it. So it was there for I mean until
the eighties until um, so George died in and then
Jenny died in nine and after Jenny died, they took
the billboard down. That's right. What other reports came in.
One bus driver said he claimed he saw someone throwing
(37:43):
quote fireballs onto the house. Some of the stuff reeks that.
I was pretty wasted at the time. Some of the
stuff reeks have like that after the fact, stuff that
people kind of invent like wait a minute, saw I
got throwing fireballs? But there was verified after the fact weirdness.
Oh yeah, for sure. You know that keeps this this
(38:03):
case alive. Like one thing we didn't mention their telephone
line was cut. Yeah, and some people say it was
a guy that stole the ladder, climbed up cut the
phone lines so they couldn't reach anyone. Uh But I
mean you said they found the guy. Did he did
they ask him about that? From what I understand, they
didn't ask him anything. They just find him for for theft,
ladder theft and block and tackle theft. Oh. The other
(38:27):
weird thing is um they hired another private investigator at
one point to track down where that letter came from.
The picture of Lewis and this guy just disappears. Yeah,
he may have just been like a CD gum too,
you know, maybe and just took their money. Quite possibly,
or maybe he was murdered because he found out the truth.
I don't know, but they said that he literally vanished
(38:48):
like they couldn't ever reach him again. I think it's
likely he's a CD gum. She we just took some
desperate famili's money and hopefully he's burning in hell. Did
the mafia rub him out? Because that became one of
the leading theories that George was approached by the mafia,
rebuffed their advances and um that was it. They they
took the kids. Uh well yeah, And supposedly it's not
(39:11):
just a total flight of fancy. Apparently the mafia was
really big in the coal business and the trucking business
in the area at that time, so it is entirely
possible he was approached by the mafia. And he does
sound like the kind of guy who tell him to
like go stick it. Yeah, you know, he also may
have made some enemies with the Mussolini cracks. What else
(39:32):
was there? Well, one thing that that was lost to
time was that vertebrae. Even though it's almost that it
was not one of the kids. At least if they
still had that, they could DNA test it now. Yeah,
but of course they can't. Yeah. And so little little
baby Sylvia who is two maybe three at the time,
I think two is is what I've seen most um
(39:56):
is the last surviving Solder child. And she said, like,
these of her earliest memories are of that night of
the fire and seeing her father like losing his mind,
trying to get in his house and bleeding. Um. And
she promised her parents that she would keep the story alive,
so she she talks about it a lot um. She
goes onto the online like online sleuth websites that talk
(40:20):
about the case, and like kind of feeds information to
people and tries to keep the story alive. It's just crazy, man,
You go to bed, you wake up with a fire,
and five of your five of your children are just vanished.
And there's no way they burned up to nothing. That's
just impossible. So I read this blog post. Like a
MPR person named Stacy Horn did a piece on it,
(40:44):
like years back, and she wrote this really long blog
post about stuff that had been cut from the from
the piece, and I got the imperson they were trying
to play up the mystery, and she said that she
personally came to believe that the children did die in
the fire, and that there was plenty of evidence that
supports that idea, but that the media tends to play
up the other. But she also said that there's enough
(41:07):
weird stuff surrounding it that if she learned that they
were still alive, she wouldn't be shocked. Well, yeah, and
the fact that they never got in touch, because you
you know, it's not like these kids were strange from
their parents or I mean, they were a tight knit
family by all accounts, right, And the family rationalized that
by saying that their family was in danger and they
were trying to protect their parents by never getting into
(41:29):
which would kind of align with the mafia theory. Yeah.
Just terrible man, lose half your family without a trace. Yeah. Uh,
if you want to know more about this, there's plenty
of sites on the internet that have stuff. But we
found this really great article that we bass on by
Karen Abbott. It was called The Children Who Went Up
and Smoke. Yeah, the NPR wents good and Stacy Hornson
(41:51):
is pretty cool too. You know, it's weird. Does I
have a good friend named Stacy Horne. It's not the
same one. No, But when I clicked, I was like,
oh interesting, and I clicked on her thing and it
said stay seehorn like cat. She's a cat person. My
friend Stacy is a noted cat person and it's not
the same person, you know, And I was like, weird doppelganger? Yeah, no, no,
(42:12):
maybe the name doppelganger. Yeah, I'd have to see her face.
I think I said something, well, how about the search bar?
And since that, since search far, it's time for listener mail, Chuck,
handy dandy search bar. People said that they miss that.
I used to say that the handy search bar. Yeah.
I don't think I said handy dandy? Did I? Maybe
(42:34):
Jerry said yes, that's back when she listened, so I
would take that better word. Hey guys, huge fan of
the show. Two exclamation points. Yeah, I've been listening to
your show for about a year now, and I turned
my wife and kids onto the program, and they're all hooked.
We had a stuff you should Know marathon even in
(42:54):
our car right back to Chicago from Athens, Georgia. We
look forward to your new episodes and are burning through
them quickly to pick up the pace. You guys made
reference to lead paints being on roadside signs. That is
highly unlikely, says Sean. Uh. Those signs are changed quite
frequently in her base, predominantly Uh. And then he goes
(43:15):
on to name like eight different types of pigment chemistries
which I won't read out, and other mixtures of iron oxides. Uh.
He said. Lead chromates can still be found, however, in
road markings like yellow and white lines on the street.
Any new road markings are now done with the chemistries
(43:35):
I mentioned previously, but there are many states across the
country that still haven't gotten around replacing removing the lead
chromate based paints on the street. Not trying to nitpick.
It's common misconception of people outside the color industry, and
based on my nerd ing out with the chemistry name dropping,
I bet you can't guess what industry I'm in. Here's
a hint. I don't dance. He s needs a chemistry nerd.
(43:59):
Was that do thing thing in street? Nerds don't dance?
I think that that may be a reference. Is something
we said that I'm not picking up on him. Maybe
maybe Sean can clear it up. Yeah, we need to
follow up listener mail. All right, that's from Sean Mula.
Oh it was German. He didn't he dropped the m rail. Okay,
so more he didn't want that association. Well, thanks Sean,
(44:23):
we appreciate that. Uh, let us know about the dancing thing.
I think we're not the only ones who're curious, right, Yeah,
I'm not sure what that means. If you know what
Shawn is talking about, you can tweet to us at
s Y s K podcast. You can join us on
Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can
send us an email and stuff podcast at house stuff
works dot com, and he's always joined us at home
(44:44):
on the web Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, does it
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square Space. Set your website apart. Hey, new shows coming
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(00:23):
We're gonna be at the Wilbur Theater in Boston, where
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Boston was like one of the best shows off the
chain I think is what they called. It was very
much off the chain. And uh, we're also going back
to Washington, d C. On Saturday, October twenty nine as
part of the Benson Ball Comedy Festival. Yeah, and we're
gonna be at the Lincoln Theater again. Yeah. That was
(00:45):
off the chain as what boy. That was a great show.
So big ups to you Boston and d C. That's
why we're coming back. So tickets go on sale tomorrow Friday,
and um you can find out the information at our
square Space Live show home on the web s y
s K live dot com. And if I happen to
not have the links up for that yet, just go
(01:07):
to the Wilbur Theater website or go to the Benson
Ball or Lincoln Theater websites and get your tickets because
these are gonna be reserved seating. So if you want
to get up close and smell us, then you gotta
be Johnny on the spot. You don't want to do that.
So we look forward to seeing you guys. Uh this
wall Yep, welcome to you Stuff you should know from
(01:29):
house stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant, Jerry's
over there. So this is Stuff you should Unsolved Mysteries Edition, Yeah. Really,
are you cool with this? No? I'm leaving. Yeah. I
(01:52):
think it's great. Man. I love me a good unsolved mystery. Yeah,
and this is super sad. So it's not like I
love it and I think it's hysterical. I just I
just like unsolved mystery. What's a what's an hysterical unsolved mystery? Um? Like,
I got pants in the second grade and I don't
know who did it. That's an hysterical unsolved mystery. I
(02:16):
was just in line pants around the ankles turned around
and like everyone's like did you just go with it
and you're like, check it out, check me out of
in second crate. Yep, God for that never happened. I
made it up. Oh really yeah, it's called improv, buddy.
It's a crowd. So end scene and scene and seen.
(02:40):
Have we are established which one it is? Yeah? A
few times and nope it is Chuck. We are talking
about a family called the Solders. Um, not the Soldiers right,
not the welding technique. No, the Solders. They are a
family out of Fayetteville, West Virginia, UH of Italian extraction,
(03:03):
as we'll see, Yes, and um very much so. Like
you said, this is an unsolved mystery. They their family
just going along totally normally has turned into one of
the stranger unsolved mysteries in American history. Yeah, and certainly
in West Virginia history. Definitely. And I should say I
texted our friend Justin McElroy of the McElroy triplets. Well,
(03:29):
they're not triplets, they're there. They're brothers of my brother,
my brother and me podcast because they are from West Virginia.
And as you'll see here there's a very famous billboard
that we're going to talk about about this case and
I was like, hey, dude, do you ever do you
remember where you know seeing this thing? How far are
you from Fayettville. He said, just a couple of hours,
(03:49):
he said, but I've never heard of that. And I
was like, really, this seems like the kind of cautionary
tale that would be whispered about all over West Virginia.
I can see that. But he said he never heard
of it. And then he looked it up and said
oh wow. And I said, I that your dad knows
about it, and then he said he didn't. He didn't respond.
You didn't text him back? Answer me, No, that's right.
(04:12):
I am Facebook friends with his dad, though, should have
says yeah, ask him, Yeah, go go to the source.
That's right. So well, let's go back to the beginning.
Chuck back to that's right. That's when Georgeiros who had
become George sodder I was born in Sardinia and came
to the US and nineteen o eight as a young
(04:34):
lad of thirteen years old. Yeah, and he was a
go getter, he really was. So his He had an
older brother who traveled with him from Sardinia to New York. Um,
I guess he was like, I don't want to do this,
and right when they made it through Ellis Island, he
turned right back around and went back to Italy. Yeah,
he's I don't know, man, Go get a cup of
coffee and think it over. What I say, if you
made that ship's voyage, just mull it over for a
(04:57):
day or two. Yeah, because what if, like you're half
way back, you're like, actually I should have stayed. Yeah,
you might meet a pretty lady from Brooklyn. You see
that movie bok No great? Really? Yeah? Yeah, okay, it
sound surprised. I was a little surprised. Yeah. It was
nominated for many awards. That doesn't always mean it usually
(05:20):
means it's pretty good. No, it's Pence Brooklyn, highly recommended
about young Italian man who falls in love with an
Irish immigrant. Oh well, this has nothing to do with
this thing. No, not at all, because this man falls
in love with an Italian immigrant. That's right, right? So, um, George,
like you said, he was a bit of a go getter.
(05:41):
He's thirteen, he's on his own, literally, without any any
other family in America. It's kind of mind blowing. But
then you think back to there there, they didn't really
understand what childhood was at that point. So he's probably
like of working age and have been for years. But
it seems really weird to us now. He might have
been retiring, right. He was smoking cigars already, so he,
(06:05):
like I said, was a go getter. He started working
at on the Pennsylvania Railroad and then moved to West
Virginia to Smithers Smithers, West Virginia and worked as a
truck driver and then said, you know what, this is America.
Darn it. I didn't come here to drive a truck
for someone. I'm gonna own my own trucking business. And
(06:27):
the statue of Liberty went up, nice going king. So
he started his own trucking business. Um, and he's in
West Virginia. So in short order he starts hauling cole yeah,
coal and dirt. And it wasn't like the hugest business.
I think he did okay for himself. He did it
okay for himself, like solidly middle class. Yeah, he didn't
become like wealthy or anything. And as a matter of fact,
(06:48):
later on um a local local government official would say
that the Sauders were, um one of the best middle
class families in Fayetteville, and they had a small Italian
population in Fayetteville, which I think is why he ended
up there in his community. Yeah, and he moved there
with his wife Jenny, right, Yeah, Jenny Cipriani who he
(07:14):
met UM. She came over from Italy when she was three.
He met her historic called the music box and they
got married. And like Italian families do, they had ten kids.
Ten kids in twenty years. That's a lot of kids,
pumping them out with great regularity. And like you said,
when they moved to Fayettville, the reason they moved to
Fatville had no idea that West Virginia even had Italian
(07:36):
people in it, let alone strong Italian communities. But they
moved to Fayettville and they were part of the Italian community,
and George was well known. Again, they were a respected
middle class family there. He did pretty good for himself.
UM and he was also well known for his opinions
and everything, including politics and UM. During the forties, the
(07:57):
United States was at war with Italy and not all
of the Italian Americans were UM feeling it. On the
American side, there were a lot of disagreements over Mussolini
and the government that he was creating. UM. Among Italian Americans,
including in Fayetteville, West Virginia, and George in particular, hated
(08:18):
Mussolini and very frequently spoke out about him and would
get in arguments with some of the locals who who
felt differently about Mussolini. And uh, I guess there were
some hard feelings here there, but he doesn't seem to
have taken them seriously very much. No, And we mentioned that, Um,
if it sounds like we're setting something up for later,
we indeed are, so just tuck that little fact away. Um,
(08:40):
and then can we fast forward in time? Yeah? Too?
Uh Christmas Eve? Christmas Eve? Right, so, um, here's what happens.
It's Christmas Eve. Um. As his tradition, in some households,
you can open up a few gifts on Christmas Eve. Yeah,
(09:00):
so this is what happened. They opened up some presents
comes time for Betty by and five of the children,
Maurice fourteen, Martha twelve, Louis or Louie ten, Genie or
Jenny as that was a little confusing because that's the
mom's name. Eight years old. And Betty said, can we
(09:21):
please stay up late and play with these new toys? Yeah,
they're older, sister Marian had. She worked at a five
and diameond Town two miles down the road, and she
had surprised her younger brothers and sisters with some toys
that they had not been expecting. That's right, and they
were very happy. So they asked mom if they could
stay up. Yeah, and the older, the elder, Jenny, said yeah,
(09:43):
I guess you can stay up. Turn out the lights,
locked the doors before you go to bed. I'm going
to hit the rack with your dad. And are two
year old daughter Sylvia, twenty three year old John and
sixteen year old George Jr. Were I guess they were
just ready for bed too. And then if you're thinking
there's one missing child, he is away in the military,
(10:03):
the eldest. Yeah, fighting either Mussolini or Hitler or to Joe,
one of those guys. So he's away. Uh. And I
could not, for the life of me find that guy's name. So, Um,
the mom goes to bed, Jenny goes to bed, and Uh.
The dad, George and his two next oldest sons who
(10:26):
had been working with him that day, they'd all gone
to bed about ten. Um, what time did the mom
go to bed? At eleven? Something like that? Yeah, but
she leaves those five youngest children, Um and Marian, they're
older sister who I think was seventeen at the time,
downstairs when she goes to bed Um. And then at
about twelve thirty on Christmas Morne, because remember that was
(10:49):
Christmas Eve, about twelve thirty at night, the phone rings,
and um, this is not an era where and this
kind of to me goes to show these people were
doing all right. They had a phone in in West Virginia.
They may have been the only people in West Virginia
with the phone in nineteen I'm just saying, I don't
(11:10):
think everybody had a phone in West Virginia, n so
they certainly didn't have one at their bedside. So Jenny,
the mom has to get up to answer the phone,
and on the other line she hears a woman asking
for somebody she didn't know or recognized, and in the
background there's obviously a party going on. There's laughter, there's
clinking of glasses, and uh, Jenny says, I don't know
(11:32):
who you're talking about. You have the wrong number, and
the woman laughs weirdly and hangs up. Yeah, I'm gonna
go ahead and come out and say I think this
means nothing, and it's total coincidence. So supposedly they tracked
that woman down and she said it was just a
wrong number. Potal coincidence, that's what I think. But think
about that though, Like, had that not happened, a lot
(11:53):
of other stuff would have gone unnoticed. Right, it's a
big deal. So before she goes back to bed, she
noticed the lights are on downstairs. She said, you know,
turn the lights off, locked the door before you go
to bed. So one of her kids is on the
couch asleep. She's like, wait a minute, the doors unlocked,
the lights are on. Um, they shouldn't have done that.
So let me lock the doors and turn off the lights.
(12:14):
And she leaves the one that's asleep on the couch asleep.
It was the one that got her to sleepy time
on the couch. That's fine. But those five younger ones
who've been playing with their toys, they were not ordered
to be found, so mom just assumed they went upstairs
to bed. So she goes back to bed, and then
like an hour later she's awoken by like a thump
(12:36):
on the roof. Yeah, and she falls back asleep again. Well,
it sounded like a heavy thump and a sliding down
of the roof. This was just something heavy head landed
on it and then slid off, and she just went
back to sleep. Very important matter. She probably figured it
was a reindeer or something like that at being Christmas,
you never know. Uh. The next time she woke up,
(12:58):
she woke up to panic and chaos because their house
was on fire. And Chuck, we'll talk about the fire
right after this. All right, dude, the house is on fire,
(13:34):
that's right. So Sylvia a litt two year old Sylvia
is in their room with her the parents, so they
get her out obviously with them because she's in the crib. Uh.
And then seventeen year old Marion and twenty year old
John and sixth year old George Jr. Are all outside
and safe right at this point. So everyone is out
(13:55):
except for these five other kids, right. And they were
the top floor of the house, I believe, in two
different rooms, and the only way down is this one
single staircase. And George tried to go back into the house.
He broke through a window, cut his arm quite badly.
Um getting into through in through the window or opening
(14:16):
the door. Um, and runs inside and the entire downstairs
floor is totally engulfed in flame and smoke. He can't
see anything, but he can see that there's no way
he can go up the staircase or anyone can make
it down the staircase, So he runs back outside of
the house to try to figure out another way to
get up to those kids on the on the top floor. Yeah,
(14:38):
and here's an interesting point, Um. One of the relatives
of I think it was the guy who ended up
marrying the youngest daughter later in life. UM Sylvia said
they did a lot of research on this, and he
said the original police report said that the very first
statement said that the two sons, John and George, who
got out, said they actually ran into the other kid's
rooms and physically took them awake. And then later on
(15:02):
in interviews they said no, they just called out to them, UM,
and assume they heard. But it's still is a mystery
as to whether or not that really happened. Police will
say the first statement is usually the accurate one, UM,
but that's just speculation. So from what I understand, the
family rationalized that later on by saying that the two
(15:25):
boys probably felt very guilty, and they said that they
did what they wished. They had or felt that they
should have done. That makes sense, and that their revisions
later on were actually the factual ones that they tried
to rouse their siblings by just shouting up the stairs.
I can buy that. Um. So Papa tries to get in,
cuts himself really bad. Then he says, wait a minute,
(15:48):
I have this ladder that leans up against the house.
Always always let me go grab that ladders not they're
very weird. It is very weird. They would be found
in a ditch like from the house later on, and
later on witnesses supposedly saw dude stealing it, uh from
the garage. But there's so many things that people say
(16:09):
about this case that it's hard to know what's true
and what was invented. That is true that they saw
a guy a dude, well they report that they saw
a guy. Well that guy the guy actually was found
and was arrested and charged for stealing and never questioned
about the actual fire. The guy that stole the ladder. Yeah, okay,
so they he says. The dad says, let me get
(16:30):
my trucks, my big uh coal Holland trucks and pull
because those are tall. Let me pull that next to
the house. Climb up on that. Uh, neither one of
the trucks start, even though they've been using them to
work earlier that day. Yeah. So the thinking by the
cops and everyone else pretty much is in the panic
he and his son flooded the engines trying to get
him started, and that they wouldn't start. Yeah, but it
(16:52):
became yet another like fishy detail that made this family
suspect like something really weird happened here. Yeah, and then
later there was a totally don't understand the whole engine
removal theory. So it doesn't make any sense that guy
who stole the ladder was caught stealing a block and
(17:15):
tackle that you would use to remove engines. Yeah, that
doesn't make any sense. But it doesn't mean like he
messed with their car or used that block and tackle
to do anything to the engines. They probably just flooded
him that one. I'm I'm in Green Mountain. So this
this family they're watching helplessly as the house is going
up in flames that was burned to the ground in
about forty five minutes, ostensibly with the children trapped inside. Yeah,
(17:40):
and if you think why didn't the fire the fire
trucks come the Faettville Fire Department. Uh you know, it
was was Fayetteville, West Virginia, Christmas. It was Christmas night
or morning, I guess. At this point, um, uh you know,
one of the daughters went to a neighbor's house called
the fire department. No operators on duty even right, And
(18:02):
another neighbor who saw this didn't have a phone at
their house, so they went to the local tavern and
they called the operator to report the fire too, and
they couldn't get the operator either operator was probably at
home sleeping for Christmas, that's right. So eventually someone drives
and literally physically tracks down uh fire Chief F. J. Morris,
(18:24):
who does not come out smelling well in this, Well
he doesn't. He said, no, I can't drive the fire
truck as the fire chief. And the way that they
don't even have a siren. The way that they alerted
the fire department was it's called a phone tree. They
just start calling one another, then they called the next person,
which made even the last sense because again the statters
were the only people in West Virginia with a phone
(18:45):
in their house. That's not true. Uh So eventually, seven
hours later, at eight a m. The fire truck arrives
to find a smoldering pile of ash, and a lot
of people are like, well, clearly the fire department was
paid off or told to halt. From what I gather,
it was sheer ineptitude. And also the sense I think
(19:06):
the fire marshal or fire chief defended himself later saying, yeah,
he said I couldn't drive the fire truckside to wait
for somebody who could. And also that house went up
so fast there was no there wasn't any need for
us to get there in any kind of hurry. Well,
I mean that's probably true. He also said burned in
like between thirty and forty five minutes. Yeah, if you're
(19:27):
a fire chief, that's not what you want to say,
you know, like who cares when we get there? Also,
one of the firemen who showed up was Jenny Satter's brother,
So it's not like there was this conspiracy to among
the fire department necessarily, although that is a common belief
in people who pay attention to this case. Is so,
what they find eight am as a house burn't to
(19:48):
the ground, what they don't find are any remnants of
those five children. Yeah, and here in is where the
mystery really kicks in the family starts like paying attention
to little weird details. At first, they just assumed that
the kids have they're they're just totally gone. They were
(20:09):
totally burned up. Well that's what the fire chief said.
He was like, there's no remains whatsoever because it burned
them to nothing. They did like a cursory examination of
the rubble. They did find some other stuff, like they
found appliances that were recognizable. They found a couple other things,
but they never found any of the kids. Um. And
they took the fire chief's word at face value and said, Okay,
(20:32):
well our kids are in there. We can't bear to
the side of this any longer. So George went and
got a bunch of dirt and buried this site in
about five ft of fill dirt and decided to plant
a memorial garden there on the side of the house. Fire. Yeah,
this is on January two, so that he wasn't supposed
to do this. They're supposed to leave it open to
(20:53):
continue to investigate. Um. The state police inspector said it
was faulty wiring. It's now covered in dirt. Um And
so now the family has just left alone saying what
happened to our children? Are they were they in there? Right?
So that that when they buried the place and dirt,
they assumed that the children were still in there and
(21:14):
this was there. They're grave now, they were never going
to be found. Um. But then, like you said, they
started thinking about weird details that emerged. Right. One of
the first ones was the idea that it was faulty wiring.
George basically knew for a fact that it wasn't faulty wiring.
He'd recently had um an electric stove installed and just
(21:35):
to make sure again there he was doing pretty well,
just to make sure that the house didn't burn down
with this new fangled electric stove, he had the wiring
in the house redone and then he had it inspected
by the power company who sent out an inspector and
said they did a good job. The wiring is fine.
So he basically knew almost for a fact that it
wasn't faulty wiring in the house. Yeah. Not only that
(21:57):
after the fire started, when they were outside, there were
still lights on in the house, right, So remember Jenny
came down and turned out the lights. She left the
Christmas tree lights on, and while the house was burning.
The Christmas tree was still the Christmas tree lights are on,
which must have been like a really ghastly thing to see,
you know. Uh. Speaking of the wiring, there was a
(22:18):
point a few months earlier, and this is definitely a
strange thing, when this guy showed up. He was a stranger,
no one knew him, and he asked about, you know,
working as a driver, and he didn't have any work
for him, but he was sort of just I guess.
They had the conversation outdoors, wandered around at the back
of his house and said, you know what you're wiring
here at your fuse box is going to cause a
(22:39):
fire someday. And George thought, well, that's a really weird
thing to say, because not only did I have it
just inspected and it's fine, it's just a strange thing
for you to say, Mr stranger, get off my property
pretty much, but take the CONNOTI very nice, but weird
and disconcerting after the fact. Obviously, sure he didn't think
(22:59):
anything of at the time other than that's a weird
thing to say. Yeah. Um. Another fishy thing that happened
that really kind of stuck out in retrospect was the
life insurance salesman. Right, a life insurance salesman came through
and um tried to sell George some life insurance policies
for his children, and George didn't bite, and the guy
(23:21):
got I rate and his quote was kind of weird. Actually, Yeah,
he said, your house is going to go up and
smoke your g D house. Yeah, your children are going
to be destroyed. And then here's here's where it really
gets weird. He says, you will be repaid for the
dirty things you've been saying about Mussolini. And George just
(23:45):
went like, get off my property. Yeah, just the usual. Yea.
So remember we said that he was outspoken about Mussolina
and his politics. Um, clearly this got around to this dude,
and uh, it's just a weird dis consort any thing
to say, especially after these kids look like they may
have perished in this fire. Yeah, especially if he didn't
(24:05):
like make a big deal out of it at the time.
Was this like a normal business attempt in West Virginia
among the Italian community, Like your kids are gonna die,
You'll be repaid for what you've been saying about Mussolini.
Good day to you. I don't know, I'm sure that's
not in the handbook. What's even fishier, though, Chuck, is
that same guy served on the coroner's inquest jury that
(24:29):
ruled that the fire was the result of faulty wiring.
It all gets a little weird, uh, And then one other, well,
not one other, quite a few other weird things. Um.
One of the older sons said that, you know what,
right before Christmas, there was a dude parked right across
from our house, watching the school bus and watching the
(24:49):
younger kids get off the school bus and come to
the house. And it was clear that he was sitting
there watching us, and it was strange. Yeah, he was
in a van. Bet he was. He would have been
if it were like the seventies, all that sickos and seventies. So, Chuck,
let's take another break, because the mystery is about to
deepen even more. The plot thickens, et cetera. All right,
(25:39):
so thanks for getting a little weird. And all of
a sudden, now Jenny and George the solder Um parents
start thinking like, wait a minute, are our kids actually dead?
Who was the last person to see them alive? That
if if John and George Jr. To be believed they
(25:59):
were the lasked ones to see him alive because they
went and shook them awake, But they may not have
actually done that well, and they changed her story to
say that they didn't. So then technically Mary in, the
seventeen year old older sister who brought the toys and
was downstairs with the kids while they were playing with them,
would have been the last to see them alive. But
(26:21):
I could never find anybody pressing her for what her
story was. So the assumption that I'm going on is
that she just fell asleep on the couch, and when
she fell asleep, the kids were still downstairs. But the
solders are starting to wonder, like, wait a minute, where
those kids even in the house when the house went down,
And they they're backed up by the idea that no
remains were found. Yeah, that's the one that really is
(26:42):
bothering them. They're like, something should have been found. Yeah,
and um, all of a sudden, this this story is
starting to get national attention in the press, and the
Sawders later on would say, George would say, if they
were burned in the house, if they died in that
house fire, I want to be convinced. And if they weren't,
I want to know what happened to them. Um, and
(27:03):
this kind of kicked off like a lifelong quest for
for George and Jenny UM. And in nine to try
to literally get to the bottom of it, they hired
a guy to come in and investigate, to basically excavate
the memorial site and look for the remains of the children,
and he didn't find it. Well. Yeah, and previous to that,
(27:25):
they did their own experiments with burning things, animal bones
and uh, this sort of self experimentation to see what
would remained. And there was always bones of course. Yeah,
they could never get them to just to to turn
into ash. Uh. They went to a crematorium even and said,
you know, we're probably just not even getting missing hot
enough and they said, well, actually, at two thousand degrees
(27:47):
it would take two hours to completely burn a body up.
Your house didn't get nearly that hot and it only
burned for thirty to forty five minutes, so there should
definitely be human remains like all over the place. Jenny
kind of really turned into like this citizen scientist. Actually,
she taught herself forensics as far as burning of remains goes.
(28:09):
She um looked into other fires. There was another fire
that happened around the same time that killed seven people. Uh,
and the remains of all seven people were found in
the in the burned out house as well. So She's
like getting more and more convinced, and so is George
that their kids are still alive. So in ninety nine
(28:29):
they had a a forensic investigator of some sort come
and do an investigation and an excavation of the site.
And he turned up some stuff. He found some coins,
found a dictionary that had belonged to the kids, and
he did actually find some vertebrae, and he had the
vertebrates sent off to the Smithsonian Institution actually, and they
(28:52):
investigated this and issued a report about the bones. Yes
they did. They said the human bones consist of four
lumbar vertebrae belonging to one individual. The transfers recess of fused,
so the age of this individual death should have been
sixteen or seventeen top limit twenty two UM. And on
this basis, the bones show greater skelepter maturation than what
(29:14):
I would expect from a fourteen year old who was
the oldest missing child. So basically it was either placed
there by someone, it was not charred. It was not
a part of the fire. It wasn't one of the kids,
and it was either place there by someone or brought
it happened to be in that dirt. Can you imagine that? Like,
(29:36):
think about that. George went and got a bunch of
filled dirt to come and fill in this memorial site
and ended up disturbing a grave, like maybe an unmarked
grave somewhere that didn't find. I didn't think that was remarkable.
That's crazy. If you went and got filled dirt and
you found bones, human bones, Yeah, I wouldn't. Can you
tell by the pitch of my voice that that is crazy?
(29:58):
I can uh. The The weird thing that they found
was a uh this green rubber casing that later they
found out it was a part of some kind of
bomb um an incendiary device. And some people think that
that's a weird thing to have on your property house
(30:19):
that just burned. And they think this could have been
the sound that Jeanie heard in the middle of the
night when something hit the roof and roll off. Who knows,
but she didn't hear a big boom. It seemed like
if it was a bomb, that would have been pretty obvious. Yeah,
But I mean if it was like a napalm bomment
doesn't necessarily explode it just like nites threads. Yeah, so
(30:41):
they don't make noise. I don't know. We'll go experiment
with one. UM. So that that objection speculation, right. That
Smithsonian report actually said it's really curious that that the
bodies weren't recovered or found in this pretty good excavation
that you guys hired this dude to do UM and
(31:03):
it actually set off a larger investigation in West Virginia.
The governor and the UM I think the state police
superintendent both said, what you guys are doing is hopeless.
The cases closed. Your kids died in that fire. The
case closed, and the solders were like, no, we're gonna
go hire a private detective. And they did hire a
(31:25):
private detective. And he started sniffing around town and UM
heard a weird rumor that the police that the fire
chief had said that he actually found a heart and
had put it in a box and buried it at
the site, which is a weird thing to do, it is,
and he went to the guy and was like, you
gotta show me where this thing is buried. Uh, he
(31:47):
does he actually dig it up and they find a
sort of I wouldn't say fresh beef liver, fresh ish
but not burned. And then he admits, you know what,
I put this there hoping that someone would find this
and just think it was a body part of one
of their kids. We can close the case, very ham
fisted way of closing a case. Jerk. Yeah, And it's
(32:10):
just I don't know why he thought that would work.
I don't want to say he's dumb, but it was
a pretty dumb thing to do. Uh. So previous to this,
all sorts of weird claims had started to fly in
reportings of sightings all over the country. One woman was
operating a tour stop about fifty miles west and she said, no,
(32:32):
I saw them the morning after the fire, served in breakfast.
Uh they got into a car with Florida license plates.
Um and and trust me it was your kids. So
that freaks him out of course. Uh. Then there was
a hotel not too far in Charleston, and apparently late
(32:53):
at night, the I think four kids had checked in
accompanied by some adults, two women and two men, all Italian.
And she said I tried to talk to the kids
and tried to be nice, and the dudes freaked out
and started talking Italian and like shuffled the kids out
of there real quick. Yeah, and they left early the
next morning, super super sketchy. Some ladies said that she
(33:14):
saw the kids looking out of a car that was
driving by as the house was on fire. Um. And
then there were even more tips that kind of poured
in over the years, um, including one uh that said
that they were actually being held by a distant relative
of Jenny's. Um. Someone said that Martha was in a
(33:37):
convent out west I believe yep. In nineteen sixty seven,
they got a letter from a lady in Houston said that, uh,
the oldest boy or one of the boys Lewis had
lived in that town, got drunk one night and basically
told everyone who he was. Um. They actually went and
in fact, George Solder and sometimes Jenny, he would go
all over the country tracking down these leads and always
(34:00):
sadly comes back empty handed. When he went to Texas,
he got down there, met with the guy and it
wasn't his son, obviously, but um, you know I had
to go back and tell his wife, like another another
zero in this one. Yeah, and like it's really sad
when you step back and look at it from the
perspective of the parents, like, they were not convinced that
(34:23):
their kids died in this fire. They were open to
the possibility, but they weren't convinced, and they wanted to
know for the rest of their lives. So, Yeah, he
would go all over the country chasing down leads. And
the reason he would do this, Chuck, is because he
got no help whatsoever from the local authorities. They The
Sawders actually wrote to the FBI and got a reply
from j Edgar Hoover himself that said, I'd love to help,
(34:45):
but this is out of our jurisdiction. If your local
cops will invite us to help, we'd be happy to
help investigate. And the local cops said, thanks anyway, and
turn the FBI down. I'm I can't imagine how frustrating
that must have been for the Sawders to see that,
to see Jagger Hoover say we'll help out, but these
guys have to invite us and get turned down for that,
(35:05):
you know. Yeah, so that, I mean it was the
kind of their life obsession, and obsession is a really
good good way to put it. There's a story of
George seeing a picture in a paper of a ballet
class in Manhattan, and he became convinced that one of
the girls in the picture was his daughter, Betty, and
he drove to Manhattan and demanded to see his daughter,
(35:26):
and the parents are the school was like, you need
to get out of here, dude, you've lost your mind.
This is our kid. No, you can't see our kid.
So he had to go back home after that. So
it gets super weird. Jenny comes home, gets a male
and sees a letter addressed to her, not to the
family or to her and her husband. To Jenny Sawder
(35:48):
opens it up post markedin Kentucky, no return address, and
there was a photo of an Italian man. Well looked
at the Italian in his mid twenties, so the age pits,
and on the back of it said, in handwriting, Louis Solder,
I love brother Frankie. I l I l boys A
little boys A nine zero, one, three two or three five,
(36:15):
no idea, the most weird, mysterious thing you could imagine.
And I looked at a picture. They were like, this
very well could be our son. It looks a lot
like him. It looks more like him than I do.
I didn't think it was him. I was like, the
eyebrows didn't match to me, the nose didn't match. But
you can never tell a kid from nine to twenty five,
you know, because this is like almost twenty he might
(36:37):
have looked like you know, it could be true, he
might have looked different enough. Um. But yeah, that mystery
just was never ever solved. And so back in the fifties,
like after they started getting shut down by the local
cops and then the state cops and everybody, they you know,
they started to take matters in their own hands. And
one of the things they did was erect that billboard
that you asked Justin McElroy about. It became kind of famous.
(37:02):
Aside from the mcilroys, everybody in West Virginia knew about it, um.
And it was a billboard on the Solder's property with pictures,
big pictures of the five children, um, with their name
and age and then basically uh rundown of what the
family thought may have happened to them. And it was
at first they offered a five thousand dollar reward and
(37:23):
then up to the ten thousand dollars. Yeah, and they
owned it. So it was there for I mean until
the eighties until um, so George died in and then
Jenny died in nine and after Jenny died, they took
the billboard down. That's right. What other reports came in.
One bus driver said he claimed he saw someone throwing
(37:43):
quote fireballs onto the house. Some of the stuff reeks that.
I was pretty wasted at the time. Some of the
stuff reeks have like that after the fact, stuff that
people kind of invent like wait a minute, saw I
got throwing fireballs? But there was verified after the fact weirdness.
Oh yeah, for sure. You know that keeps this this
(38:03):
case alive. Like one thing we didn't mention their telephone
line was cut. Yeah, and some people say it was
a guy that stole the ladder, climbed up cut the
phone lines so they couldn't reach anyone. Uh But I
mean you said they found the guy. Did he did
they ask him about that? From what I understand, they
didn't ask him anything. They just find him for for theft,
ladder theft and block and tackle theft. Oh. The other
(38:27):
weird thing is um they hired another private investigator at
one point to track down where that letter came from.
The picture of Lewis and this guy just disappears. Yeah,
he may have just been like a CD gum too,
you know, maybe and just took their money. Quite possibly,
or maybe he was murdered because he found out the truth.
I don't know, but they said that he literally vanished
(38:48):
like they couldn't ever reach him again. I think it's
likely he's a CD gum. She we just took some
desperate famili's money and hopefully he's burning in hell. Did
the mafia rub him out? Because that became one of
the leading theories that George was approached by the mafia,
rebuffed their advances and um that was it. They they
took the kids. Uh well yeah, And supposedly it's not
(39:11):
just a total flight of fancy. Apparently the mafia was
really big in the coal business and the trucking business
in the area at that time, so it is entirely
possible he was approached by the mafia. And he does
sound like the kind of guy who tell him to
like go stick it. Yeah, you know, he also may
have made some enemies with the Mussolini cracks. What else
(39:32):
was there? Well, one thing that that was lost to
time was that vertebrae. Even though it's almost that it
was not one of the kids. At least if they
still had that, they could DNA test it now. Yeah,
but of course they can't. Yeah. And so little little
baby Sylvia who is two maybe three at the time,
I think two is is what I've seen most um
(39:56):
is the last surviving Solder child. And she said, like,
these of her earliest memories are of that night of
the fire and seeing her father like losing his mind,
trying to get in his house and bleeding. Um. And
she promised her parents that she would keep the story alive,
so she she talks about it a lot um. She
goes onto the online like online sleuth websites that talk
(40:20):
about the case, and like kind of feeds information to
people and tries to keep the story alive. It's just crazy, man,
You go to bed, you wake up with a fire,
and five of your five of your children are just vanished.
And there's no way they burned up to nothing. That's
just impossible. So I read this blog post. Like a
MPR person named Stacy Horn did a piece on it,
(40:44):
like years back, and she wrote this really long blog
post about stuff that had been cut from the from
the piece, and I got the imperson they were trying
to play up the mystery, and she said that she
personally came to believe that the children did die in
the fire, and that there was plenty of evidence that
supports that idea, but that the media tends to play
up the other. But she also said that there's enough
(41:07):
weird stuff surrounding it that if she learned that they
were still alive, she wouldn't be shocked. Well, yeah, and
the fact that they never got in touch, because you
you know, it's not like these kids were strange from
their parents or I mean, they were a tight knit
family by all accounts, right, And the family rationalized that
by saying that their family was in danger and they
were trying to protect their parents by never getting into
(41:29):
which would kind of align with the mafia theory. Yeah.
Just terrible man, lose half your family without a trace. Yeah. Uh,
if you want to know more about this, there's plenty
of sites on the internet that have stuff. But we
found this really great article that we bass on by
Karen Abbott. It was called The Children Who Went Up
and Smoke. Yeah, the NPR wents good and Stacy Hornson
(41:51):
is pretty cool too. You know, it's weird. Does I
have a good friend named Stacy Horne. It's not the
same one. No, But when I clicked, I was like,
oh interesting, and I clicked on her thing and it
said stay seehorn like cat. She's a cat person. My
friend Stacy is a noted cat person and it's not
the same person, you know, And I was like, weird doppelganger? Yeah, no, no,
(42:12):
maybe the name doppelganger. Yeah, I'd have to see her face.
I think I said something, well, how about the search bar?
And since that, since search far, it's time for listener mail, Chuck,
handy dandy search bar. People said that they miss that.
I used to say that the handy search bar. Yeah.
I don't think I said handy dandy? Did I? Maybe
(42:34):
Jerry said yes, that's back when she listened, so I
would take that better word. Hey guys, huge fan of
the show. Two exclamation points. Yeah, I've been listening to
your show for about a year now, and I turned
my wife and kids onto the program, and they're all hooked.
We had a stuff you should Know marathon even in
(42:54):
our car right back to Chicago from Athens, Georgia. We
look forward to your new episodes and are burning through
them quickly to pick up the pace. You guys made
reference to lead paints being on roadside signs. That is
highly unlikely, says Sean. Uh. Those signs are changed quite
frequently in her base, predominantly Uh. And then he goes
(43:15):
on to name like eight different types of pigment chemistries
which I won't read out, and other mixtures of iron oxides. Uh.
He said. Lead chromates can still be found, however, in
road markings like yellow and white lines on the street.
Any new road markings are now done with the chemistries
(43:35):
I mentioned previously, but there are many states across the
country that still haven't gotten around replacing removing the lead
chromate based paints on the street. Not trying to nitpick.
It's common misconception of people outside the color industry, and
based on my nerd ing out with the chemistry name dropping,
I bet you can't guess what industry I'm in. Here's
a hint. I don't dance. He s needs a chemistry nerd.
(43:59):
Was that do thing thing in street? Nerds don't dance?
I think that that may be a reference. Is something
we said that I'm not picking up on him. Maybe
maybe Sean can clear it up. Yeah, we need to
follow up listener mail. All right, that's from Sean Mula.
Oh it was German. He didn't he dropped the m rail. Okay,
so more he didn't want that association. Well, thanks Sean,
(44:23):
we appreciate that. Uh, let us know about the dancing thing.
I think we're not the only ones who're curious, right, Yeah,
I'm not sure what that means. If you know what
Shawn is talking about, you can tweet to us at
s Y s K podcast. You can join us on
Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can
send us an email and stuff podcast at house stuff
works dot com, and he's always joined us at home
(44:44):
on the web Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, does it
house stuff works dot com.
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