By: Shane Lambert
The original time of writing: January 26th, 2025
The case of the missing Sodder children is one of the enduring missing people mysteries in America. On Christmas Eve and in the time frame leading up to that night in 1945, there were some strange occurrences at a West Virginia home belonging to George and Jennie Sodder. What resulted was a house fire and five missing children, a mystery that remains unsolved nearly 80 years later.
Did the children die in the house fire or were they kidnapped? The theories on what happened to them seem only to toggle between these two options.
I watched a review of this mystery on The Infographics Show's YouTube channel tonight. They made this episode on February 23rd, 2024. It's a good and short episode on the topic. I like the YouTube channel for reviewing facts in missing person cases and I recommend it to anyone interested in the mystery of missing Sodder children.
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Screenshot from The Infographics Show's
episode on the Sodder Children's disappearance. |
I had learned of this case before watching it at The Infographics Show. What I've settle on as most probable is the following:
- Someone who really disliked George Sodder committed an act of arson against his home;
- The five children that ended up being missing, died by smoke inhalation as they slept in the attic;
- The fire then incinerated their remains.
For me, this theory accounts for why the parents and older children who escaped the house fire did not hear the children screaming. This was something that I felt had to be explained. If they died from fire, then there would be horrifying screams for help. I think they most likely died coughing and choking from smoke and were unable to scream for help as a result. This coughing and choking might have been covered by the other sounds associated with the house burning down.
That their bones were not found in the remains of the fire is not as difficult to explain as many might think. It is known that human bones will survive house fires, but I think that it's adult bones that are more likely to survive a fire than children bones. I believe that to be just due to the respective volumes. It stands to reason that a child's body, bones and flesh, will be consumed by a house fire more easily than an adult's.
Comparison to Ricky Jean Bryant
This case did remind me of
the case of Ricky Jean Bryant, which I covered at this site. The toddler has been missing after a house fire to her home in Wisconsin in December 1949. In her case, her parents did not accept that she died in the fire -- which any parent might be prone to believe because the death of a child is hard to accept under any circumstance. I think a lot of parents will cling to hopes that their children or child is missing as opposed to dead, if given the option.
Ricky Jean Bryant's body was not found. However, I did find journalism that reported on firefighters hearing the screams of the child from inside the house as it burned to the ground. In the case of the Sodder children, the firefighters were late to the scene. Also, the parents never reported hearing any screams. That is why smoke inhalation is more probable for a cause of death, in my opinion.
There are some other details in this case that are bothersome. Like why was a cow liver planted at the home, as reported by The Infographics Show. As reviewed from that source, the police planted it there because it resembled a human heart and they wanted closure for the parents. On that matter, is it possible that the police simply leaned to the children being dead in the fire as a cost-control mechanism? After all, if they perished in the inferno, then there is no need for a search and that would help the police department's budget. I do think police lean to theories, with bias, that help them close cases quickly.
But in the end, I don't think this case is worth working on for amateurs. If they did die from smoke inhalation and then were consumed by the flames as they laid dead, it means they will be lost for all time.
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