Martha Lee Sodder was 12 when the Sodder family home burned on Christmas Eve 1945 in Fayetteville, West Virginia. Five of the ten Sodder children—Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jennie and Betty—were never found after the blaze. The fire was officially blamed on faulty wiring, but no human remains were recovered in a brief search of the rubble. The family noted several unusual facts that night: an anonymous midnight phone call to the mother, a loud thud on the roof, the household ladder gone, both family trucks failing to start, and the telephone line cut rather than burned.

In the years that followed George and Jennie Sodder received multiple reports claiming the children had been seen after the fire, and in 1952 they erected a roadside billboard with the children’s photos and a reward. A 1968 photograph mailed to the family purportedly showed a man resembling Louis with a puzzling inscription; the private investigator hired to trace that lead later vanished from the record. The family maintained that the children had been abducted and searched for answers until their deaths. Does anyone have information about the Sodder children or remember tips, sightings, or leads connected to this case?