😢 Torn Dreams #8 - The Sodders 👪

On December 24, 1945 everything changed the Christmas eve of the Sodder family, headed by parents, Jennie and George, and nine of their ten children who were at home. After that day, they would not celebrate the Christmas dates being eleven members, but six.

Eager to open their gifts a few hours later, the Sodders went to sleep quietly until they noticed the beginnings of a fire on their property. Jennie, George, and four of the boys were spared from being burned to death, but the other five disappeared amid the chaos of ashes. No human remains were found in the area.

Police and fire department officials noticed a problem in the wiring of the structure as the cause of the devastating fire in West Virginia, United States, an opinion that never fit the memories of Jennie and George: while the flames devoured what they could, the Christmas lights still shone, thus adorning the hysteria that reigned at that moment.

Shaken by the intrigue and convinced that their children had survived, they reconsidered the facts and contemplated other causes of the disappearance of the five children, whose memories were honored by transforming what was left in a memorial garden; The Sodders believed that the fire was a smoke screen, literally, that the real perpetrators of the painful absences used.

A fence with the photos of the lost infants announced, without triumph, the offering of rewards in exchange for information for several decades. They retired completely after the death of Jennie Sodder.

Due to the Italian origin of the family nucleus and the open criticism of George Sodder towards Benito Mussolini and the fascist government of Italy, the involvement of the Sicilian mafia is one of the most macabre hypotheses about this case that, in the 21st century, continues calling the attention of the direct descendants of the survivors of that Christmas Eve, professionals with extensive experience and curious passionate about the research world; someone or something, and not precisely the fire of electric origin that determined the relevant authorities, had to get rid of the eternal sought.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodder_children_disappearance