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Tales of the twisted
podcast
The Sodder Children: The Christmas Eve Mystery
Episode Title:
Full Transcript
Welcome to Tales of the Twisted.
True stories of the strange, weird, bizarre, and eerie.
Each episode reveals real events that blur the line between tragedy and mystery—stories that remind us that sometimes the truth is the most haunting part of all.
Let's get into the story of the Sodder Children… the fire that erased a family.
It was Christmas Eve 1945 in Fayetteville, West Virginia, a small Appalachian town where families still gathered by the fire, exchanging gifts and stories before midnight mass.
In a modest two-story home on a quiet rural road, George and Jenny Sodder tucked their ten children into bed. The Sodders were well-known in the community—George, an Italian immigrant with a trucking company; Jenny, a devoted mother raising their large, lively family.
But that night, something strange was already brewing.
Around 12:30 a.m., the phone rang. Jenny answered it.
A woman’s voice—one she didn’t recognize—asked for a person Jenny had never heard of.
Behind her, laughter and clinking glasses echoed, like a party taking place.
When Jenny said the caller had the wrong number, the woman let out a soft, strange laugh before hanging up.
Jenny brushed it off, but as she headed back to bed, she noticed the downstairs lights were still on, the curtains open, the door unlocked. Marion, one of her older daughters, was asleep on the couch. Assuming the rest of the children had gone upstairs, she turned out the lights, locked the door, and went to bed.
It was the last normal moment the Sodder family would ever know.
At 1:00 a.m., Jenny woke to the smell of smoke.
She ran into the hallway as thick black smoke rolled down the stairwell. George shouted for the children. In minutes, flames engulfed the living room. Jenny, George, and four children—Marion, Sylvia, John, and George Jr.—escaped into the freezing night.
But five children remained inside:
Maurice (14), Martha (12), Louis (9), Jennie (8), and Betty (5).
George tried to go back inside, but the staircase was already gone. He smashed a window, slicing his arm, then ran to grab his ladder… but the ladder he always kept beside the house was missing.
Frantic, he tried moving his two work trucks to the side of the house to climb through a window. Both trucks—perfectly functional just the day before—refused to start.
The fire raged uncontrollably.
Neighbors tried to call the fire department, but the operator didn’t answer. The Fayetteville Fire Department didn’t arrive until 8 a.m.—nearly 7 hours later.
The house had collapsed into ash and embers.
Everyone assumed the five children had perished. But when the ashes cooled and investigators began searching, they found something disturbing:
There were **no remains.**
No bones.
No skull fragments.
Not even teeth.
Experts later said house fires do not cremate bodies completely—not even close. Something should have remained.
Nothing did.
The state fire marshal ruled the cause “faulty wiring.”
But George knew the wiring had been inspected recently. Even stranger—the house lights remained on during the fire, something that could not happen if electrical wiring had failed.
More clues emerged.
A telephone repairman said the phone line hadn’t burned—it had been **cut**.
A neighbor saw someone stealing equipment from the Sodders’ property that night.
Another saw a man parked on the road watching the fire.
One woman reported seeing the five Sodder children alive—watching the blaze from a passing car.
More reports came in from around the country:
—Children resembling the Sodders seen at a Charleston tourist stop.
—A waitress claimed she served them breakfast with two well-dressed Italian men.
—A girl matching Betty’s description was reportedly living in a convent in St. Louis.
All leads faded into dead ends.
In 1947, George and Jenny put up a huge billboard on Route 16 near their home. It read:
“**Five Sodder Children Missing Since Fire — December 24, 1945. Help Us Find Them.**”
For nearly 40 years, that billboard became a national mystery landmark.
In 1967, Jenny received a strange envelope with no return address. Inside was a photo of a young man in his twenties with dark hair and deep eyes—along with this message:
“**Louis Sodder. I love brother Frankie.**”
The resemblance to her missing son Louis was chilling.
The investigator they hired to trace the photo disappeared and was never heard from again.
Some theories suggest the children were kidnapped due to George’s outspoken anti-Mussolini views, making enemies in the local Italian community.
Others suspect organized crime.
Still others believe the fire was staged to cover a coordinated abduction.
Whatever happened, five children vanished without a trace—no remains, no answers.
George died in 1969 still searching. Jenny passed in 1989, never giving up hope.
The surviving Sodder children continued the search into old age.
To this day, the Sodder case remains one of America’s most haunting unsolved mysteries.
You've been listening to Tales of the Twisted—true stories of the strange, weird, bizarre, and eerie.
If this story left you haunted, follow the show wherever you listen and share it with someone who loves the mysterious and unexplained. Because sometimes the answers we seek are already gone… burned away with the past.
True stories of the strange, weird, bizarre, and eerie.
Each episode reveals real events that blur the line between tragedy and mystery—stories that remind us that sometimes the truth is the most haunting part of all.
Let's get into the story of the Sodder Children… the fire that erased a family.
It was Christmas Eve 1945 in Fayetteville, West Virginia, a small Appalachian town where families still gathered by the fire, exchanging gifts and stories before midnight mass.
In a modest two-story home on a quiet rural road, George and Jenny Sodder tucked their ten children into bed. The Sodders were well-known in the community—George, an Italian immigrant with a trucking company; Jenny, a devoted mother raising their large, lively family.
But that night, something strange was already brewing.
Around 12:30 a.m., the phone rang. Jenny answered it.
A woman’s voice—one she didn’t recognize—asked for a person Jenny had never heard of.
Behind her, laughter and clinking glasses echoed, like a party taking place.
When Jenny said the caller had the wrong number, the woman let out a soft, strange laugh before hanging up.
Jenny brushed it off, but as she headed back to bed, she noticed the downstairs lights were still on, the curtains open, the door unlocked. Marion, one of her older daughters, was asleep on the couch. Assuming the rest of the children had gone upstairs, she turned out the lights, locked the door, and went to bed.
It was the last normal moment the Sodder family would ever know.
At 1:00 a.m., Jenny woke to the smell of smoke.
She ran into the hallway as thick black smoke rolled down the stairwell. George shouted for the children. In minutes, flames engulfed the living room. Jenny, George, and four children—Marion, Sylvia, John, and George Jr.—escaped into the freezing night.
But five children remained inside:
Maurice (14), Martha (12), Louis (9), Jennie (8), and Betty (5).
George tried to go back inside, but the staircase was already gone. He smashed a window, slicing his arm, then ran to grab his ladder… but the ladder he always kept beside the house was missing.
Frantic, he tried moving his two work trucks to the side of the house to climb through a window. Both trucks—perfectly functional just the day before—refused to start.
The fire raged uncontrollably.
Neighbors tried to call the fire department, but the operator didn’t answer. The Fayetteville Fire Department didn’t arrive until 8 a.m.—nearly 7 hours later.
The house had collapsed into ash and embers.
Everyone assumed the five children had perished. But when the ashes cooled and investigators began searching, they found something disturbing:
There were **no remains.**
No bones.
No skull fragments.
Not even teeth.
Experts later said house fires do not cremate bodies completely—not even close. Something should have remained.
Nothing did.
The state fire marshal ruled the cause “faulty wiring.”
But George knew the wiring had been inspected recently. Even stranger—the house lights remained on during the fire, something that could not happen if electrical wiring had failed.
More clues emerged.
A telephone repairman said the phone line hadn’t burned—it had been **cut**.
A neighbor saw someone stealing equipment from the Sodders’ property that night.
Another saw a man parked on the road watching the fire.
One woman reported seeing the five Sodder children alive—watching the blaze from a passing car.
More reports came in from around the country:
—Children resembling the Sodders seen at a Charleston tourist stop.
—A waitress claimed she served them breakfast with two well-dressed Italian men.
—A girl matching Betty’s description was reportedly living in a convent in St. Louis.
All leads faded into dead ends.
In 1947, George and Jenny put up a huge billboard on Route 16 near their home. It read:
“**Five Sodder Children Missing Since Fire — December 24, 1945. Help Us Find Them.**”
For nearly 40 years, that billboard became a national mystery landmark.
In 1967, Jenny received a strange envelope with no return address. Inside was a photo of a young man in his twenties with dark hair and deep eyes—along with this message:
“**Louis Sodder. I love brother Frankie.**”
The resemblance to her missing son Louis was chilling.
The investigator they hired to trace the photo disappeared and was never heard from again.
Some theories suggest the children were kidnapped due to George’s outspoken anti-Mussolini views, making enemies in the local Italian community.
Others suspect organized crime.
Still others believe the fire was staged to cover a coordinated abduction.
Whatever happened, five children vanished without a trace—no remains, no answers.
George died in 1969 still searching. Jenny passed in 1989, never giving up hope.
The surviving Sodder children continued the search into old age.
To this day, the Sodder case remains one of America’s most haunting unsolved mysteries.
You've been listening to Tales of the Twisted—true stories of the strange, weird, bizarre, and eerie.
If this story left you haunted, follow the show wherever you listen and share it with someone who loves the mysterious and unexplained. Because sometimes the answers we seek are already gone… burned away with the past.
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