West Virginia has its fair share of unsolved mysteries. Jennie and her surviving childrenexcept John, who never talked about the night of the fire except to say that the family should accept what happened and move on with their lives[10]continued to seek answers to their questions about the missing children's fate. Courtesy of Jennie Henthorn. He then drops a small mystery of his own: The other clue involved her signthe [Crimestoppers] sign that they had up down in Beckley. He pauses. [8], The telephone rang at 12:30a.m. Jennie woke and went downstairs to answer it. Since the transverse recesses are fused, the age of this individual at death should have been 16 or 17 years. [1], Sylvia Sodder Paxton, the youngest of the surviving Sodder siblings, died in 2021. [1], The surviving Sodder children, joined by their own children, continued to publicize the case and investigate leads. Smart and ambitious, he first worked as a driver and then launched his own trucking company, hauling dirt for construction and later freight and coal. She knew that remnants of various household appliances had been found in the burned-out basement, still identifiable. [9], Efforts to find aid and rescue the children were unexpectedly complicated. But we only want to know. Hunter. But even though theyd functioned perfectly the day before, neither would start now. [8], Evidence soon emerged indicating that the fire had not started in the electrical fault and was instead set deliberately. [1][2][9], The family's efforts soon brought another reported sighting of the children after the fire. [1] The FBI decided it had jurisdiction as a possible interstate kidnapping, but dropped the case after two years of following fruitless leads. The collection of odd moments grew. Rape? The children were accompanied by two women and two men, all of Italian extraction, she said in a statement. When she attempted to speak with the children, "[o]ne of the men looked at me in a hostile manner; he turned around and began talking rapidly in Italian. Of all the cases hes covered, its the unsolved murder of 18-year-old John Jay Farley and disappearance of 25-year-old Mazie Mae Sigmon-Palmer that sticks most with McCracken. Despite taking fingerprints and checking dental records, police have never been able to identify who he was. It was obviously the mother of the newborn as three 5 pound dumb bells are pretty easy to carry along with the infant. They had flyers printed up with pictures of the children, offering a $5,000 reward (soon doubled) for information that would have settled the case for even one of them. A shot of the fictional Fairlake while shooting Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines (2012). The officer in charge of the case was the first member of law enforcement officer McCracken worked with closely on Mysterious WV. Courtesy of www.mywvhome.com. At the time, it was occupied by George Sodder, his wife Jennie, and nine of their ten children. It was postmarked in Kentucky but had no return address. Another letter that they received that year brought the Sodders what they believed was the most credible evidence that at least Louis was still alive. A man who neighbors had seen stealing a block and tackle from the property around the time of the fire was identified and arrested. Another woman at a rest stop between Fayetteville and Charleston said she had served them breakfast the next morning, and noted the presence of a car with Florida license plates in the rest stop's parking lot as well. There was a car with Florida license plates at the tourist court, too. A woman at a Charleston hotel saw the childrens photos in a newspaper and said she had seen four of the five a week after the fire. But when are you going to let people know you are now doing all this on your own! Oh "Wrong Turn," you beautifully depraved piece of horror cinema, you. [Farley] was buried less than 200 feet from my bedroom window in direct line of sight. The same years that a young McCracken became entranced with mystery shows and their hosts, Jay Farley lay nearby one could almost say in waiting. That time, his victim may have reported it, and he was incarcerated for rape. If the local authorities requested the bureau's assistance, he added, he would of course direct agents to assist, but the Fayetteville police and fire departments declined to do so. She believed that he and Maurice were both living in Texas somewhere. Irene Wilson was 52 in 1963 when she was brutally stabbed over 50 times and killed in her home at Broomstick in Calhoun County, according to the Hur Herald. A telephone repair man told the Sodders that their lines appeared to have been cut, not burned. The billboard finally came down. This time however the feral deformed trio of teen-munchers has a handler with the power of speech! Later, more rumors circulated around Fayettevillethat Morris had afterwards admitted the box with the liver had indeed not come from the fire originally; he had supposedly placed it there in the hope that the Sodders would find it and be satisfied that the missing children had indeed died in the fire. Tiptoeing back to bed, she noticed that all of the downstairs lights were still on and the curtains open. Jennie erected a fence around her property and began adding rooms to her home, building layer after layer between her and the outside. [1], The Sodders settled outside nearby Fayetteville, which had a large population of Italian immigrants, in a two-story timber frame house two miles (3.2km) north of town. The world would be a better place for if we exposed one thing like you. I know the filmmakers want to establish the cannibals as Freddy Kreuger, Jason Vorhees type antiheroes but they simply lack the pizzazz and traits required to allow anyone to root for them. As she did, she noticed that the lights were still on and the curtains were not drawn, two things the children normally attended to when they stayed up later than their parents. I pray to God someone comes forward and exposes the person who killed that little boy, Barbara Barnes and Sister Elam. Sister Roberta Elams murderer could be tied to 5 other unsolved murders in that region of Ohio & WV. Have a few questions for Jack and Sam. Even if it had been, the firefighters may not have known what to look for. They go after the "submissive" ;never the violent or those equipped with the same sense of "brutality".A child. George and Jennie and four of their children escaped, but the other five were never seen again. He allows that that conclusion may still not be correct: "Logic tells you they probably did burn up in the fire, but you can't always go by logic. She and her father often stayed up late, talking about what might have happened. A letter arrived from a woman in St. Louis saying the oldest girl, Martha, was in a convent there. You see, just from a "female" perspective, the baby being wrapped in pink, perhaps it is her sad farewell in that she may have kept the baby if it had been a girl as a "girl" did not rape her and she might not have taken this course if it had been a female that was born. The woman has been reported missing since December of this year. Theres a reason.. My memory was lost for a very long time due to head injury, but what i do remeber is this he drove a white van in which had rolls of new carpet as if he may work for a carpet company perhaps he smoked pall mall cigs. Present day Fairlake is equally vacant, at least where braincells are concerned. An employee of a local crematorium she contacted told her that human bones remain even after bodies are burned at 2,000F (1,090C) for two hours, far longer and hotter than the house fire could have been. And while Im here what of the big festival? A woman operating a tourist stop between Fayetteville and Charleston, some 50 miles west, said she saw the children the morning after the fire. The Sodders planted flowers across the space where their house had stood and began to stitch together a series of odd moments leading up to the fire. The mother, father, two oldest sons, and the youngest daughter survived the blaze. [8], In the 21st century, the family's efforts have come to include online forums like websleuths.com in addition to media coverage. The five middle children disappeared without a trace. George, recalling his wife's account of a loud thump on the roof before the fire, said it looked like a "pineapple bomb" hand grenade or some other incendiary device used in combat. She conducted a private experiment, burning animal boneschicken bones, beef joints, pork chop bonesto see if the fire consumed them. by Sara Murphy, 100 Days in Appalachia October 29, 2020, This and is republished here under a Creative Commons license., Like a Good Unsolved Mystery? [9], Not long afterward, as they began to rebuild their lives, the Sodder family started to question all the official findings about the fire. Immediately, the whole party stopped talking to me. Her car was found abandoned on WV Route 2 at 12th street in McMechan. One day he walked into a local store called the Music Box and met the owners daughter, Jennie Cipriani, who had come over from Italy when she was 3. How accurate can they actually be? Anyone can film on location with todays technology, but McCracken brings his deep-rooted knowledge of the area along with his Sony Handycam. [8], The firefighters, one of whom was a brother of Jennie's,[10] could do little but look through the ashes that were left in the Sodders' basement. Glen Jean, WV: GEM Publications, 1993; One Room Schoolin, A Living History of Central West Virginia. Sign up for their weekly newsletter here. I dont know how you can help to pull information out of peoples memories until theyre on memory lane. For viewers, these often literal snapshots also bring the missing, murdered and unidentified to life. Your Privacy Rights John was born August 20, 1934 in Williams, IA to Florence (Steele) and Chester Beall. In 1817 the entire population of Fairlake, West Virginia vanished without trace. At the time, it was occupied by George Sodder, his wife Jennie, and nine of their ten children. George and Tinsley went to Morris and confronted him with this news. A witness came forward claiming he saw a man at the fire scene taking a block and tackle used for removing car engines; could he be the reason Georges trucks refused to start? The family later claimed that, contrary to the fire marshal's conclusion, the fire had started on the roof, although by then there was no way to prove it. A woman there had written to the family, saying that Louis had revealed his true identity to her one night after having too much to drink. The Sodders were, said one county magistrate, one of the most respected middle-class families around. George held strong opinions about everything from business to current events and politics, but was, for some reason, reticent to talk about his youth. In 1952, they put up a billboard at the site of the house (and another along U.S. Route 60 near Ansted[6][8]) with the same information. Other: Interview with Jennie Henthorn, granddaughter of George and Jennie Sodder and daughter of Sylvia Sodder Paxton; Smithsonian pathologist report supplied by Jennie Henthorn; informal statement of Marion Sodder, supplied by Jennie Henthorn. All that was left were dozens of rubbish bins full of blood-stained wet wipes and thousands of well used giant toothpicks probably. Once again they hired a private detective and sent him to Kentucky. They assumed the other five children had perished in the blaze. [6][8] The increase in the latter has led some who have examined the case to believe that the children did, in fact, die in 1945. Your goddamn house is going up in smoke, he warned, and your children are going to be destroyed. The following year, Mussolini was deposed and executed. Everyone under 25 has sex then gets eaten. They realized that if the fire had been electricalthe result of faulty wiring, as the official reported statedthen the power would have been dead, so how to explain the lighted downstairs rooms? On its flip side a cryptic handwritten note read: Louis Sodder. For the rest of his life George, as he came to be known, would not talk much about why he had left his homeland. For viewers, these often literal snapshots also bring the missing, murdered and unidentified to life. [2] Chief F.J. Morris said the next day that the already slow response was further hampered by his inability to drive the fire truck, requiring that he wait until someone who could drive was available. Paxton said years later that doubts about that denial lingered in George's mind for the rest of his life.[9]. A California missing woman's body was found along the Ohio River in West Virginia on Feb. 22. [10], In 2022, the History Channel aired an episode of its series History's Greatest Mysteries that detailed the events of the case.[11]. Here is a look at 5 of West Virginias disturbing and unsolved mysteries. Together they dug up the box and took it straight to a local funeral director, who poked and prodded the heart and concluded it was beef liver, untouched by the fire. Her forthcoming book, Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy, will be published by HarperCollins in September. Among the eager visitors to Fairlake are a carload of the usual interchangeable munchables desperate to be nibbled upon. Exaggeration-prone outsiders. They left early the next morning.. To me it would make more sense to make a movie about a couple of people scaring off deer that are being hunted by hunters and the hunters chasing after the people in the woods. They tried to extort money from him and he refused. Hopefully someday someone will com forward with all of the answers, specifically, who killed this child!! The surviving Sodder family believed for the rest of their lives that the five missing children survived. On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1945, a fire destroyed the Sodder residence in Fayetteville, West Virginia, United States.