Latest / PNW Haunts & Homicides / The Disappearance of Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty Sodder

Transcript

The Disappearance of Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty Sodder · PNW Haunts & Homicides

0:00
Speaker 1: On Christmas Eve nineteen forty five, in the rural outskirts
0:04
Speaker 1: of Fayetteville, West Virginia, George and Jenny Sotter tucked their
0:08
Speaker 1: children into bed for the night with the anticipation of
0:11
Speaker 1: spending Christmas together the next morning. Tragically, a fire quickly
0:15
Speaker 1: engulfed the home, forcing the family to leave, but five
0:20
Speaker 1: of the children were presumably still inside. What would unfold
0:23
Speaker 1: that evening is still one of the greatest mysteries in
0:26
Speaker 1: the true crime world today, leaving us to wonder what
0:30
Speaker 1: happened to the Solder children. Hello, and welcome to another
1:05
Speaker 1: episode of Truly Twisted. As always, I'm your host, Alicia Watson,
1:09
Speaker 1: and every Thursday, I will be bringing you a story
1:12
Speaker 1: that is always victim focused and fact based. If you
1:16
Speaker 1: like the show, please rate me five stars wherever you
1:19
Speaker 1: are listening. It really is the best way to help
1:21
Speaker 1: me find new audiences and I really appreciate it. But
1:25
Speaker 1: let's get into this week's episode. We're jumping right in
1:28
Speaker 1: with another holiday related story and it's an absolute doozy,
1:33
Speaker 1: the disappearance of disolder children. So let's get into it. Parents,
1:38
Speaker 1: George and Jenny Sotter, were born in Italy, moving to
1:42
Speaker 1: the US at young ages. George had come from Tula,
1:46
Speaker 1: Sardinia in nineteen oh eight when he was thirteen years old,
1:49
Speaker 1: along with his older brother, but his brother wasn't a
1:53
Speaker 1: fan of the US and quickly left to go back
1:56
Speaker 1: to Italy, leaving young George there alone in a new
2:00
Speaker 1: At just thirteen, George found a job at the Pennsylvania
2:04
Speaker 1: Railroads carrying water and supplies to the laborers, and he
2:09
Speaker 1: did this for a few years before moving to West Virginia,
2:12
Speaker 1: where he found a job as a driver. This would
2:15
Speaker 1: eventually evolve into his very own trucking company, and it
2:19
Speaker 1: was then that he met Jenny, a storekeeper's daughter. Jenny
2:23
Speaker 1: Capriani moved to Italy when she was just three years
2:26
Speaker 1: old with her parents. The couple met at her family's
2:30
Speaker 1: store called the Music Box, which honestly is quite beautiful,
2:35
Speaker 1: and the two would get married in nineteen twenty two
2:38
Speaker 1: move into a two story timber frame home in Fayeteville.
2:42
Speaker 1: It was a small and quiet town in West Virginia
2:45
Speaker 1: with a population of about thirteen hundred people at the time.
2:49
Speaker 1: Their main street wasn't even a mile long. Throughout their marriage,
2:53
Speaker 1: George and Jenny would have ten children together between nineteen
2:57
Speaker 1: twenty three and nineteen forty three, Joe, John, Marion, George Junior, Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jenny,
3:06
Speaker 1: Betty and Sylvia. They were, by all accounts, a very
3:09
Speaker 1: happy Italian family and at the timeline of our story,
3:13
Speaker 1: their children ranged from twenty five to two years old.
3:17
Speaker 1: So now that we have set the scene, let's get
3:19
Speaker 1: into the events of Christmas Eve. Also, please note that
3:23
Speaker 1: the oldest Sawder child was not home that evening, Joe
3:27
Speaker 1: was serving in the army overseas at the time, but
3:30
Speaker 1: all other nine children were there. The house was full
3:33
Speaker 1: of holiday cheer until about ten thirty pm, when George
3:37
Speaker 1: and Jenny went to bed with their two year old
3:40
Speaker 1: daughter Sylvia. Five of the younger children, Betty, Jenny, Lewis,
3:45
Speaker 1: Martha and Maurice, who were six, eight, ten, twelve and
3:49
Speaker 1: fourteen at the time, had asked if they could stay
3:52
Speaker 1: up later given that it was a holiday, and they
3:55
Speaker 1: were allowed provided that they finished their chores and locked
3:58
Speaker 1: up the house, which meant closing all the curtains, making
4:02
Speaker 1: sure everything was turned off and locked up, beating all
4:05
Speaker 1: the farm animals, and making sure, you know, everything was
4:08
Speaker 1: just secure for the night. At twelve thirty am, a
4:12
Speaker 1: strange phone call woke Jenny. An unfamiliar woman asked for
4:16
Speaker 1: a name that she didn't recognize, laughed oddly, and then
4:21
Speaker 1: hung up. In the background, glasses clinked and it sounded
4:24
Speaker 1: like maybe there was a holiday party going on, and
4:28
Speaker 1: Jenny was about to tell the woman that she had
4:30
Speaker 1: the wrong number, so she didn't think anything of it.
4:34
Speaker 1: While awake, Jenny noticed that the downstairs lights were still
4:37
Speaker 1: on and the curtains were open. The front door was
4:40
Speaker 1: also still unlocked. She assumed that the children were up
4:44
Speaker 1: in the attic playing, so she secured the house and
4:47
Speaker 1: went back to bed. Moments later, she heard a loud
4:50
Speaker 1: thud followed by a rolling noise coming from the roof,
4:55
Speaker 1: but she eventually drifted back to sleep. At one thirty am,
5:00
Speaker 1: roughly an hour later, and Jenny awoke to smoke filling
5:03
Speaker 1: her room and flames engulfing the family home. She heard
5:08
Speaker 1: screaming and coughing, and yelled for her kids to get
5:10
Speaker 1: out of the house. The family rushed out, but five
5:15
Speaker 1: of them were still missing. George desperately tried to re
5:19
Speaker 1: enter the house, but the stairs were already engulfed in flames.
5:23
Speaker 1: When he ran to get his ladder, it was missing
5:25
Speaker 1: from its usual spot at the side of the house,
5:28
Speaker 1: so he tried to start not just one, but both
5:32
Speaker 1: of his coal trucks that were parked at the house
5:34
Speaker 1: to use them as a platform to reach the attic windows,
5:38
Speaker 1: but neither of the trucks started. Despite working perfectly the
5:42
Speaker 1: day before, even the water well was frozen solid. Everything
5:47
Speaker 1: that they were trying to do put them at a standstill.
5:50
Speaker 1: This nightmare continued as the family tried to call for help.
5:54
Speaker 1: Their phone line was dead and a local volunteer fire
5:57
Speaker 1: department was severely understood due to the current war and
6:01
Speaker 1: the fact that it was Christmas Eve. It took seven
6:04
Speaker 1: hours for them to arrive, and by eight a m.
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Speaker 1: The house was completely reduced to a pile of ash.
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Speaker 1: The surviving family members were devastated by the loss of
6:16
Speaker 1: their home and the fact that five of their children
6:19
Speaker 1: were still missing and presumably died in that fire. I
6:23
Speaker 1: can't even imagine how helpless the Sawdters felt watching their home.
6:28
Speaker 1: The local corner ruled that the children had perished in
6:31
Speaker 1: the fire that was caused by quote unquote faulty wiring.
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Speaker 1: And death certificates were issued on December thirtieth, nineteen forty five,
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Speaker 1: for the five children, Betty, Jenny, Lewis, Martha, and Maurice.
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Speaker 1: The remaining Sawders, however, were skeptical for one thing. The
6:51
Speaker 1: fire department wasn't able to find a single identifiable bone
6:55
Speaker 1: or human remain in the wreckage that could have belonged
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Speaker 1: to any of the five missing children. That, in combination
7:02
Speaker 1: with their phone lines not working, their vans not working,
7:06
Speaker 1: and George's ladder being moved, it felt very suspicious. Too
7:11
Speaker 1: much had gone wrong all at once, and it felt intentional.
7:15
Speaker 1: Jenny later consulted a crematorium worker and conducted her own
7:19
Speaker 1: experiments with animal bones. She found that even the most
7:23
Speaker 1: intense heat left charred yet identifiable remains. Cremation of human
7:29
Speaker 1: remains doesn't fully destroy bones in the time or temperature
7:33
Speaker 1: of a typical house fire. Even prolonged and intense house
7:37
Speaker 1: fires usually leave traces of skeletal remains. The Smithsonian reported
7:43
Speaker 1: that bones remain even after two hours in a crematorium
7:46
Speaker 1: at two thousand degrees fahrenheit, whereas the solder house burnt
7:51
Speaker 1: at a far less time and lower intensity. If that
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Speaker 1: was the case, where were the children? Four days after
7:59
Speaker 1: the fire, what remained of the home was bulldozed and
8:02
Speaker 1: a memorial garden was planted in the home's place. A
8:07
Speaker 1: funeral was held for the children on January Tewod, but
8:10
Speaker 1: Jenny and George were two griefs stricken to attend. Now.
8:14
Speaker 1: I know that hindsight is always twenty twenty, but looking
8:17
Speaker 1: at some of the events that led up to the date,
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Speaker 1: all of this felt very strange. George and Jenny did
8:24
Speaker 1: not believe that their kids were dead. They believed that
8:27
Speaker 1: they had been taken from the home during the fire
8:30
Speaker 1: for starters. The months leading up to Christmas nineteen forty
8:34
Speaker 1: five were marked by several unsettling incidents. A life insurance
8:39
Speaker 1: salesman was enraged by George's refusal to buy a policy
8:44
Speaker 1: and reportedly threatened him, shouting, your goddamn house is going
8:47
Speaker 1: to go up in smoke and your children are going
8:49
Speaker 1: to be destroyed. He claimed that George would pay for
8:53
Speaker 1: his remarks about Mussolini. Later, a stranger looking for work
8:59
Speaker 1: wandered to the back of the house and pointed to
9:01
Speaker 1: two fuse boxes. He warned them that they were a
9:04
Speaker 1: fire hazard, and George found this really strange, considering that
9:09
Speaker 1: the home's electrics had recently been inspected and cleared. Additionally,
9:14
Speaker 1: one of the oldest sold children noticed two people parked
9:17
Speaker 1: in a car along Highway twenty one, intently watching the
9:21
Speaker 1: younger children get off the school bus. Not to mention
9:25
Speaker 1: everything that went wrong during the fire, the phone line
9:29
Speaker 1: was cut, it wasn't burnt. Following an inspection of the
9:33
Speaker 1: home and the surrounding electrical units, a telephone repairman reported
9:38
Speaker 1: that the line did not burn in the fire. It
9:41
Speaker 1: was cleanly cut beforehand, as if somebody had climbed up
9:45
Speaker 1: a pole or used a ladder and deliberately severed it.
9:50
Speaker 1: Number two, the ladder had been moved. This ladder usually
9:55
Speaker 1: sat perched against the solderhouse and was crucial for accessing
9:58
Speaker 1: the upper floor. It was found far from its original
10:02
Speaker 1: position after the fire, as though somebody had removed it
10:06
Speaker 1: before the fire started. George's usually reliable work trucks mysteriously
10:12
Speaker 1: failed to start that night. They had run perfectly fine
10:16
Speaker 1: earlier that day, So what are the odds that not
10:18
Speaker 1: one but two would stop working right when you need
10:21
Speaker 1: them to. Number four, when the snow had finally melted,
10:26
Speaker 1: young baby, Sylvia, who was just two at the time,
10:29
Speaker 1: found a hard rubber sphere in the bush. George believed
10:34
Speaker 1: that it resembled a napalm, pineapple bomb, or incendiary device
10:39
Speaker 1: of some sort, but there was no way to test it. However,
10:44
Speaker 1: this could have been what Jenny had heard rolling on
10:46
Speaker 1: the roof, and later witnesses would speculate that they saw
10:51
Speaker 1: balls of fire being thrown at the Sawder House before
10:54
Speaker 1: their home went up in flames. Five that strange phone call,
11:00
Speaker 1: Some accounts have suggested that the wrong number phone call
11:03
Speaker 1: to the Solder house might somehow be connected to the fire,
11:07
Speaker 1: or was meant as some sort of distraction for somebody
11:10
Speaker 1: to go in and take the kids. However, investigators later
11:14
Speaker 1: contacted this woman who made the call, and she confirmed
11:17
Speaker 1: that it had been the wrong number on her part
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Speaker 1: and that she didn't know anything about the family. A
11:24
Speaker 1: frequently discussed theory is that the kids were taken because
11:28
Speaker 1: of retaliation because George Sotterer had been quite outspoken about
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Speaker 1: Mussolini and Italian fascism. About Mussolini and it being a
11:39
Speaker 1: prominent Italian community, some locals later claimed that maybe these
11:43
Speaker 1: threats made toward the family in the weeks before the
11:46
Speaker 1: fire were deliberate as a reason because this was a
11:50
Speaker 1: prominent Italian community, maybe George had pissed the wrong person off.
11:56
Speaker 1: Some locals later claimed that threats were made toward the
11:59
Speaker 1: family in the weeks before the fire, and witnesses would
12:03
Speaker 1: claim to see the missing Solder children themselves. One woman
12:07
Speaker 1: who had seen the fire from the road said that
12:09
Speaker 1: she had seen a couple of children peering out of
12:12
Speaker 1: a passing car while the house was burning. She said
12:15
Speaker 1: that they resembled the Solder children. Another woman at a
12:19
Speaker 1: rest stop between Fayetteville and Charleston said that she had
12:22
Speaker 1: served them breakfast the next morning. She noted that there
12:26
Speaker 1: was a Florida license plate car in the rest stop
12:29
Speaker 1: parking lot as well. The Sawters hired a private investigator
12:33
Speaker 1: named C. C. Tinsley from a nearby town to look
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Speaker 1: into the case. He informed the family that the insurance
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Speaker 1: salesman who had threatened George over his anti Mussolini sentiments
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Speaker 1: had been on the corner's jury that ruled the fire
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Speaker 1: in accident. He also learned of rumors around Fayetteville that,
12:53
Speaker 1: despite his report to the Swters that no remains had
12:56
Speaker 1: been found in the ashes, chief Morris, the fire chief,
13:01
Speaker 1: had found a heart, which he later packed into a
13:03
Speaker 1: small metal box and secretly buried. It was later found
13:08
Speaker 1: that this was actually a beef liver and it had
13:11
Speaker 1: not at all been affected by a fire, but he
13:14
Speaker 1: was hoping that this would help the family. Except their
13:17
Speaker 1: children had died in August of nineteen forty nine, the
13:21
Speaker 1: saughters decided to go on a whole new search of
13:24
Speaker 1: the scene. They brought in a Washington d c. Pathologist
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Speaker 1: and the excavation was much more thorough than it had
13:32
Speaker 1: been the first time around. Then covered a small amount
13:36
Speaker 1: of objects, damaged coins, a partly burned dictionary, several shards
13:42
Speaker 1: of vertebrae, and a hunter sent the bones to the
13:46
Speaker 1: Smithsonian Institution. Basically, the takeaway was that the bones were human,
13:52
Speaker 1: that they belonged to one person, presumably between sixteen and
13:56
Speaker 1: seventeen years old, and this could have been a fourteen
14:00
Speaker 1: year old boy i e. The oldest missing solder child Morris,
14:04
Speaker 1: but it was not probable for a boy fourteen and
14:07
Speaker 1: a half years old to show that level of maturation.
14:12
Speaker 1: That and the vertebrae didn't appear to have any fire damage,
14:16
Speaker 1: lending speculation that they were potentially dug up in the
14:19
Speaker 1: dirt that the family used to plant the memorial garden, which,
14:24
Speaker 1: as a separate aside, I did not like that as
14:26
Speaker 1: an explanation that there's just vertebrae in your dirt, But
14:30
Speaker 1: I rest my case. It was nineteen forty five. They
14:33
Speaker 1: continued to look for their children and follow any leads
14:37
Speaker 1: that came their way. George would often personally drive across
14:41
Speaker 1: state lines to wherever possible sighting was until he was
14:45
Speaker 1: confident that his children weren't there. In nineteen fifty two,
14:49
Speaker 1: the family printed out flyers and handed them out all
14:52
Speaker 1: over the state. They also put up a billboard with
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Speaker 1: the children's faces, offering a five thousand dollars reward for
14:59
Speaker 1: any information leading to the missing Sawters. They put up
15:03
Speaker 1: two billboards in fact, one along the highway and one
15:06
Speaker 1: where the home once stood. In nineteen sixty seven, George
15:10
Speaker 1: traveled to Houston to investigate a possible tip of somebody
15:14
Speaker 1: who had stated that Lewis had revealed his identity to
15:17
Speaker 1: her after having too much to drink one night. She
15:21
Speaker 1: thought that he and Maurice were potentially living in Texas.
15:25
Speaker 1: When she brought George to the two men that she
15:27
Speaker 1: believed to be his boys. They denied knowing anything about
15:31
Speaker 1: the Sotters or being these missing boys, but for whatever reason,
15:36
Speaker 1: this interaction weighed heavily on George until his death. The
15:40
Speaker 1: Sowter family later received a letter from Central City, Kentucky
15:45
Speaker 1: with no return address and a photo of a thirtyish
15:48
Speaker 1: year old male with a strong resemblance to Lewis. On
15:52
Speaker 1: the back, written in handwriting was Lewis Sotter, I love
15:57
Speaker 1: brother Frankie L L boys U A nine oh one,
16:02
Speaker 1: three two or three five. This would have been the
16:07
Speaker 1: right age if Lewis had survived. The family hired another
16:11
Speaker 1: private detective, another private investigator to go to Central City,
16:15
Speaker 1: Kentucky and look into it, but he never reported back
16:19
Speaker 1: to the Sowters and they weren't able to locate him again.
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Speaker 1: This in itself is strange, and whether or not it
16:25
Speaker 1: was Lewis, it gave the family some sort of hope.
16:30
Speaker 1: The Sawters spent the rest of their lives searching. Over
16:33
Speaker 1: the decades, they followed Leeds across the country, from a
16:37
Speaker 1: school in New York to a potential siding in Kentucky.
16:41
Speaker 1: George passed away in nineteen sixty nine without ever knowing
16:44
Speaker 1: the fate of his children, and Jenny Sowters spent the
16:48
Speaker 1: remaining years wearing black in mourning and tending to the
16:52
Speaker 1: memorial garden where their house once stood, until her death
16:55
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty nine. The surviving sold children, joined by
17:00
Speaker 1: their own kids, would continue to publicize the story and
17:04
Speaker 1: follow up on investigative leads. They, along with Olderville residents,
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Speaker 1: have theorized that somehow the Sicilian mafia was trying to
17:15
Speaker 1: extort money from George or was seeking retaliation from his
17:20
Speaker 1: so called anti Mussolini beliefs, and they were taken back
17:25
Speaker 1: to Italy. If the children had survived all those years
17:29
Speaker 1: and they were aware that their parents and siblings had
17:32
Speaker 1: survived the fire and were still looking for them, they
17:35
Speaker 1: may have been too afraid to contact them for fear
17:38
Speaker 1: that something bad might happen to them. Sylvia Sotter, the
17:42
Speaker 1: youngest of the siblings, passed away in twenty twenty one,
17:46
Speaker 1: and she too, followed up on any and all leads
17:49
Speaker 1: related to her siblings until she passed. To this day,
17:53
Speaker 1: the disappearance of the five Solder children remains one of
17:57
Speaker 1: the most haunting unsolved mysteries in America in history. It
18:01
Speaker 1: has been eighty years and no one knows for certain
18:05
Speaker 1: if they survived that fire and were taken, or if
18:10
Speaker 1: maybe that search just wasn't done well enough, wasn't thorough enough,
18:14
Speaker 1: and by some miraculous science, defying circumstance, they did die
18:19
Speaker 1: in that fire, but I personally believe that they were taken.
18:24
Speaker 1: I would love to know what you all think, and
18:26
Speaker 1: you can send me your thoughts at It's Truly Twisted
18:29
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. And now for a moment for
18:33
Speaker 1: the missing. Chandice left her home on August twentieth, twenty nineteen,
18:53
Speaker 1: with Christopher Spees, traveling to the Birch River area. She
18:58
Speaker 1: left a note for her mom that she would be
19:00
Speaker 1: back shortly. However, he returned and she did not. Chandace
19:05
Speaker 1: was living with her mother at the time. Her mom
19:07
Speaker 1: went to work that morning, and when she returned home,
19:10
Speaker 1: she found a note on the counter that stated, Mom,
19:14
Speaker 1: I took off for a little while. I'm in good hands.
19:16
Speaker 1: I promise be back shortly. Please don't worry, no need
19:20
Speaker 1: to call if he need me. Love you. Chan Chandace
19:24
Speaker 1: did not take any of her personal belongings with her,
19:27
Speaker 1: only a small change purse and her cell phone. The
19:30
Speaker 1: drive that she did was approximately twenty minutes would have
19:34
Speaker 1: been no big deal to anybody now. Christopher Spies has
19:38
Speaker 1: been interviewed several times by police, but maintains that he
19:42
Speaker 1: doesn't know anything after two am. He says that due
19:45
Speaker 1: to being under the influence of drugs and alcohol at
19:48
Speaker 1: the time, he has no idea what happened to her.
19:52
Speaker 1: There is no proof that she is either alive or deceased,
19:56
Speaker 1: and she has not been seen or heard from since.
20:00
Speaker 1: Chandis is thirty three years old. She is five three,
20:02
Speaker 1: one hundred and ten pounds, and she has a tattoo
20:06
Speaker 1: on her right leg that says see no evil, hear
20:09
Speaker 1: no evil, Speak no evil. If you have any information
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Speaker 1: regarding her whereabouts here asked, called the West Virginia State
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Speaker 1: Police at three oh four seven sixty five two one
20:20
Speaker 1: zero one. And I do hope that you enjoyed this
20:23
Speaker 1: week's episode. Remember to leave five stars wherever you are
20:26
Speaker 1: listening now and I will see you next week for
20:29
Speaker 1: a very merry Christmas episode. And in the meantime, remember
20:34
Speaker 1: you are wanted, you are loved, and you deserve to
20:37
Speaker 1: be here. And I will see you next week,