UPDATE: The Sodder Children

0:00 "Hi, crime junkies, it's spread. 0:02 If this show has taught us anything, it's that the truth is not always the version 0:06 people 0:06 tell you first. 0:07 That's what makes Camillean so good." 0:10 Each week, host Josh Jeane digs into real stories of people pretending to be 0:13 someone 0:14 they're not, from elaborate scams, to cons that somehow keep going long after they 0:19 should 0:19 have fallen apart. 0:20 It's true crime, but with a different kind of danger, manipulation, deception, and 0:24 lies 0:24 that actually worked. 0:25 Listen to Camillean every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. 0:31 Hi, crime junkies, it's spread, and back in 2019, we covered the Sotter Children, 0:37 five 0:37 kids who vanished on Christmas morning, 1945, during a house fire. 0:43 It's one of those cold cases that crime junkies and Reddit have debated for years, 0:47 but 0:47 it's not just an infamous story. 0:50 On a random weeks, it's family history that she's just always known about. 0:56 She's the great, great granddaughter of one of the older Sotter kids, and this 0:59 mystery 1:00 has haunted her family for as long as she can remember. 1:03 In 2024, she got sick of waiting for answers, so she spent the last two years 1:09 talking to 1:09 family members, chasing down records and case files, and digging through the 1:14 archives. 1:15 Then she got in touch with us, because her search unearthed dozens of pages of case 1:21 records 1:21 that have never been published before. 1:25 And now more than ever, she believes someone out there might have answers. 1:30 So we're bringing this case out of the archives with brand new information. 1:35 This is the updated story of Maurice, Martha, Lewis, Jenny, and Betty Sotter. 1:45 [MUSIC] 2:14 So let's go back to Christmas Eve, 1945, in Fayetteville, West Virginia. 2:20 Jenny and George Sotter were both born in Italy, but ended up in the same small 2:24 corner 2:25 of West Virginia. 2:26 And they've built a nice life. 2:29 George runs his own trucking company, Jenny keeps the books, and they have 10 kids 2:33 together. 2:34 One is away in the army, but the other nine kids, ranging from 23 to three, are 2:38 still at home. 2:39 So this is a busy, crowded house. 2:43 On the stairs, there's Jenny and George's bedroom, a living room, kitchen, dining 2:46 room, 2:46 and a little office. 2:48 And the kids' bedrooms, one for the boys, one for the girls, are upstairs on the 2:52 second floor, 2:53 not in the attic as it was originally reported. 2:56 On Christmas Eve, the house is still buzzing around 10.30 pm, because younger kids 3:01 are 3:01 excited to play with their new Christmas gifts. 3:04 They want to stay up past their bedtime to play a little longer, and Jenny says yes. 3:09 As long as they finish up some chores, too, like locking the doors, turning off the 3:13 lights, 3:14 closing the blinds, the kids obviously agree. 3:17 So Jenny heads to bed with George and their three-year-old Sylvia in their first 3:21 floor bedroom 3:22 by 11 pm. 3:24 The eldest daughter, Marion, falls asleep on the living room couch. 3:28 And around 1115, a couple of the older boys head upstairs to bed. 3:32 But at around 12.30 in the morning, the phone rings. 3:35 Jenny gets out of bed, goes to the office, and picks up, and a woman on the other 3:39 end asks 3:40 for somebody Jenny's never heard of. 3:42 Jenny tells her she's got the wrong number, and hangs up. 3:45 She checks the house before heading back to bed, all's quiet, but it seems like the 3:49 kids 3:50 didn't finish up their chores, like the lights are still on, the doors still 3:53 unlocked, 3:54 so Jenny locks up, closes up the house, and goes back to bed. 3:59 And a little later, as she's falling back asleep, Jenny hears a thud up on the roof. 4:03 And this like rolling sound, like maybe a tree branch hit the roof and rolled down. 4:09 She's not worried enough to wake George up, so she goes back to sleep. 4:13 Then around 1 am, she's woken up again, and this time she smells smoke. 4:18 She jumps out of bed again, looks out her bedroom door, and sees that the office, 4:22 right across 4:22 from the stairs leading up to the kids' bedrooms, is on fire. 4:26 And she can't even call for help, the fire is already too hot to get to the phone 4:30 in the 4:30 office, so she yells for George and the kids to get up, and wakes Mary, and who 4:35 runs and 4:35 grabs little Sylvia. 4:37 John and Ted, the oldest two boys, wake up and come flying down the stairs. 4:41 The fire is moving so fast that their hair and eyebrows actually get burned on the 4:46 way 4:46 down. 4:47 It must have been mayhem, because once the six of them get outside, they look 4:50 around 4:51 and realize they're alone out there. 4:54 The other five kids, Maurice, Martha, Lewis, Jenny, and Betty, never made it out. 5:01 They're the younger ones who stayed up late to play with their toys. 5:04 And Jenny's mom instincts kick in, because she immediately runs back toward the 5:07 burning 5:07 building. 5:08 She tries getting in the front door, the way they came out, but she can't get 5:12 through. 5:12 The fire is too hot and is moving too fast. 5:16 Mary and runs to a neighbor's house to call for help. 5:19 When she gets on the phone, she can't get a hold of an operator. 5:22 Remember it's 1945, she needs an operator to connect the call. 5:26 Meanwhile, George tries getting in through a second floor window. 5:29 First, he goes for the ladder that's always leaning on the side of the house, but 5:34 it's 5:34 mysteriously gone. 5:35 He breaks a window to get to the staircase landing instead, and he slices his arm 5:39 open badly 5:40 doing it. 5:41 But the stairs are already engulfed in flames, no way in there. 5:45 He and his son John go for the family's trucks, hoping to back one up and climb up 5:50 onto 5:50 the roof that way. 5:51 After the panic, they flood the engines and nothing starts. 5:55 Basically everything that can go wrong does. 5:58 Now around this time, a man he's called Mr. Smith in the records, is driving home 6:02 from 6:03 work, sees the fire and pulls over. 6:05 The family tells him to go get the fire department, so he races off again. 6:09 But first, he pulls into a bar down the road, looking for a phone, but the phone's 6:14 out 6:14 or something. 6:16 So he gets back in his car, drives into town, finds a phone, and finally gets a 6:20 hold 6:20 of the fire chief. 6:22 According to records, when the chief answers the phone, his response is odd. 6:27 He basically says, "Yeah, we already know. 6:30 We got a couple calls." 6:32 Mr. Smith is like, "Okay, so are you coming?" 6:37 There are kids trapped in there, and the chief says he doesn't know, like, no sense 6:41 of urgency 6:42 in this crisis at all. 6:44 So Mr. Smith races back to the property to help, and at this point, the house is 6:48 basically 6:48 gone. 6:49 There's nothing else for him to do. 6:51 So he leaves at about 8am, right around the time the fire department finally 6:56 arrives. 6:57 At this point, it's been seven hours since the fire broke out. 7:01 And according to George and Jenny, the entire house was in ashes within 30 or 45 7:07 minutes. 7:08 The family is waiting it out in the capsule or trucks, sitting in the cold, 7:12 watching the 7:13 house turn to ash, and praying the five kids are somehow okay. 7:18 By this point, there's nothing left to put out. 7:21 Just a bed of hot embers and a hole in the ground that was once their basement. 7:26 The firefighters run a hose from the creek to cool the wreckage down enough to 7:30 search. 7:30 And besides the fact that they're not prompt, this is a small, rural fire 7:33 department. 7:34 They probably don't have a ton of manpower either. 7:37 So a handful of locals pitch in to help search. 7:40 Family friends, employees, a couple of neighbors. 7:43 By around 10am, the fire chief tells the family that they can't find anything. 7:47 No bodies, no bones. 7:49 He suggests they scoop some ashes into a box and bury it. 7:53 So at least they've got somewhere to grieve the kids. 7:56 And the family, they kind of follow this advice. 7:59 Four days after the fire, Jenny's brother fills in the basement with a bulldozer 8:03 and the 8:03 sodders turn the site into a memorial garden. 8:06 The closest thing they've got to a grave. 8:08 Now you could look at this as suspicious. 8:10 Many people do, but honestly, to me, it seems like they were kind of in a days at 8:15 this 8:15 point. 8:16 It's already been told there's nothing at the scene. 8:19 Friends advise them to make it a burial ground. 8:21 And right after the fire, the county prosecutor is out there telling newspapers 8:25 that the site 8:25 will become a burial place for the kids like it's already decided. 8:29 The fire marshal, on the other hand, is not happy. 8:33 He says he specifically ordered George not to touch the site. 8:37 That he wanted it left alone until the investigation was finished and that George 8:40 just ignored 8:41 him and filled it in anyway. 8:43 But that version only works if the fire marshal actually gave George that 8:46 instruction before 8:48 the basement was filled. 8:50 And that's where the records get murky. 8:53 Early reports don't point to anyone telling the sodders to preserve the scene. 8:58 Those reports actually can't even agree on when the fire marshal showed up that day. 9:03 And Miranda found a record that shows the fire marshal's investigation didn't even 9:07 start 9:08 until December 27th, two days later. 9:11 To claim that George ignored orders comes up way later after officials were already 9:15 being 9:16 questioned about the lack of remains and the limited search. 9:19 Without the site preserve, the bulk of the investigation relies on a coroner's jury 9:24 in quest. 9:25 A non-criminal trial where the coroner and a jury hear testimony and look at 9:29 evidence to 9:30 try to figure out how the victims died. 9:33 And within days, there's a ruling. 9:36 This was an accidental fire, probably a wiring problem in the office. 9:41 Death certificates get issued five days later with no remains to back them up. 9:47 Now George and Jenny don't buy this version of events. 9:50 And they have good reason not to because there are all sorts of things that come up 9:55 in 9:55 the in-quest and in the weeks that follow that tell a very different story. 10:00 Starting with the fact that there were zero human remains recovered when they 10:04 searched 10:05 the wreckage. 10:06 Not a bone, not a tooth. 10:09 George and Jenny were right there watching the fire as it happened. 10:12 It burned down the entire building and again a matter of 30 to 45 minutes. 10:17 How could it have completely incinerated human bones in that time? 10:22 And is that even possible given the other items that survived? 10:25 I mean, record state that they found coins, the kitchen stove, and also things that 10:31 are 10:31 way more flammable than a human body, like part of a dictionary in pieces of Jenny's 10:36 coat. 10:37 Somehow five kids leave behind no remains. 10:42 It just doesn't make sense. 10:44 The sodders also don't believe this just happened by accident, by like faulty 10:49 wiring. 10:50 Right after the fire, John told a newspaper that he thinks someone set the fire on 10:54 purpose. 10:55 And another report says Jenny shares that suspicion as well. 10:59 Which seems plausible when the in-quest reveals that someone else was out on the 11:03 property 11:03 the same night of the fire. 11:05 And that person admits to cutting the phone line right before the sodders tried to 11:11 make 11:11 their desperate call for help. 11:14 In 2024, a man was killed by the FBI. 11:19 And to this day, the authorities have refused to say why. 11:23 He was a father, an ex-husband, and a Russian-born American citizen. 11:28 He just seemed like a lonely guy and he needed a friend. 11:32 And he kind of talked about death, didn't he? He talked about you just never know 11:37 when 11:37 it's your time. 11:38 I'm CNN investigative reporter Isabel Chapman, host of the new limited series, "Savillion 11:44 or Spy." 11:45 They've noticed that he was communicating with people that were of concern to the 11:51 FBI. 11:51 Oh my god, Jesus. 11:53 Head over to the CNN presents feed and listen to our three-part series, "Savillion 11:58 or Spy," 11:59 available wherever you get your podcasts. 12:03 During the coroner's inquest, a witness comes forward and says he saw someone out 12:10 on the 12:10 property that night. 12:11 It looked like a man was stealing a ladder and cutting the phone line, which was 12:15 later discovered 12:16 to be severed about 14 feet up and 2 feet out from the pole. 12:21 When they track this guy down, it turns out his name is already in the files. 12:25 He and a friend ran a bar down the road from the sodders. 12:28 The same bar that Mr. Smith stopped at to try and call for help, but he couldn't 12:33 use 12:33 the phone or it wasn't working. 12:35 It's not totally clear in the records. 12:37 He says he saw the fire, went over to help, and cut what he thought was the power 12:41 line 12:42 to help stop the blaze. 12:43 Now, Miranda is looking at the records of this almost a century later. 12:47 And she's like, "Yeah, right. 12:50 This guy sees a blazing fire and his first reaction is to find a ladder, climb 14 12:56 feet 12:56 in the dark to cut a random wire because he thought that would help." 13:00 Oh, and that ladder he was using? 13:03 The Slaughter family believed it's the same ladder George was looking for and 13:06 couldn't 13:06 find during the fire. 13:08 It actually eventually turns back up like 70 or 80 feet away from where the house 13:12 would 13:12 have been over like an embankment. 13:15 Like someone used it, walked it off the property, and pitched it over a hill. 13:21 Almost like someone was trying to hide it. 13:23 This guy's name just keeps popping up. 13:27 Around the same time that they find the ladder, the Slaughter's notice that George's 13:30 chain 13:31 hoists are gone. 13:32 Now, chain hoists are like heavy equipment used to lift car engines, and George's 13:37 were 13:37 bolted to the ceiling of the basement, which George used as a repair shop. 13:40 So stealing them isn't exactly like a grabbing go thing. 13:44 Somebody had to plan that one out. 13:47 Now George hears rumors that the guy who cut the phone line and the friend he ran 13:51 that 13:51 bar with had something to do with it. 13:54 Now I don't know exactly who George goes to with this information, Miranda thinks 13:59 that 13:59 it was probably a local police, but Warren's end up being issued for their arrest 14:03 of both 14:03 these guys who co-run the bar. 14:05 One of the guys joins the army almost immediately after and is gone for two years, 14:09 never charged. 14:11 The other one, the guy who was at the Slaughter property the night of the fire, pleads 14:15 guilty 14:15 and gets fined $25 for the theft. 14:19 And either guy ever gets charged with anything related to the actual fire. 14:23 No motive officials say. 14:25 They didn't know the Slaughter's, which it's just so frustrating because Miranda is 14:30 digging 14:31 through the records. 14:32 That guy's name pops up yet again, but this connection seems like it went 14:36 completely unnoticed 14:38 at the time. 14:39 It's related to that mystery caller, the woman who called the wrong number that was 14:42 the Slaughter's line right before the fire started. 14:46 A report from 1950 says law enforcement identifies that woman, confirms her wrong 14:50 number story, 14:52 and case closed. 14:53 But according to Miranda's research, a woman matching that description was also at 14:58 the 14:58 bar that night. 14:59 The same bar that was tied to the stolen chain hoists and the phone that mysteriously 15:04 wasn't working. 15:05 Nobody in any official document connects those two things. 15:09 There's other little bizarre details. 15:12 Visits from strangers, weird comments from neighbors, a reported sighting of Betty 15:17 Slaughter, 15:18 one of the children, that never comes to anything. 15:21 They all seemingly get no attention from investigators. 15:23 But at the core of it, at least for the Slaughter's, is still this mystery of the 15:28 missing bones. 15:30 And Jenny Slaughter becomes kind of obsessed with it. 15:33 In 1946, without even telling George, she starts running her own experiments at 15:38 home. 15:39 She uses animal bones, different accelerants, keeps a coal stove going all day just 15:44 to 15:44 see what happens. 15:45 And no matter what she does, she cannot get the bones to turn to ash, not once. 15:52 And Jenny becomes convinced that there's no way to explain the lack of remains of 15:57 the 15:57 scene. 15:58 And she starts to hope that her children are still out there somewhere. 16:01 Then, in 1947, the Slaughter's here a rumor that's been spreading around town. 16:06 The fire chiefs been telling people that he found a human heart in the ashes the 16:09 day 16:09 of the fire. 16:10 And he buried it on the property. 16:12 Jenny calls him directly, and his answer, "Oh, I thought I told you, but maybe I 16:18 didn't," 16:19 which, I'm sorry, what? 16:22 You either told a grieving family you found part of one of their missing kids, or 16:27 you 16:27 didn't. 16:28 That's not like a maybe kind of detail. 16:31 And he says, "Oh, he marked the spot with a stake." 16:34 Except the Slaughter's are still living on that property, and there's no stake 16:39 anywhere. 16:40 So they hire a PI, and eventually get the fire chief to actually come out, point 16:45 them 16:45 to the spot. 16:46 And they dig down about six feet, and they find an old box. 16:50 And inside is this waterlogged mass of tissue. 16:55 And then, I love this part, I could not believe it. 16:59 The fire chief asks for a receipt before he'll hand it over. 17:03 A receipt for potential evidence that he buried on their property, on his own, 17:11 without telling 17:12 anyone for a year and a half. 17:15 So they give him his receipt, and drive their remains to a funeral home in a town 17:19 about 17:20 40 minutes away. 17:21 And I don't blame them. 17:22 I wouldn't trust anyone in that town either. 17:25 And they hand it to the owner without telling him what it's supposed to be. 17:28 He opens the box. 17:30 And he says, "Oh, that's not a heart, that's a beef liver." 17:37 In 2024, a man was killed by the FBI. 17:41 And to this day, the authorities have refused to say why. 17:45 He was a father, an ex-husband, and a Russian-born American citizen. 17:50 He just seemed like a lonely guy, and he needed a friend. 17:54 And he kind of talked about death, didn't he? 17:57 He talked about you just never know when it's your time. 18:00 I'm CNN investigative reporter Isabel Chapman, host of the new limited series, "Savillion 18:06 or Spy." 18:07 They've noticed that he was communicating with people that were of concern to the 18:13 FBI. 18:13 Oh, my God, Jesus. 18:15 Head over to the CNN Presents Feed and listen to our three-part series, "Savillion 18:20 or Spy," 18:21 available wherever you get your podcasts. 18:28 The funeral homeowner says, "Not only is this a beef liver, but this is a beef 18:32 liver that 18:33 has never been exposed to fire. 18:35 It wasn't burned or charred or anything, definitely not burned to ash. 18:42 And also, it seemed fresh, like not what you would expect if it had been buried on 18:47 the 18:47 solder property for a year and a half." 18:51 So now the question is, why is the fire chief going around saying he found a heart? 18:57 And why did he bury this beef liver in the first place? 19:03 Even the fire marshal report says that the fire chief either couldn't or wouldn't 19:07 explain 19:08 why he handled it the way he did. 19:11 And then, weirdly, the beef liver disappears, too. 19:17 The PI asks the funeral home to hold onto it so he can send it to a contact at a 19:20 hospital. 19:21 The only problem, the funeral home doesn't have cold storage. 19:25 So the owner preserves it with inbalming fluid and tells his brother to bury it out 19:29 back. 19:30 About ten days later, the PI calls to say, "Hey, I'm coming to get it." 19:34 Except the brother never actually buried it. 19:37 He just left it sitting on the back porch. 19:40 And by the time the PI shows up, it's gone. 19:44 Best guess? 19:45 The garbage bin took it? 19:46 Thinking it was trash? 19:47 Which, I mean, at this point, yeah, the random beef liver from a box buried 19:52 seemingly 19:53 not too long ago is, pretty much, trash. 19:58 But that means that the only physical thing that could have proven whether the fire 20:03 chief 20:03 was lying just vanishes off a back porch. 20:08 But even if they had it, it wouldn't explain why the fire chief lied, which is 20:13 something 20:14 I personally have been spiraling about. 20:18 And that Montgomery funeral home the family drove to because they didn't trust 20:22 anyone 20:22 in Fayetteville. 20:23 According to them, they found out that it was connected to the same funeral home 20:29 network 20:29 back in Fayetteville the whole time. 20:31 Now, the sauters pushed for a real excavation of the property. 20:35 And in 1949, almost four years after the fire, they finally get it. 20:39 A private detective brings in an actual pathologist from the Smithsonian, a guy who'd 20:44 spent years 20:45 in the army excavating war graves. 20:48 And he brings 14 diggers with him, who spend 12 hours at the burn site. 20:53 And, they do finally find bones. 20:57 Some of them are animal bones, but four of them are human lumbar vertebrae, all 21:02 from 21:02 the same person. 21:04 No skull, no pelvis, no other bones anywhere nearby. 21:10 The pathologist's first read is that they could belong to a 14 or 15 year old, 21:14 which 21:15 would line up with Maurice, and these bones had been forcibly separated from the 21:19 rest 21:20 of the skeleton. 21:21 Then, a second Smithsonian doctor looks at the same bones a month later and 21:25 actually says 21:26 this is more like someone 16 to 22. 21:30 But both of them agree on two things. 21:34 These vertebrae were never exposed to fire. 21:37 And it's weird that no other bones were found at the burn site. 21:41 Now, Miranda reads this, and is like, how could the fire marshals just have shrugged 21:47 this off? 21:49 Their report says the vertebrae have no significance of the case, might have just 21:53 come 21:53 in like the dirt that they used to fill the basement. 21:56 So she goes looking for other fires to compare this to. 21:59 Fires with kids, fires with delayed responses, fires from the same era. 22:04 And she couldn't find a single one where multiple bodies just disappeared. 22:10 No bones, no teeth. 22:13 She did find that a retired firefighter actually wrote the sodders a letter about 22:17 this exact 22:18 thing. 22:19 He said in his career, he'd seen fires hot enough to burn the paint off of fire 22:22 trucks 22:23 30 feet away, and even then, they still found a body. 22:27 And you could still tell it was a body. 22:30 His opinion was that no house fire burns long enough or hot enough to completely 22:35 destroy 22:35 a human body. 22:37 At the time, a cremation company in Cincinnati told the sodders something similar 22:41 that even 22:41 two hours at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit leaves bones intact enough to recognize. 22:48 And remember, this fire burned for 30 or 45 minutes. 22:52 So we reached out to a fire investigator ourselves. 22:54 His name is Dale Reisen, who's been doing this professionally for years. 22:58 And what he told us lines up with everything the sodders were saying 80 years ago. 23:03 He said, a house back in 1945 wouldn't have burned nearly as hot or as fast as a 23:09 house 23:09 fire today because of what's actually inside a home now versus then, like synthetic 23:14 materials, 23:15 that kind of thing. 23:16 So if there were people trapped inside, you would find remains. 23:21 Period. 23:22 He broke it down like this. 23:23 To cremate a body, you need roughly 2,000 degrees for two hours of direct flame. 23:29 And even then, you're still left with pieces of skull and femur because those are 23:34 parts 23:34 that just don't burn away easily. 23:37 A 30 to 45 minute house fire doesn't come close to that even with something like 23:42 gasoline 23:43 involved. 23:44 His exact words were, "You cannot declare that someone died in a fire and not have 23:50 human remains." 23:52 According to an actual working fire investigator looking at this with fresh eyes in 23:57 2026, 23:58 the physical case for these kids dying in that fire does not hold up at all. 24:05 So if the kids didn't die in that fire, where were they? 24:11 Well, there are multiple accounts that suggest that the kids might have actually 24:16 gotten out. 24:18 There's a tip that the sodder kids were down in Florida with their uncle, Jenny's 24:22 brother. 24:23 Now, Jenny was estranged from her family. 24:25 They didn't like George and they'd had some disagreements about Jenny's father as a 24:29 state after he died. 24:31 But a couple in Cortez, Florida, a small town where Jenny's brother lived, told the 24:35 PI the family had five or six kids at the time when records only showed two of 24:39 school 24:40 age, actually living there in 1945. 24:42 Now, that lead was solid enough that the FBI eventually looked into it in 1952. 24:47 They checked school and birth records going back to 1940, they interviewed the 24:51 family, 24:52 and concluded that children living there were the family's own. 24:56 But the theory that seems most solid from Miranda's point of view suggests that the 25:00 kids 25:00 didn't just leave, that maybe they were taken. 25:05 And it comes from a woman who ran a hotel in a town a little over an hour away from 25:09 Fayetteville. 25:11 She comes forward in 1952 and swears in affidavit saying that just a few days after 25:15 the 25:16 fire, four kids matching the solder children checked into her hotel, three girls 25:21 and a boy, 25:22 with two men and two women who seemed to be Italian. 25:26 She tried to talk to the kids but the men got hostile and started talking fast and 25:30 Italian 25:30 and the whole group just clammed up and they were gone the next morning. 25:35 This brings up a new name, Fioranzo Genotulo, George's former boss. 25:41 Fioranzo is kind of a big deal locally and he and George were not on good terms. 25:47 According to Miranda, George and Fioranzo had been close for at least a decade, 25:50 George 25:50 had worked for him, but they were also friends. 25:53 When the solders bought their land in 1935, Fioranzo co-signed for the building 25:57 materials 25:57 on the condition that he made the beneficiary of the house insurance. 26:01 That's just how it was for years. 26:05 But in 1943, George broke off and started his own trucking company and Miranda says 26:10 Fioranzo 26:10 did not take it well. 26:13 About 60 days before the fire, he sent an insurance salesman to push George into 26:17 raising 26:18 coverage and adding life insurance on the whole family. 26:23 George refused and then Fioranzo allegedly showed up himself to confront George 26:28 about not 26:28 signing the papers and said, "Your goddamn house is going up in smoke and your 26:33 children 26:34 are going to be destroyed." 26:37 Many big threats to make over some insurance money. 26:40 But here's the thing, the insurance did get raised before the fire. 26:46 Sometime before Christmas that year, the house insurance gets quietly bumped from $1,500 26:52 to $1,750, except the solders seemingly had nothing to do with it. 27:00 George didn't know anything about it and they never collected a dime of that payout 27:04 either 27:04 because that money went to Fioranzo Genetulo. 27:08 There's no explanation why or how he was able to pull that off because Fioranzo 27:13 himself 27:14 never got questioned, not once. 27:18 According to Miranda, the solders wanted to bring a lawsuit against Fioranzo only 27:22 they 27:22 couldn't get a single lawyer in Fayetteville to take their case. 27:26 So Fioranzo isn't be investigated and no one is willing to call him up in court. 27:32 The solders felt that all of Fioranzo's local influence and property played a big 27:36 part 27:36 in keeping things quiet, which makes a lot of sense once you look at who actually 27:41 ran 27:41 the investigation into this fire. 27:43 The corner's inquest that ruled it accidental was made up of six men. 27:49 Five of them had direct ties to Fioranzo, his cousin/business partner sat as Jerry 27:54 Foreman. 27:55 That same cousin was also the one who ended up paying for the solders' small 27:58 replacement 27:59 house after the fire, which is either a genuinely kind gesture from a family friend 28:05 or a pretty 28:06 convenient way to keep a family close and grateful right when they might start 28:11 otherwise 28:11 asking harder questions. 28:14 The other four men on the jury were the fire chief who has Fioranzo's personal bookkeeper, 28:20 a local bank bookkeeper who also worked for Fioranzo's company, a man who belonged 28:24 to 28:24 the same clubs as Fioranzo's family, and the county clerk. 28:29 There was just one man on the jury without any obvious ties to Fioranzo, and he was 28:34 one 28:34 of George's own employees. 28:36 And on top of all of that, the prosecutor, the fire chief, the insurance agent, a 28:42 juror, 28:43 and a local funeral homeowner were all as allegedly free mason's together. 28:48 So to the solders, this wasn't a conspiracy of strangers. 28:53 This was one small town's most powerful people making decisions together. 28:59 It means it's no wonder the solders worked so hard to find a funeral director out 29:03 of town 29:03 when that liver turned up. 29:05 Now we did try to get the other side of this, even after 80 years. 29:10 We reached out to Fioranzo's granddaughter to ask her about her grandfather, and 29:14 she 29:14 pushed back on all of it. 29:17 She told us that Fioranzo started out in Fayetteville as a watchmaker, and then 29:20 owned a jewelry 29:21 store and a lumberyard along with some commercial property. 29:24 From what she remembers, he wasn't someone who talked politics at home, and she 29:28 never 29:29 heard of anyone in Fayetteville even bringing up the solder family. 29:33 As far as she knew him, he was well-liked, kind, and generous. 29:37 Someone the whole town loved. 29:39 She could never believe her grandfather would be unkind to anyone. 29:42 And she was clear that that's all she had to say on the subject. 29:46 So with all this in hand, here's where Miranda lands. 29:50 If this was a kidnapping, she doesn't think this was some kind of huge criminal 29:55 operation 29:55 or an organized crime conspiracy, which is a rumor that was going around for a 30:00 while. 30:01 She thinks that the kidnapper would have needed exactly what Fioranzo already had. 30:05 Local money, local friends, and a personal grudge. 30:10 Her theory is that the kids were part of the plan from the start. 30:13 Fioranzo specifically mentioned the solder children in his threat, and the five who 30:17 disappeared 30:17 were some of the youngest, the easiest ones to move. 30:21 She thinks they were taken from the house before the Fior, and the Fior was set as 30:25 a diversion. 30:26 The kids were moved out of town, got shuffled around for a few days, spotted at 30:31 that hotel, 30:31 then they were shipped off somewhere either far away where they wouldn't be 30:35 recognized, 30:36 or something worse happened to them. 30:38 And given everything we know about that town and the people surrounding the Fior, I 30:42 think 30:43 that story makes sense. 30:45 I think it's worth asking the question a skeptic would ask here, right? 30:49 What about George and Jenny? 30:50 Were they ever actually looked at? 30:53 And Miranda doesn't think they were seriously investigated, but she's also honest 30:56 that 30:56 she doesn't think anyone was seriously investigated in this case. 31:00 Still, when you look at it, the theory that George and Jenny had anything to do 31:04 with this 31:04 just doesn't hold up. 31:06 There's no financial motive, they're not the ones who got the insurance payout Fioranzo 31:10 did, and their behavior afterward doesn't look like two people trying to bury a 31:14 secret 31:14 and move on with their lives. 31:16 They spent years and genuinely a huge amount of money trying to find their kids. 31:21 They hired multiple private investigators. 31:23 George traveled for Leeds himself, they put up billboards on their own property 31:27 with their 31:27 kids' faces on them, and honestly, it's an image of that billboard that's what 31:32 haunted 31:32 Ashley and me years ago when we initially covered this case. 31:36 But those actions just aren't what you do when you're hiding something. 31:40 That's what you do when you think the truth is still out there, and nobody else is 31:43 going 31:44 to look for it. 31:46 Miranda doesn't have much hope that DNA will solve this one. 31:49 She doubts the kids lived long enough to have kids of their own, but she's not done 31:53 looking. 31:55 This summer, she went back to West Virginia herself because a lot of what's left in 31:59 this 31:59 case isn't digitized anywhere. 32:02 It's sitting in boxes somewhere, and someone has to go dick through them by hand. 32:08 80 years later, this is still an open wound for the solder family. 32:12 The solder knows the case is closed, and it's probably not getting reopened, at 32:16 least 32:16 not officially. 32:18 What she wants is to just get the real story out there, correct, in her family's 32:22 own words, 32:24 instead of second hand and half fright. 32:27 So if your family has any connection to West Virginia, Florida, or Italy around 32:30 this time, 32:32 there is an old photo, a letter, a story about a strange adoption in the late 1940s 32:37 that 32:37 never quite added up. 32:39 We want to hear from you, send anything you've got, documents, photos, newspaper clippings, 32:45 letters, even just a story that's been passed down to either our tip line at [email protected] 32:51 or Miranda's at the number five solder kids at gmail.com. 32:55 It might be nothing. 32:58 It might be the piece that's missing for 80 years. 33:01 Because at the end of the day, this was never just a bizarre mystery. 33:03 It was five kids. 33:06 Marie's, Martha, Louis, Jenny, and Betty, and their family has never stopped 33:11 looking 33:12 for them. 33:15 Crime junkie is an audio chuck production. 33:19 I think chuck would approve. 33:26 It starts with something small, a light in the sky moving in a way it shouldn't, a 33:31 sound 33:32 no one can place, a story someone swears is true, even if no one else believes them. 33:38 And the more you hear, the harder it gets to explain away. 33:41 On So Supernatural, we dig into the mysteries that live somewhere between fact, 33:46 folklore, and 33:47 the unknown. 33:48 We follow the stories that make you wonder what else is out there. 33:52 Listen to So Supernatural, wherever you get your podcasts.