The Sodder Children — Disappearance Profile

In the early hours of 25 December 1945, a fire broke out at the Fayetteville, West Virginia, home of George and Jennie Sodder, where they lived with nine of their ten children. George, Jennie and four of the children escaped. Five children — Maurice (14), Martha (12), Louis (9), Jennie (8) and Betty (5) — did not, and were presumed by the parents to have died in the blaze.

A brief search of the grounds on Christmas Day turned up no human remains. The fire department, located a few miles away, did not arrive until hours after the fire began. The parents came to doubt the official account that the children had been completely consumed by the fire, in part because a later excavation produced bone fragments later identified as animal rather than human.

The case attracted national attention. The West Virginia Legislature held hearings on the matter in 1950. Afterward, the state authorities informed the Sodder family that the case was considered hopeless, and it was closed at the state level. No human remains attributable to the five children were ever recovered or identified.

The family pointed to a series of circumstances they regarded as suspicious, including hostile remarks made before the fire and the failure of the home telephone that night. In later years the family received reported sightings and tips, and in the 1960s a photograph said to depict an adult resembling their son Louis. None of these reports was ever verified. The Sodders maintained a roadside billboard appealing for information for decades.

No remains of the five children were ever recovered from the fire site, and no verified evidence has ever established whether they died in the fire or survived it. The case remains formally unresolved.

• "Sodder children disappearance," Wikipedia (cites the 1950 West Virginia Legislature hearings)
• Smithsonian Magazine

Status as of June 2026: Missing / unresolved. No remains recovered. Closed by West Virginia authorities; disputed by the family.