Solved Murders - True Crime Stories - Mystery of the Sauter Children Fire, Vanishing, and a Family's Lifelong Search for Truth #76

Episode Date: July 19, 2025

#horrorstories #reddithorrorstories #ScaryStories #creepypasta #horrortales #SauterChildren #UnsolvedMystery #FamilyTragedy #VanishedWithoutATrace #HauntingCase  On Christmas Eve, a fire consumed the Sauter home—but five children were never found. No remains. No explanation. Just ashes, whispers, and decades of unanswered questions. As the family searched relentlessly for the truth, strange sightings, silent phone calls, and hidden clues only deepened the haunting mystery. A true story of heartbreak, obsession, and something unexplainable.  horrorstories, reddithorrorstories, scarystories, horrorstory, creepypasta, horrortales, SauterFireMystery, unsolveddisappearance, vanishedchildren, truecrimecase, coldcasehorror, familytragedy, firewithnosevidence, eeriecase, ghostkids, terrifyingtrueevents, missingwithoutatrace, Americanhorrormystery, strangephonecalls, decadesofsearching

For context, I'm 23M, and my father is, 64. Only recently, as I'm an adult has he started to open up about his past and the things he went through. Never could I have imagined the hardships and things that happened to him. It has honestly blown my mind. So I started to write down his story with his permission to share. Anyways, I will detail here what I know about him without revealing any names or specific locations. This is a very long post, sorry for that. Please let me know if this is something worth pursuing, along with any tips you may have.

My father grew up as one of 24 children in his family, born in Laos in 1959 during the civil war between communist Pathet Lao, who was backed by northern Vietnam and the Royal Lao government. The U.S. backed the Royal Lao government and engaged in what is known as the Laos Secret War, and dropped more than 270 million cluster bombs on Laos in a nine-year period, making Laos the most bombed country per capita. During which my dad went to Catholic school in the morning and then to public school in the afternoon. Many families sent their children to Catholic schools so they could be fed due to the overwhelming poverty at the time. France had integrated Laos into French Indochina many decades prior, building many Catholic churches and schools. Thus converting a portion of the country

from Buddhism to Catholicism. The school my father went to also taught the children Muay Thai as part of the curriculum for some reason. As my father studied and trained for a few years, the conflict was starting to spread closer to his village and tension was building with the people there. My dad was around 10 at this time. I should also mention that my grandfather was a horrifying and abusive man. He was short and stocky, covered in tattoos of the Naga from head to toe. The Naga is a demigodod.

sea serpent that is worshipped in Lao culture, said to reside in the Mekong River. All 24 of the children were his but split between three wives, which was sort of the norm at the time in Laos. My grandfather was seen as a powerful man in the village because of his abundance of sons. At the time you could just go and claim land with manpower alone, so my grandfather and his sons would go and claim rice fields for themselves. If any of his children didn't obey his orders, he would punish them very severely, as well as punish the respective child's mother. Intense beatings were the norm. As well as being farmers, my family were renowned water buffalo tamers.

People would come to buy water buffalo and their meat, it was profitable. Once the conflict grew closer, buyers for the rice and buffalo stopped coming. This led my grandfather to turn to crime, crossing the Mekong River to Thailand to sell his goods, where he also began selling opium. which was all explicitly outlawed. He forced his older sons to accompany him in the cover of night, risking all their lives in the process due to the nearby communist camps that would patrol the river at night looking to execute any who tried to escape across the river,

and freedom fighters crossing into the country to fight the communists. During this time, my uncle, a pilot in the Lao military, decided to escape the country. He was about 15 years older than my father and was married to my aunt, who is my father's older sibling. Sorry if that was confusing, they had a two-year-old son and did not want to bring him up in the middle of this conflict. At the time my uncle was stationed in Thailand because the communists were gathering up all the stray Lao government officials and members of the military to send them to work camps. My uncle hatched a plan to sneak back into Laos across the river at night and retrieve his wife and child. Initially, things went well and he was able to cross into the country without being spotted

and retrieve his family, but by the time they returned to the river the boat that was waiting for them was gone, chased away by communist soldiers. So my uncle waited while hiding in a bush with his wife and their small child for days until finally, another boat arrived to rescue them. This act inspired more people in the village to try and rebel or escape, causing many unfortunate deaths. My grandfather was explicitly against any of his other children attempting to do anything similar despite his frequent trips across the river. I guess he had a sort of, Nobody can endanger my children but me, mindset. A few years went by with nothing major happening in the village, though the conflict was still going strong. My dad was around 13 at this time,

and my grandfather became increasingly abusive due to the lack of money and food around, which led him to do one of the worst things I have had the displeasure of hearing to this day. My father had been tending the fields and hurting buffalo. During that time he had made his first real friend, a stray dog that he would often see on the edge of the village. He began to feed the dog with the little scraps he was able to sneak away from home, and the dog began accompanying him to the fields every morning while he did his work. The way my father described this dog and their relationship made me understand how much it meant to him. The dog became his best friend.

They did everything together, and my father was happy for the first time in his life. Then one day, an unspecified amount of time later. My father woke up and was not able to find his buddy, he went out to the fields and the dog never came, he tended to the buffalo and the dog was nowhere to be seen. He finished his work and returned home to find the most horrifying thing a child could see. My grandfather had the top half of his dog strung up on a meat home. cooked to dry, while he sat and ate the other portion right in front of my father. My dad began to break down and cry asking him why he would do this, his father told him

that he had seen him walking around the fields with this dog. He said that all animals are to him is meat and he was hungry, knowing that this was my father's only friend and that taking him away would break my father's heart. This event is what would make my father start to truly hate his father. At this point, my dad had completely renounced any type of relationship he had with his father and decided that he would take revenge. My father spoke to his brothers and was able to convince a handful of them to help him take revenge for the beatings they'd all received and for the abuse of their mothers. Some time later they decided the time was right, they waited for their father to come home from a trip into town. When he did, they surrounded him, ready to take out all

their frustrations on him. It was at this point that a few of the brothers started to get scared and back down, but my father was so enraged that he rushed at his father with a farming tool and the intent to seriously harm him. Only my father was a 13-year-old boy, and his father was a grown man, strong from working the fields his entire life. My father proceeded to get the worst beating of his life, right there in front of his brothers. Everyone was too petrified to move and just let my father be beaten within an inch of his life. To this day my father still has resentment toward those brothers that he feels betrayed him that day. From then forward, the mistreatment toward my father only got worse and finally reached a boiling point. My father realized that the only way

he could get away from this abuse was to escape the country. This time he made sure only to tell the people he trusted. That being just two friends from the village who were a few years older than him. There were only two problems, they had no canoe to cross the river, and my father knew his siblings and mother would be punished for him leaving. Despite this, they still decided to go through with their plan. They spent the time they had after work going up and down the river scouting for the narrowest part of the river, and the parts with the weakest current so they could cross. The Mekong can be over a mile wide, or 1.5 kilometers in some areas. The soldiers also only patrolled the river at night, as during the day it was sort of a no-man's land, and people were

allowed to continue fishing and working on the river. At the same time, they were slowly gathering supplies for their journey. At some point, my grandmother started to put together what they were up to and offered to help them. She pulled my father aside and told him that she knew what they were up to and told them where to cross the river, as well as when my grandfather would be away and that they should steal his canoe and leave at that time. They had a long conversation about what would happen after they left. Much of this conversation my dad skimmed over when telling me. My grandmother assured my father that she would be okay

and that this was his opportunity for a better life. She gave him what little money she could without anyone noticing, and a handful of jewelry she had been stashing. With that the plan was complete. Some time later my father and his friends decided that the time was right. They gathered the little belongings they could carry on their backs and said their goodbyes. They left for the river in the middle of the night while my grandfather was in the woods foraging for mushrooms. It was lightly raining, they made their way to the canoe and sat for a while

to gather the courage to actually get in. Once they were in they were almost immediately spotted by a nearby patrol of communist soldiers. At this point, the fight or flight response kicked in, and they all chose flight. Knowing that turning around and surrendering would lead to being sent to a work camp or worse. So they all paddled as hard as they could away from the Lao shore and toward the Thai shore. The soldiers made their way to the edge of the embankment and began firing their guns into the water. Sadly, one friend was struck in the back of the head and died instantly, falling into the water. They had no time to process what just happened and continued to paddle for their lives.

That was until my father's other friend was also hit, it pierced his upper back and he was paralyzed. My father started to panic and dropped the paddle only to be shot in his right shoulder as well, but more soldiers were coming up the river in a boat and they had no time. Nearby Thai soldiers heard the gunfire and rushed to the shore on their side, returning fire to give my dad enough time to reach the shore. He touched the soil and knew that he had made it. Once they touched Thai soil, the soldiers no longer pursued them as they did want to start an all-out battle with the Thai soldiers at this time. The Thai soldiers began to escort my father and carry his paralyzed friend inland, but my dad decided to stop for a moment to look back.

He saw the communist soldiers picking his dead friend up out of the water and placing him in the boat. My father still suffers from survivors' guilt to this day, which is what led him to do what he did next. The Thai soldiers told them about a few large refugee camps on the border in Thailand, so my father decided to head towards one. On their way, they had to stop at an immigration center so my father could register as a refugee and get some medical attention. Once completed, my dad, filled with anger, changed his mind and decided to head towards a group of Lao refugees he had heard about who had decided to form a resistance group to fight back against the communists. So my father said goodbye to his friend who had been paralyzed and started traveling to this camp alone. This camp was run by a Lao man who was previously in the Lao military until his entire unit was rounded up and sent to work camps or executed. This man was the only one to escape.

When my dad arrived at this place there were many young Lao men just like him, around 100, and many of them my dad knew from around his village. After feeding my father the man in charge explained that he was. was forming a resistance group, funded by the Thai military secretly, to go back and reclaim their villages from the communists and that my father could either join or be on his way to the refugee camp. At this time my father is around 14. My dad joined this camp and began his training as a child soldier of sorts. This is one of the things I only learned about my father very recently, so I don't have many details about this time of his life yet. My dad started by training

with firearms and digging trenches around their base, should the communists ever come to the Thai side. Part of the schedule was patrols during the day and night, my dad was stationed on night patrol where he admitted to messing around with an M-16 and accidentally firing off about 15 rounds into the night sky, which awoke the whole camp, who scolded him and nearly kicked him out. My dad was at this resistance camp for little more than six months, during this time they orchestrated several surprise attacks against groups of communist soldiers, my dad detailed his feelings about what happened, saying that he always had severe anxiety every time they got into

a boat to go back into Laos, probably due to the trauma he suffered crossing the river the day he escaped. He would close his eyes the entire boat ride and only open them once he knew they had made it across. Once back in the country, usually, groups of three men would sneak around small villages, looking for patrols they could follow back to the main camps to map out where all their bases were. When they had identified all the camps in a given area, they would leave and gather more men to come back and wait to ambush patrols in quieter, more secluded areas, taking away a lot of manpower the communists had. Doing this allowed them to sneak people out of Laos much easier, and they were even able to rid a few small villages of soldiers altogether. Despite going on more

than a few of these missions, my dad is not sure if he ever killed anyone. In the same way that he closed his eyes when he was in the boat, he closed his eyes as they shot into groups of enemy soldiers, probably trying to save himself from the trauma of knowing, or just from being scared. This all culminated when my dad was sent out on one of the scouting missions, only this time they were scouting his village and the surrounding area. They arrived on the Lao shore, and this time my father was more angry than anxious. They entered the outskirts of the village and hid, having been here not long ago, my dad knew where a few of the enemy camps were nearby, and also where they usually patrolled. When they stepped foot in the village, my dad was

filled with rage and hatred. For the first time since joining, he wanted to end someone's life. They continued further into the village until they were basically on my grandfather's property, which only pissed my dad off more. They ducked down into the bushes and waited. Eventually, a patrol came into view, and as they got closer, my dad started to lose his composure. This mission was intended to be a scouting mission as they were only a group of three, but my dad was so furious that he stood up and pointed his rifle at the approaching soldiers, ready to end them.

Just when he was about to start firing, his comrades pulled him down into the bushes, thankfully before they were spotted. My father fought for them to let go, but they held him down until the soldiers passed. They then explained to my dad that he wasn't thinking clearly. There was a nearby camp they already knew about, within distance to hear any commotion happening in the village, and that if my dad fired, they might have been able to kill the patrolling soldiers and get away uninjured, but there would soon be reinforcements coming and they would most likely slaughter my dad and his comrades, as well as the people of the village.

Now coming to his senses, my dad agreed with them and they finished their scouting and then returned to Thailand. On December 2nd, 1975 Laos had officially been seized by the communist path at Lao. Though it was over, the communists were still very hostile, making return to Laos for refugees impossible. My dad was distraught, the people in the resistance camp started to notice his reluctance to go out and fight, and he soon started to refuse. This was against the rule. as my dad had signed a contract to fight with them until they accomplished their goal or died trying. My dad was on track to being punished when an older man who was in charge of some of the men approached him. My father had seen this man in camp several times and always thought he looked

familiar. It turns out that this older man was a relative of my father's, he had married one of my dad's distant aunt some time ago and they moved to a village far away enough that they hardly ever saw each other, and after the conflict got close they weren't able to come back at all. This older man told my father that he didn't recognize him either until he heard his name. They talked for a while and he proceeded to tell my dad that he knew fighting wasn't for him, he would surely die in vain and make the escape his mother created for him pointless. He offered to rip up the contract my dad signed and help him leave the resistance camp. After some thought my dad agreed to this and his days as a freedom fighter were over.

Once he was out of the camp, the only option was to head to a refugee camp for shelter. When my dad got there, he said it was the most depressing environment he had been in. At least in the resistance camp, they had a purpose, a goal to strive for and keep them from falling apart. Here, the people had nothing. No hope of ever returning to their villages or seeing the families they left behind again. They woke up in the morning and lined up with the bulls the camp provided them, and cows with small trailers in tow were led into the camp hauling barrels of food mush. You handed your bowl to the person in charge and they would dish out your food for the whole

day, you had to make that small bowl of food last for all three meals every day. At some point, my dad became tired of this monotonous life he was living and started looking for things to do, or ways to get more food. There was a bit of a trade market going on between the refugees, as some of them came with livestock or bundles of rice and different vegetables. My dad quickly burned through the little money his mother had given him to buy extra food, and the jewelry was of no use, as no one would trade precious food for them. A few months passed like this and my dad started to make some friends, as well as reconnect with people he had known from home. His new friends were not the best

influences, they inducted him into a sort of gang that would steal money and food from other refugees, as the Thai soldiers didn't care about what they did to each other. The word started to spread that my dad and his friends were bad news, and people stopped associating with them. The only other place they could go was a nearby Thai village, but the rules forbid anyone from leaving the camp without permission and a written pass. There were a few problems with this system, one was that there was only a certain amount of passes to be given out each day, and there were thousands of refugees in the camp. You would need to sign up for a pass ahead of time and be put on a waiting list, but with the amount of people in the camp it could

be months before you were able to get one. The other problem being that there were people who had befriended, or bribed the guards and got to skip the whole process to get a pass, making the waiting game take even longer for other people. My dad and his friends decided to go the faster route and tried befriending the guards, they started by buying alcohol for them and staying up late to hang out with them. At some point, one of the guards developed a crush on the little sister of one of the friends. They found this out and used it as leverage, telling the guard that they would for sure get her to go on a date with him, and he agreed to let them out whenever he was stationed at the entrance. From their things became much easier for them, being able to go into

town and get supplies as well as just having fun. Eventually, they found out about this Muay Thai fighting ring where they could earn some money. You had to have a sponsor or someone to vouch for you to be able to fight in these things, so my dad kept showing up and sparring with people. hoping to get noticed and eventually did. He made a deal with this guy who said he would get my dad fights, and if he won they would split the money, but if he lost, my dad would have to pay him. Shitty deal, but my dad took it. He said he fought four times and won every time, which is very believable if you have ever actually met my father. Every time he fought, he was able to pay for at least one week's worth of food, two if he made it last. So it was

worth it for him. After about a year of being in the refugee camp, word spread about a humanitarian aid organization called Compassion International. They had a sponsorship system in which a family from somewhere in the world would send money to kids and adults up to 22 years old in countries in need. They would send some for food, education, and necessities, and sometimes, in the case of people like my father, get the person out of the country. My dad heard about this and signed up through the refugee camp. It took a while but around 1978 my dad became sponsored by a family of five from France. They sent him money for all his daily needs and my dad began to do better. Not hanging out with the same friends anymore and beginning to go to church. He would be sponsored by this family

until he was 20 when they offered to buy him a plane ticket to anywhere in the world. My dad chose to go to San Francisco. He packed up what little he had said his goodbyes, and left for the U.S. He arrived in 1980, and once there he had to go through a sort of vetting process to be eligible for immigrant status in the U.S. Fun fact, the immigration agent that processed his arrival was in charge of taking down all my dad's information and submitting the forms. When my dad told him our last name, the agent misspelled it and when my dad tried to correct him, the agent just brushed him off. My dad never bothered to change it back so my last name is legally different than what it should be. He stayed in San Francisco for two months until he was granted immigrant status and able to

travel elsewhere in the United States. By this time he had already decided that he hated San Francisco and that it was not for him. After remembering his sister who escaped all those years before was also in the U.S., the same sister detailed earlier. He tracked her down to Utah and got in contact with her. She told him the story about how her family got to the U.S. after they escaped from Laos. My uncle being a pilot for the Lao military, knew some soldiers stationed at a refugee camp near where they were and knew that they had a helicopter. My uncle, along with some of the soldiers he convinced to flee, stole the helicopter and took his family to a safer part of the country where they would then leave for the U.S. Once there, they would go through the same process my

father did and end up in Utah. My aunt agreed to take him my dad for a while until he figured something out. He slept on her couch for a few weeks until he knew they couldn't afford to feed him anymore, as they were struggling to raise a child in a new country where they didn't know the language and didn't have a proper education. Not to mention the racism toward Asians at the time immediately following the Vietnam and Lao's wars. So my dad decided to go to Job Corps. While there he would learn enough English to get by and study to be a machinist. Two years passed and he left Job Corps and became a full-time machinist. After getting a place to stay and saving up some money, my dad decided to buy a car.

He went to a small dealership where he bought a car and drove it off the lot. Not even five minutes into his drive, the car broke down and my dad went back to the dealership. He tried to return the car but the salesman took advantage of his poor English. and told my father there was nothing he could do. My dad didn't realize how things worked and couldn't read or write well enough to know that he was entitled to a refund if he wanted. So my dad took the loss and kept the car. He became angry not at the salesman, but at himself for not knowing the language well enough.

My dad enrolled himself in ESL classes to bridge the gap and hopefully get some more respect. During this time my dad became intrigued by bodybuilders like Lou Farragno and Arndon. and he envied the respect they demanded with their presence. So he began lifting in his free time and soon became obsessed with it, spending an absurd amount of time at the gym. He would meet a lot of people at the gym in the 80s, a few of them becoming lifelong friends. One of them was a man who was almost 20 years older than my dad. He was from Indonesia and shared a lot in common with my father so they bonded and he became a father figure to my dad. He also met a man about the same age as him who introduced him to the world of powerlifting. Over the course of 10 years,

my father took a lot of steroids and got absolutely massive, around 220 pounds at 5 feet 8 inches in his early 30s with a PR5 plate bench press, or 495 pounds per 224 kilograms. He also met a woman and briefly married her to get his U.S. citizenship. Not really marriage fraud, just a mutual agreement between them. Things just didn't work so they split up. At some point, my dad had figured out how to get in contact with his family back home and found out most of them were doing okay, though he didn't talk to anyone very often except his mother, and the only thing his father ever said to him was to send him money. In those 10 years, my dad transitioned to working in real estate and owned a few houses and a couple of cars.

He was finally prospering and doing better than he ever could have imagined he would all those years ago when he was a farmer in the war-torn jungle. It was now the 90s, my dad had a lot of friends, and things were looking good. My dad spent a lot of years partying and just enjoying his life. The man from Indonesia brought my dad in as a member of his family, so he would spend all holidays split between that family and his sister's family. My father decided to quit his job as a real estate agent and work with the man from Indonesia, who owned a successful auto recovery company, so my dad became a tow truck driver. I know, a crazy career change,

but my dad ended up buying the company and turned it from just successful to thriving. More years went by and through mutual friends, my dad befriended a woman who he would know for many more years as she went through a failed marriage and had two boys. My dad ended up helping her out as she was essentially homeless with two kids and nowhere to go. He gave her money to rent an apartment for the time being

and she promised to pay him back eventually. Well, eventually turned into her moving in with my dad and them starting a relationship. She would become my mother, and my dad would become a stepdad and a father at the same time. She found out she was pregnant with me and my dad bought a home for his new family in late 1999. By 2000 they were all settled in and I was born. Then my dad got a call from his mother letting him know his father had died. My dad got on a flight back to Laos to attend his funeral, and this would be the first time he had been back to Laos in 20 years. When he arrived he immediately felt out of place, gone for so long not speaking his native tongue, he lost a lot of his vocabulary.

He came back to Laos to see his family and help them with the expenses, but deep down he had some unfinished business with his father that he felt he couldn't resolve without returning to say goodbye. My dad spent only one short week there, seeing all the family he left behind, attending the funeral ceremonies, and spending time with his mother. He found out that the friend who was paralyzed in the escape attempt was still alive and living in France with some family. After everything, my father felt there was nothing left there for him, and returned to the U.S. and his family. That concludes everything I know about my dad, other than the hymn that I knew growing up, and the parts he either left out, forgot, or just weren't important. Overall, I think that my dad had a very intense life growing up and that his story deserves to be told.

If you made it this far, please tell me what you think about it, and whether this is something you would consider interesting enough to be adapted into a larger, more detailed work. Thank you for reading. The end.