5 Children Disappear In A Housefire, 20 Years Later Their Family Receives A Cryptic Letter
It was just after midnight when the fire reached the upstairs bedroom. As George Sodder raced through his Fayetteville, West Virginia home, all he could think about was getting his wife Jennie and their nine children to safety. But when the fire department finally arrived, five of their children had perished in the fire. Still, the Sodders were convinced something else had happened that night, and after decades of dead ends, a cryptic letter proved they may have been right after all.
An Unimaginable Loss
When George and Jennie stood over the charred remains of their home on Christmas morning, 1945, there were just five things on their mind: Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty. But even in their intense grief, they knew that the facts just didn't add up.
Not So Faulty After All
For starters, the cause of the fire — deemed "faulty wiring" — was suspect, as shortly before the blaze broke out Jennie had come downstairs to find all of the lights on. If the fire had been electrical, the power would've been dead.
I Smell Sabotage
Another red flag arose when a repairman came to asses the damages to their telephone lines. To the family's shock, the handyman relayed that their lines hadn't been burned like the fire report had stated. Instead, they'd been cut.
A Little Too Inconvenient
More inconsistencies only continued to pop up. The ladder that George always kept behind the house had been mysteriously absent the night of the fire, and when he'd tried to move his trucks as a means of climbing to the upstairs windows, they wouldn't start despite working fine the day prior.
