Crime, Conspiracy, Cults and Murder - Ep. 16 | The Sodder Family | The Most Haunting UNSOLVED MISSING Persons Case

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

In 1945, a Christmas Eve fire destroyed the Sodder family’s home, allegedly killing five children—yet no remains were found. Believing they were kidnapped, the family spent decades seeking answers in a case full of mystery, theories, and haunting questions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On Christmas Eve, 1945, in the quiet town of Fayetteville, West Virginia, the Sauter family home was filled with the warmth of holiday chair. George and Jenny Sauter, along with nine of their ten children, celebrated together, exchanging gifts and laughter as the cold Appalachian winter settled in outside. As midnight passed and the family retired for the night, they had no way of knowing that these peaceful moments would soon give way to a nightmare that would haunt them for the rest of their lives. In the early hours of Christmas morning, a devastating fire engulfed their home.

George, Jenny, and four of their children escaped in the freezing night. But five of the Sauter children, Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jenny, and Betty were trapped inside. Or so everyone thought. Despite exhaustive searches of the charred ruins, no trace of the five children was ever found. No bones, no remains, nothing. So was it a tragic accident or was something far more sinister at play? Had the children perished in the fire? Or had they been kidnapped and whisked away in the dead of the night?

This is not just a story of a fire, but a tale of a family's relentless quest for the truth. So prepare to journey into one of the most haunted cold cases of the 20th century with me, where tragedy and mystery intertwine and where the search for answers still burns bright. Climb! Conspiracy! Serial killers! Culp! and murder. All things that I love to consume, and I know you do, too, you sick, beautiful, intellectual-minded freak. And we're going to do just that today, so let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go Mach 5 down the highway, slam on the brakes, and bash through this windshield into this

fire of a cold case together. So like I said, we're talking about the solder family today, specifically the solder children that went missing, the five, five solder children that went missing on Christmas Eve 1945. And the incident would involve a devastating house fire in Fayetteville, West Virginia, which destroyed the Sauter family home and allegedly claimed the lives of five of their children. Sounds pretty open-shut case, right?

Now! And that's why you're watching this video. There is a lot of conspiracy and theories around this case. It's extremely interesting, and I think you guys will be very interested to hear about it. I'm very curious what you guys think down below, so let's get into it. So let's start out with the Sauter family background.

The Sotter family was composed of Italian immigrants, George Sauter, and his wife, Jenny, along with their 10 children. That's a lot of children. I know it was back, way back when, but my, my God, I couldn't even imagine. Having one gives me anxiety. I don't have one. The idea of having one gives me anxiety. I digress.

So George Sauter originally named Giorgio Sado was born in Tula Sardinia in 1895. He would emigrate to the United States. States in 1908 at the age of 13, escaping poverty in Italy to seek a better life in America, like many other immigrants at the time. And he would eventually find work in the Pennsylvania coal mines. And after several years, he would work many different jobs. But he would settle in Fayetteville, West Virginia. And Fayetteville, a small coal mining town, had a significant population of Italian immigrants. And George would quickly establish himself as a successful businessman in the community. And by 1945, George had now owned a trucking company that transported goods, including

coal throughout the region. He was known for his strong opinions, particularly about Benito Mussolini. Have you heard of him? Great guy. But by great, he's not. He was the fascist leader of Italy, whom George vocally criticized even before Mussolini's downfall in 1943. And his outspoken views on Italian politics were a source of tension in the Italian American community, many of whom were still loyal to Mussolini. For reasons I'll never understand. And Jenny Sotter, who was born in 1899, was also an Italian an immigrant. She would manage the household and take care of the 10 children. John, Joseph, Marion, George Jr., Maurice, Martha, Lewis, Jenny, Betty, and Sylvia. And the Saughters were generally considered well respected within their community. And George's business provided a very comfortable

life for the large family, which is crazy because supporting 10 kids, I can't even think about how much it would cost nowadays, like maybe $2 back then. I don't know, I'm just kidding, but that's crazy. George was doing real good. However, this outward success may have. have masked the underlying tensions that played a critical role in the events that unfolded in December 1945. So let's talk about the infamous night of the fire. So on the evening of December 24th, 1945, the family would celebrate Christmas Eve together. One of the sons would be away in the army, but the rest of them were able to spend Christmas together. Marion, the eldest daughter, had bought toys for the younger children as Christmas

presents and they begged to stay up late to play with their new Christmas presents. And Jenny would eventually allow Maurice, who was 14, and Martha, who was 12, and Lewis, who is nine, and Jenny who was eight, and Betty, who was five, to remain awake after the rest of the family went to bed to play with their new toys. And the events of the night would unfold in an extremely chaotic matter. At around 1 a.m., Jenny would be awakened by a very strange phone call. From a woman asking for a name, Jenny did not recognize. Jenny could hear laughter and clinking glasses in the background. Jenny would tell the caller that she had the wrong number. though, and she would hang up the phone.

And that's when she would notice that the lights downstairs were still on. And the curtains were open also. And this was very unusual for the household because the children were continuously told to close the curtains before going to bed. And Jenny, just assuming that the kids had forgotten, went downstairs to close the curtains, and also check to lock the door and also turn off the lights before going back to bed. And then about 30 minutes later, Jenny was startled awake again. This time allowed bang on the roof that was followed by a rolling noise. However, the noise would subsize.

the noise would subside and she would just fall back to sleep thinking nothing of it. And not long afterward at about 1.30 a.m., Jenny awoke once more. And this time, to the smell of smoke. She would rush to find the source of the smoke and she would discover that it was coming from George's office. And where the fuse box and telephone wires were located was the fire, to which the smoke was emitting from. So Jenny, in a panic, would go over and wake George and try to scramble all of their kids together to get out of the house that was currently on fire. And they would manage to wake up Marion, George Jr., John, and and Sylvia who were all sleeping upstairs, and they would then flee outside.

However, the five younger children, who had stayed up late, remained unfortunately trapped inside. And the house would be rapidly consumed by flames, preventing George from entering and rescuing the rest of his children. They would frantically yell to the children upstairs, but they heard no response, and they couldn't go up there because the stairway itself was already a flame.

And John would say in his first police interview after the fire, that he went up to the attic to alert his siblings who were sleeping there, he would later change his story and say that he only called up there and he didn't actually see them. In any other of George's and Jenny's desperate attempts to save their children were just met with frustration. George, barefoot, attempted to actually climb the outside of the house and he would break a window, but then he would get a brutal cut on his arm in the process. And the fire would prevent him from getting in. So then he and his sons intended to use a ladder to the attic to rescue

the other children, but it wasn't in the usual spot where they always left it. And they couldn't find it anywhere else nearby. So then their next idea was to get the water barrel that could have been used to extinguish some of the fire, but it was frozen solid, unfortunately. So in a last ditch effort, George would then try to pull both of the trucks he used for his business up to the house to use them to climb up to the attic window. But neither of them would start despite having them worked perfectly the day previous. So every attempt that they made was completely futile and they were just completely frustrated and with nothing else to do, one of the kids, Marion, would run to the neighbor's house to call the Fayetteville Fire Department. And a driver on the nearby

road also had seen the flames and called from a nearby tavern. But they too were unsuccessful either because they could not reach the operator or because the phone there was also broken for some reason. But either the neighbor or the passing motorist was eventually successful in reaching the fire department from another phone in the center of town. But the sodders were just left in front of their home that was on fire, just feeling completely useless. And all they could do for the next 45 minutes was watched their house completely collapse from the flames and assuming that their other five children had collapsed in the flames alongside the house. So let's go into the investigation and the aftermath of the fire. So the fire department who was currently very low on manpower due to the war

were relying on individual firefighters to literally call each other when there was a fire. And they wouldn't respond until later that morning from when the fire happened that evening. So there was like eight hours between the time the firefighters actually got to the house. And the chief of the fire department, Chief F.J. Morris, said that the next day the already slow response was further hampered by his inability to drive the fire truck. How are you the chief and you can't drive a fucking fire fuck truck? Requiring that he wait until someone else that could drive the fire truck to show up to drive the fire truck. Did that make sense? Probably not. Nothing makes sense to me right now.

But anyway, they would arrive the next. morning, or I guess later that morning because the fire happened around one o'clock. And the firefighters, one of whom was actually Jenny's brother, could do little but to look through the ashes that were left in the solder's basement. And they would conclude there that the remaining five solder children had perished in the fire. And the fire chief, F.J. Morris, initially suggested that the intensity of the flames had been so great that it had completely inciterated their bodies. So there was no evidence at this point. And this explanation, however, was immediately met with skepticism by George and Jenny, naturally.

They could not understand how a fire hot enough to completely destroy the bodies of their children couldn't destroy things like their appliances in the house that were still partially intact after the fire had completely dissipated. Additionally, like I said, no human remains were actually found in the ashes at this point. And even under intense heat, it is highly unusual for a fire to obliterate all traces of Dr. Charles F. Kennedy, the county coroner, supported the theory that the fire's heat was sufficient to reduce the bodies into ashes. But this conclusion contradicted expert opinions later gathered by the sodders themselves. And according to pathologists, even in cremation, which occurs at a lot higher temperatures than house fires, bones will still remain.

But Chief Morris would tell George to leave the site undisturbed so that the state fire marshal's office could conduct a more thorough investigation. However, after only four days, George and his wife, just couldn't bear to see the site anymore. So he would bulldoze five feet of dirt over the site with the intention of converting it into a memorial garden for their lost children, which is like, I understand, but also there's an investigation going on and there's evidence in there.

So like, I don't know. It's like, there's no winning in that situation. It's very sad, but there's a lot more to go through. So let's go through it. And death certificates for the five children were issued on December 30th. And the local newspaper would actually contradict itself, saying that the bodies had been found in the fire,

but then later in the same story, reporting that only a part of the bodies were discovered. And George and Jenny would just be too grief-stricken to even attend their children's funeral on January 2nd, 1946, but their surviving children would. So the official cause of the fire would be determined to be faulty wiring. But George would dispute this.

He had actually recently had the house rewired, and an electrician would declare it completely safe. Additionally, George would notice that the Christmas lights had stayed on during the first part of when the fire was happening. So if it was because of faulty wiring, the Christmas lights wouldn't be on at all because the electricity would be completely out in the house.

So it was basically impossible for it to be an electrical fault. And suspicions would grow when the soders were called several strains incidences in the months leading up to the fire. Like in the fall in 1945, a man would come up to the house asking about George's work and had pointedly commented that the house's wiring was likely to cause a fire one day. I'm a bit suspicious and coincidental, isn't it?

And around the same time, another man approached George offering to sell him insurance, specifically life insurance. Weird. And when George would decline this man, the man would reportedly become enraged at him and tell him, quote unquote, your house is going to go up in smoke

and your children are going to be destroyed. What? Warning George that his anti-Musilini sentiments would lead to tragic. So then those sentiments that he said, like, way back when, were coming back for some reason. So very strange. And after the fire, the sodders began receiving tips and information that seemed to point towards the possibility of a kidnapping rather than a fire-related death. A woman who had been watching the fire from a nearby road claimed that she actually saw the missing five solder children peering out from a passing car window and watching as the house burned.

And another woman who worked at a tourist spot about 50, miles away, reported that she had seen the children the morning after the fire and served them breakfast. And she said they were traveling in a car with Florida license plates. But these leads would end up not leading anywhere, unfortunately. And not long after, as a solder began to slowly rebuild their lives, the family started to question all the official findings about the fire. They wondered why. If it had been caused by an electrical problem, with the family's Christmas lights remain on throughout the early stages of the fire. When the power should have been. gone out. And then they also found the ladder that was missing when the fire was ablaze and that

was supposed to be on the side of the house at the bottom of an embankment 75 feet away from their house. And none of them claimed to have put it there either. And one of the most interesting things is that a telephone repairman told the sodders that the house's phone line had not been burned, as they had initially thought naturally because there was a fire happening near a telephone in their home when it first sparked. But it had been cut by someone who had been willing to climb a 14 foot pole and then reach over two feet to cut the telephone wire. And a man who the solder neighbors had saw stealing a block and tackle from the property around the time of the fire was identified and arrested. He would admit to the theft and he would also claim that he was the one to cut the phone wire.

Thinking that it was a power line, which I don't understand. If it was a power line, wouldn't you die if you cut it? I've seen videos of people doing that and just... I don't know. Anyway, but he also denied having a power line. anything to do with the fire itself. But no record identifying the suspect actually even exists. And like what would be the purpose of cutting the utility lines and stealing the block and tackle? None of it's ever been explained. And Jenny said in 1968 that if he had cut the power line, she and her husband, along with their other four children, would have never been able to make it

out of the house. And Jenny also had trouble accepting Morris's belief that all traces of the children's body had been burned completely in the fire. Because like we said before, many, of the household appliances had been found after the fire, still recognizable and in the ash, along with fragments of the tin roof. And she would go like full science mode on this and badass. I love it. She would contrast the results of the fire with a newspaper account of a similar house fire that she read around the same time that had killed a family of seven. And she would see that skeletal remains of all the victims were reported to have been found in that case. Jenny would even go so far as to burn piles of animal bones to see if they would be commuter

completely consumed by the fire, but none ever were. And an employee at a local crematorium, she contacted, told her that human bones remain even after the bodies are burned at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, or a thousand and 90 degrees Celsius. Fucking hot, for two hours, mind you, as well. Far longer and far hotter than the house fire that happened at the solder home. And the solder's truck's failure to start was also considered. George believed that they had been tampered with.

Perhaps by the same man who stole the tackle and block and cut the phone line. However, one of George's son-in-laws would say that he had come to believe that they may have flooded the trucks by trying to start them. So that is a possibility, I guess. And the mysterious phone call that happened was explained away by the authorities reaching out to the woman that had called, and she just said she did have the wrong number. So who knows? So dissatisfied with the local authorities handling the case, the Saughters would launch their own investigation. George himself would comb the site of the fire, looking for any remains,

and he would eventually hire Oscar B. Hunter, a Washington, D.C. pathologist, to examine the scene. And in 1949, four years after the fire, Hunter found several small bone fragments, which were sent to the Smithsonian Institution for analysis, where Marshall T. Newman, who was a specialist at the Smithsonian, sorry, I, Smithsonian. Smithsonian Institution would confirm, thank you, that those bones, were a lumbar vertebrae, all from the same person, though. And he would go on to say, quote, unquote, since the transverse recesses are fused,

whatever that means, the age of this individual at death should have been 16 or 17 years. Newman's report said, the top limit of age should be about 22 since the centra, which normally fuse at 23, are still unfused. Thus, in layman's term, basically,

given the age range, it was not very likely that these bones were from any of the five missing children, because the oldest of the five, which was Maurice, had been only 14 at the time. Furthermore, the bones showed zero signs of exposure to fire, raising further questions about their origin. And the Sauters would also hire a private investigator

named C.C. Tinsley, cool name. From a nearby town in Gali Bridge to look into the case. And Tinsley would inform the family that the insurance salesman that had initially threatened George for the anti-Musilini sentiments had been on the coroner's jury, that ruled the fire an accident, which is very interesting. And he had also learned that rumors around Fayetteville

that despite his reports to the sodders, that no remains had been found in the ashes, Morris, Chief Morris, the firefighter, had found a heart, which he had later packed into a metal box and secretly buried. And Morris had apparently confessed to a local minister, who in turn confirmed it to George. So George and Tinsley would naturally go to Morris

to confront him about this news. And Morris would agree to show the two where he had actually buried that metal box and they dug it out. And they would take the box and give it to a funeral director to ask what exactly it was in the box. And after examining it, he would find that it was actually fresh beef liver that had never been exposed to fire. What the fuck? And later, more rumors circulated around Fayetteville that Morris had afterwards admitted that the box with the liver had indeed not come from the fire originally.

He had supposedly placed it in there in hopes that the sodders would find it, and be satisfied that it may have been one of the missing children's body parts. That's like, that's, I don't know, that's next, it's like equally lazy as it is trying to hard. Like, just like being, like, you cannot be a bigger POS, in my opinion. Like, just trying to, like, cover it up or not even cover it up, just like insurance organs, which is weird. And after all that fucking shit show, George and Jenny reached out to the FBI for, assistance, specifically Jay Edgar Hoover, the FBI director at the time, who expressed interest

in the case and agreed to investigate it if local authorities granted them permission. However, like all police departments, I swear every police department I read about at least. I know some are good. Lots are good. Sorry. Um, but the police and fire departments would decline the offer. Ooh, I smell. Cover up. That looks really bad. And I feel like that gives the FBI more reason to in the case, especially since the police department and the fire department are like, I have. Have no fear.

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We got it solved. We got a heart in a box, liver, it didn't go on fire. We got some bones. It's fine. They're dead. See you. Like, just give you all the more reason. But one of the most tantalizing pieces of evidence came in 1967.

When Jenny Sauter received a letter in the mail with an unknown sender. And the letter contained a photograph. And the photograph would be of a young man who bore a striking resemblance with Lewis Sauter or Louis Sauter. There's two ways to pronounce it. I'm sorry if I pronounced it wrong. I read it as Lewis. Louis or Louis Sauter was one of the missing children.

And the photograph would be accompanied by a very cryptic letter that would read Lewis Sauter. I love brother Frankie. And that's ill ill-boys. A-9-0-132 or 35. I don't know. And the meaning of the note has literally never been deciphered. and the identity of the sender remains unknown.

Because despite the tantalizing lead, the Sauter family could not confirm the authenticity of the photograph or of the photograph, or trek down the sender. However, convinced that the man in the photograph was indeed their son, Jenny Sauter would hire another private investigator to travel to Kentucky, where the letter was postmarked,

in hopes of finding more information. But unfortunately, the investigator would never return because he's a piece of shit. And the Sotters were left with no further leads. So despite the frustration and the lack of resolution, Jenny kept the photograph, displaying it in her home alongside other family photos, maintaining her belief that Lewis might still be alive. And the photo, while tantalizing, like we said, was just one of the many very strange occurrences

that kept the Sauter's hope alive over the years. Numerous tips and alleged sightings of the children were reported, though none could be substantiated. For example, a woman in St. Louis claimed that Martha was staying in a convent. And another tip came from a bar patron in Texas who claimed that he overheard incriminating conversations about the children. But every lead, however, just proved to be a dead end. But George and Jenny Sauter never gave up the search for their children.

And for the remainder of their lives, they actively investigated all of the potential leads. They quite literally just poured their life into finding their children. They would even put up a billboard along Route 16 near Fayetteville, which featured pictures of the missing children and detailed that a $10,000 reward they were offering for any information leading to their recovery. And the billboard would remain a haunting fixture along the highway. for decades and would become a symbol of their relentless pursuit for answers. And their message on the billboard basically outlined their belief that the

children had been kidnapped, detailing key suspicions surrounding the fire and the failed investigation. And a year later in 1968, George admitted to the Charleston Gazette mail that the lack of information had been like hitting a rock wall, we can't go any further. He nevertheless vowed to continue though, quote-unquote, saying, time is running out for us and he admitted in another interview around that time. But we only want to know if they did die in the fire, we want to be convinced. Otherwise, we want to know what happened to them. But unfortunately, he would never find out what happened to his children because he would pass away in 1969, still holding on to the

belief that his children were alive somewhere. And after George's death, Jenny stayed in her family home, putting up fencing around it and adding additional rooms. And for the rest of her life, she wore black clothes in mourning and tended to the garden at the site of the fire. And Jenny, too, would continue the investigation until her death in 1989. And after Jenny's passing, the surviving Sotter Children would take down that billboard that they put up at Fayetteville. And the family's search for their missing siblings now had slowed down, though their memories and questions persisted.

So let's get into the theories and conspiracies. First off, the fire and accidental death theory. So the most straightforward theory about the Sauter Children's disappearance is the official explanation provided by the local authorities. The children perished in the fire. According to this theory, the house fire that was attributed to faulty wiring caused the death of the five missing children. And proponents argue that the intense heat of the fire may have completely incinerated the children's bodies, leaving no remains behind. Which would explain why there was no bones or any evidence that the deaths happened in the aftermath of the blaze.

And supporters of this theory often point to the events that took place before the fire took place. With the difficult in reaching the fire department, the missing ladder, the failure of George Sauter's trucks, and each of these incidents in their opinions suggest that, they could just be chalked up to a combination of bad luck. However, in my opinion, in a lot of other people's opinion, this theory is riddled with inconsistencies. And one of the strongest arguments against it is that even in the most extreme cases of housefires, bones or other remains are typically found. And cremation, which burns at much higher temperatures than housefires, does not even destroy bones entirely. It usually will lead fragments behind that usually need to be

pulverized or completely reduced to ash manually. On top of that, obviously, the lack of human remains at the site of the fire, combined with the fact that there were household appliances that survived the fire. Casts doubt on the idea that the fire alone could have accounted for all the children's disappearances and deaths. And another key issue with this theory

is the condition of the house's wiring. George Sauter had recently had his house rewired and the wiring was inspected not too long before the fire happened. Furthermore, during the fire, the family noted that the house lights and the Christmas lights remained on during the first stretch of the fire. And it's extremely likely the power

would have completely shorted out early on, making this explanation even less plausible. So I'm throwing that theory out the window. The next theory is the kidnapping theory. So one of the more compelling theories, and one that is strongly believed by the Sauter family, is that the children were kidnapped, and that the fire was set deliberately as a diversion.

And the Sauters maintain that the children were taken before or during the house fire, and that the fire was meant to be a cover-up. And according to this theory, the five children did not die in the blaze, were abducted and taken elsewhere. And several strange occurrences leading up to the fire lead credence to this theory.

In the months leading up to the fire, George had been visited by several suspicious individuals. The insurance guy who threatened George, telling him his house was literally gonna go up and smoke and that his children would be destroyed. And then the man also talked about George's outspoken political views, particularly his criticism of Mussolini.

And this would lead to the sodders wondering if the family had been targeted by individuals within the local Italian-American community, who had still, harbored loyalty to Mussolini. And adding weight to the kidnapping theories were also the numerous sightings of the children after the fire. The woman who had been watching the blaze from across the road, seeing the children peering from the car window, the woman who worked at the tourist spot in Charleston, West Virginia, who had said

to have served the children breakfast at a stop, two of which she said spoke Italian, and the car that they were traveling in had Florida license plates, further suggesting that the children may have been taken further out of Fayetteville, possibly to Florida. And in 1967, Jenny received a potential breakthrough in the case when she received that photograph in the mail, the one that bore striking resemblance to one of her sons that had gone missing. The kidnapping theory, well compelling, also raises several questions. If the children were kidnapped, why was there never a ransom demand? Kidnapping for financial gain wasn't uncommon during this era, yet no one ever came forward to ask the sauters for money in exchange for their children. Furthermore, if the

children had been abducted, why were none of the leads or sightings definitively confirmed? So, That's the kidnapping theory. Next theory, which is interesting, is the mafia in organized crime theory. So the mafia had been a notable presence in the region during the mid-20th century. And there's speculation that George's successful business or his outspoken political views might have made him a potential target. As a vocal critic of Mussolini, George Sauter had made enemies among certain factions of the Italian-American community in Fayetteville. So his refusal to align with pro-Musilini elements may have sparked retaliation in the form of a deadly arson attack intended to silence or punish him. And this theory is partly supported by the cryptic warning George received from that insurance salesman

who told him his house would be destroyed because of the anti-Musilini views. And in the years after the fire, George and Jenny would receive anonymous tips and letters, suggesting that the children had actually been taken by the mafia or other criminal organizations involving human trafficking possibly. And some have speculated that the children may have been abducted as part of a blackmail scheme or that they were sold into adoption or child labor either domestically or abroad. And proponents to the mafia theory also point to the mysterious behavior within the local authorities and fire department.

The delay in the fire department's response, the strange failure of Georgia's trucks, and the absence of thorough investigation had led some people to wonder whether the local officials were involved in this cover-up, which wasn't uncommon during this time either. Mafia had people on the inside as well. It was very common. And there are other suggestions that it's part of a broader criminal conspiracy, potentially involving that law enforcement officials had been bribed or coerced into obstructing the investigation, which we did see happen, especially with the guy burying the box and the bones being placed,

probably. It's just all very strange, which leads us into the second last theory, which is the human trafficking and the adoption theory, which is basically that the children were kidnapped and sold into human trafficking or illegal adoption rings. During the 1940s and 1950s, human trafficking, while less discussed today, which is gross, because we need to talk about it, still occurred, particularly among immigrant families and marginalized communities. So according to this theory, the children could have been abducted in a network involved in selling children to wealthy families, unable to have their own children,

or to institutions that exploited children for labor. And reports of unidentified children, appearing in orphanages or private homes following the fire have fueled speculation that the solder children may have been taken into a legal adoption. While there is no concrete evidence supporting this necessarily, the theory still persists, especially considering the lack of ransom demands and financial motives typically seen in traditional kidnappings. So if the children were taken and sold, they could have been placed in homes where they grew up with completely different names, never knowing their true identities. And this theory is bolstered by the fact that Jenny and George received several tips over the years from people who claim to have seen the children living

with different families. However, like we said before, none of these sightings were actually ever conclusively verified. That brings us to our last theory, which is the government conspiracy theory. It's always the government. It's always the government. I'm just kidding, but also not. So one of the more far-fetched but persistent conspiracy theories suggest that the Sauter children were taken by the government for reasons unknown, possibly related to intelligence or military purposes. This theory basically is about the children and how they had been abducted as part of a covert operation or experiment. And the fire was staged to erase any evidence that existed. And with literally zero concrete evidence to back this theory up, it just arises from,

I think, the general distrust that many people have towards the government institutions, especially during this era immediately following World War II, a time marked by the rising Cold War tensions and secrecy in government operations. And some conspiracy theorists argue that the mafia or other organized crime syndicates may have worked in tandem with corrupt government officials to facilitate the abduction,

making it completely impossible for the family to uncover the truth, which at this point, I believe basically anything but them dying in the fire. I don't think they died in the fire. I believe like any of these are potentially true. And there is a theory that the internal family dynamics could have played a role in the disappearance

of the Sauter. children as well, but this theory is like not widely accepted at all. And it basically speculates that an extended member of the family may have been involved in the fire and the disappearance of the children due to familial disagreements or financial disputes, maybe because of a jealousy that George had a successful business or that he had a big happy family. We're not sure, but this theory has literally no evidence involved. So I'm just brushing off.

But essentially, that is the story of the solder children and it's, I mean, horrible. And I mean, I hope that one day it can be solved. But at this point, we don't have any answers. It remains a very enduring mystery fraught with contradictions, strange occurrences, and frustrating lack of closure. So I'd love to hear some of your theories down below or what you think. And I mean, all we can do is hope that it can get solved one day. But I love shedding some light on these types of stories. So I hope you enjoyed it and can take something from it today.

But yeah, if you like the video, like the video. the video if you want to subscribe subscribe and also thank you to vessi for sponsoring the video stay safe out there and i will see you beautiful face in the next video all right