chitoryu12
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- Jan 4, 2017
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This post bumped this thread up into the new posts, which caught my eye, thanks kpetrova, im a 30 yr old mum of 4 who has only ever set foot in NY and PA, clearly no idea of WV or really any individual state before the time I visited (camp america) 12 years ago. Still no bloody idea!
Ive spent 2 days, *ahem 3* between the festivities(none of you guys better tell my kids I wasnt that interested in their new toys lol, this one got me)
71 years... im trying to solve a minor point in my family history from nearly 60 years ago and it seems impossible to do so.
I believe that anyone who did know the truth will be dead by now, who in the right mind who was directly involved would pass info onto their children etc?!
I know theres a few thoughts re mrs sodder hearing the bang on the roof, but could it simply be that it was the ladder hitting the top of the house/the roof?
I hope at least jenni(y?) gets the answers within their lifetime, I doubt it though
The Sodders claimed to have found something that resembled the remains of an incendiary bomb (a hard, dark green rubber ball) after the snow melted. I don't know of any incendiary grenade design that uses a rubber body or has rubber spherical components that would remain intact after burning, only ones that use a rubber gasket that gets melted by the gasoline inside to act as a sort of crude time delay on the bomb. That said, the ladder was found 75 feet away from the house. The "rolling sound" that came after the thud could have been something being rolled across the roof by a perpetrator using a stolen ladder, which they then hastily discarded. Ironically, the presence of the ladder in its usual spot by a more careful criminal would have removed a potential piece of evidence of the sabotage.
Unfortunately Jennie Sodder has been dead since 1989. The only surviving survivor is Sylvia, who was 2 years old when she was rescued from the blaze.
The fact that mrs sodder heard a loud thud on the roof then a rolling is so imperative. Mr sodder found a napalm pineapple just days later within yards of the house. My issue is why would kidnappers throw a napalm pineapple on the roof? They are designed to blow small amounts of schrapnel Andrew gas outward. Were they aiming for the attic window and missed? Also napalm was a war weapon designed in 1942. The crime occurred. 1945. Pineapples were primarily used in Vietnam. Why would someone bring a napalm weapon to their house and throw it on the roof and also was it actually a napalm weapon or something else? I can't find a record of a napalm pineapple design around the mid forties.
Keep in mind that neither the mother or the father ever served in the military or in any kind of insurgency to my knowledge (George Sodder left Sicily when he was 13, so I doubt he was blowing anything up back then). They may have mistakenly identified the rubber ball they found as the remains of an incendiary grenade. That doesn't disprove arson, but it does cast doubt on what they identified.