On Christmas Eve 1945, a house fire in Fayetteville, West Virginia destroyed the Sodder family home. By morning, five of the ten Sodder children were missing — and no bodies were ever found.

Officials ruled that the children died in the fire, but almost nothing about the investigation made sense. No remains were recovered from the ashes. A ladder vanished. The family’s trucks mysteriously wouldn’t start. And in one of the strangest moments of the case, the local fire chief secretly buried a beef liver at the scene and later presented it to the family as the supposed heart of one of their children.

As years passed, the Sodders received unsettling sightings, warnings, and even a photograph that suggested at least one child may have survived. Their parents spent more than four decades searching for answers — and never stopped believing their children were alive.

In this episode of Twisted & Mysterious, we explore the baffling disappearance of Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie, and Betty Sodder, the deeply flawed investigation, and the theories that continue to haunt this case nearly 80 years later.

Audio note: This episode contains occasional background noise.

Was it a tragic accident… or something far more sinister?

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