If the Sodder children were still alive, why would they have never contacted their families?

[RandyMcDonald]

There are a lot of problems with the idea of the children being kidnapped, everything from common misrepresentations of what happened that sad Christmas night (the fire was not over in 45 minutes but burned well into the next day) to a lack of obvious motives for an abduction (the Mafia did not do things like this, definitely not without letting the families involved know what was going on).

The biggest problem for me is the question of why none of the children, assuming that they survived and grew into adulthood, ever bothered to contact their family. The youngest of the missing children, Betty, was five years old; if she was in the right kind of environment, she might imaginably have forgotten her family of birth, maybe. The older children were more than old enough to know who they were and where they came from; they would not forget who they were and where they came from.

Why did none of them definitively contact the family afterwards? Even if they had been told a story by their rescuers that they were the only survivors of their family and that they needed to start new lives elsewhere, why wouldn't they have been curious about their home community, friends and all? As the story of the Sodder parents looking for their children spread, why would one of them not have reached out? Only one of the children, only one time, would need to decide to go, dial that phone number, and say hello to the folks.

I know that some people seem to suggest that, even into their adulthood, the Sodder children were being carefully watched by whoever took them to keep them from making that contact. This raises a huge question: Why would any group, or organization, do that? What about the Sodder children made them so important that they would be held virtually hostage in such a way? The Mafia would have better things to do apart from playing obscure headgames with a family that had shared their opposition to Italian fascism, and whatever supporters of a Mussolini who had been hung by partisans eight months before the fire presumably had more important priorities than doing complicated things with an obscure immigrant family deep in West Virginia. How would this serve their interests?

Beyond this, people who say that the children were being held captive point to that photo that had been mailed to the Sodders in 1967 with the weird text, the one purporting to be from Louis. If for the sake of argument he was being watched and yet had the freedom to mail his parents, why did Louis not actually send some useful information? It would only take one child doing something once in the course of decades to make a convincing contact. That never happened.

I can think of only really two convincing arguments that could explain how the Sodder children might have been kidnapped but never bothered to seek out their family.

1. The Sodder children were not abducted by enemies of their family, but rescued from their home family. One very good reason for none of the Sodder children to have ever wanted to contact their family would be if they were victims of abuse, if their family was causing them harm. In this scenario, the children would have been taken to safety from their home by some unknown third party, who presumably set the house on fire as a cover and to make it appear that the children had died. Presumably, once they were in their new homes with new identities, the Sodder children would have gone on to try to live new lives, never looking back at their past. It goes without saying that I have heard of nothing like this being the case in the Sodder family; to all appearances, it seems to have been a loving and normal family. Still, the children not wanting to contact their family because they wanted to escape it would neatly explain the lack of contact.

2. The Sodder children were removed from the house, somehow, but were then murdered elsewhere. In this scenario, the enemies of the Sodder family whoever they were would have wanted to cause them prolonged torment. Accordingly, they somehow kidnapped the children in the middle of the fire, took them to another location, killed them, and disposed of the bodies in such a way that they were never found. The children never having lived long past that night would also explain why they never contacted their family.

Thoughts?

 

[Aegon_the_Conqueror]

There are a lot of problems with the idea of the children being kidnapped, everything from common misrepresentations of what happened that sad Christmas night (the fire was not over in 45 minutes but burned well into the next day) to a lack of obvious motives for an abduction (the Mafia did not do things like this, definitely not without letting the families involved know what was going on).

The biggest problem for me is the question of why none of the children, assuming that they survived and grew into adulthood, ever bothered to contact their family. The youngest of the missing children, Betty, was five years old; if she was in the right kind of environment, she might imaginably have forgotten her family of birth, maybe. The older children were more than old enough to know who they were and where they came from; they would not forget who they were and where they came from.

Why did none of them definitively contact the family afterwards? Even if they had been told a story by their rescuers that they were the only survivors of their family and that they needed to start new lives elsewhere, why wouldn't they have been curious about their home community, friends and all? As the story of the Sodder parents looking for their children spread, why would one of them not have reached out? Only one of the children, only one time, would need to decide to go, dial that phone number, and say hello to the folks.

I know that some people seem to suggest that, even into their adulthood, the Sodder children were being carefully watched by whoever took them to keep them from making that contact. This raises a huge question: Why would any group, or organization, do that? What about the Sodder children made them so important that they would be held virtually hostage in such a way? The Mafia would have better things to do apart from playing obscure headgames with a family that had shared their opposition to Italian fascism, and whatever supporters of a Mussolini who had been hung by partisans eight months before the fire presumably had more important priorities than doing complicated things with an obscure immigrant family deep in West Virginia. How would this serve their interests?

Beyond this, people who say that the children were being held captive point to that photo that had been mailed to the Sodders in 1967 with the weird text, the one purporting to be from Louis. If for the sake of argument he was being watched and yet had the freedom to mail his parents, why did Louis not actually send some useful information? It would only take one child doing something once in the course of decades to make a convincing contact. That never happened.

I can think of only really two convincing arguments that could explain how the Sodder children might have been kidnapped but never bothered to seek out their family.

1. The Sodder children were not abducted by enemies of their family, but rescued from their home family. One very good reason for none of the Sodder children to have ever wanted to contact their family would be if they were victims of abuse, if their family was causing them harm. In this scenario, the children would have been taken to safety from their home by some unknown third party, who presumably set the house on fire as a cover and to make it appear that the children had died. Presumably, once they were in their new homes with new identities, the Sodder children would have gone on to try to live new lives, never looking back at their past. It goes without saying that I have heard of nothing like this being the case in the Sodder family; to all appearances, it seems to have been a loving and normal family. Still, the children not wanting to contact their family because they wanted to escape it would neatly explain the lack of contact.

2. The Sodder children were removed from the house, somehow, but were then murdered elsewhere. In this scenario, the enemies of the Sodder family whoever they were would have wanted to cause them prolonged torment. Accordingly, they somehow kidnapped the children in the middle of the fire, took them to another location, killed them, and disposed of the bodies in such a way that they were never found. The children never having lived long past that night would also explain why they never contacted their family.

Thoughts?

I think when people explore alternative theories, they often hurt their credibility by considering multiple scenarios that are wildly different and have varying degrees of plausibility. There's no way that any mafiosi would murder someone, let alone a civilian and their children, for saying bad things about Mussolini, who was reviled by the Mafia in Italy at least as much as Giuliani is in the US. Then again (I could be wrong), but the Mafia and Mussolini theories might only be considered separately and not combined. But the Mafia angle as a whole seems implausible. I haven't heard much evidence suggesting that he was on the bad side of the local mafiosi, and most of the allegations seem to implicate the Mafia in Italy. That's a long time to owe money without any action; you would think that he would be roughed up several times first before being killed (if it ever came to that), for obvious reasons. It's also for that reason that the Mafia wouldn't just give up on going after him when they found out he was unscathed. The supposed photo of Louis also doesn't support the Italian Mafia angle - if the number written on the back was an (incorrect) Italian zip code, it came from Palermo, which is a long way away from George's hometown in Sardinia. Why would he be held captive for DECADES so far from the mafiosi that George supposedly owed money to? And how would keeping his location a secret help to get their money? I see nothing that could've been gained. (And I could be wrong, but I don't think the Mafia has ever had a major presence in WV, let alone Fayetteville. The Pittsburgh Mafia has had crews in Wheeling, Clarksburg, etc, but beyond that, I've only heard of the Black Hand being active in WV.)

Even if Mussolini did have ex-pat supporters, George couldn't have possibly been the only Italian in Fayetteville that despised him. The effects of his policies were probably a major reason many of them were in the US in the first place.

I'm convinced that the fire was arson (since the electricity was still on until well after the fire started), or perhaps some type of accident (cigarette maybe), but that's all I'm convinced of. It's too sloppy to be the work of the Mafia, who would've been more likely or make sure their target was dead before burning away the evidence, and wouldn't have put the wife and children's lives at equal risk due to the added heat from law enforcement.

So whether or not George's feelings about Mussolini did make some people mad enough to kill his family (far-fetched, but not out of the question), any theory involving the Mafia can sleep with the fishes.

While it's common for charred bones to be left behind after a fire, it's simply not true that they couldn't have completely burned. That house burned for a long time, and who knows what was in the house that could've strengthened its intensity. My dad's 2nd cousin was in the FDNY and killed on 9/11. They only found his helmet.

I can certainly see why the surviving Sodders would want to keep hope alive. I would probably do the same thing. But realistically, I think they burned completely. The real mystery is how it started, although I highly doubt it was by the Mafia. Due to the sloppy response from all emergency services that night and afterwards, we know all we ever will.