I don't know, maybe someone has already written about this, but I don't have the opportunity to read the entire discussion, although I usually try to do this, but not this time.
The text turned out to be long, but it cannot be shortened, otherwise the main thing will be lost.
Based on the data from Wikipedia and other sources where they roughly coincide, I tried to make a chronology of events for the family members separately: separately for the mother, separately for the father, and separately for the older sister Marion and the five missing. This allows us to better understand what happened in the house and, most importantly, who saw the children last.
First of all, it is worth highlighting
the key moment that was the reason why the missing children Maurice (14), Martha (12), Louis (10), Jenny (8 years old) and Betty (5) were separated from the rest of the family and were not seen after 10:00 PM.
The reason was that the older sister Marion (19 years old) brought toys to the younger children and they begged their mother to allow them to stay up and play longer -
this was around 10:00 PM. Father (George) and two older brothers John and George Jr. were already asleep at this time, as they had worked a lot and were tired, mother (Jenny) told Maurice (14) and Louis (10) to look after the chickens and cows, after which she took three-year-old Sylvia and went upstairs to sleep.
After 10:00 pm the picture looks like this: Father and older brothers are asleep, mother and little daughter are asleep, and downstairs there are the missing five and with them the senior sister Marion (19).
Next come
the mother's movements, because they are the ones that are most known:
At 10:30 pm (approximately) the mother goes upstairs to sleep with Sylvia(3).
00:30 Mother is awakened by the phone ringing (checked, the phone really did ring). She goes downstairs, picks it up, talks briefly, hangs up. At the same time, she sees that the light is on, the curtains are not drawn, and Marion (19) (the sister who brought the toys) is sleeping on the sofa in the living room. The mother draws the curtains, turns off the light and goes back upstairs to bed. She hasn't seen the missing five, but she decided that everything was fine and they went upstairs, since Marion was sleeping so peacefully here.
1:00 Mother woke up from hearing a blow on the roof and a booming noise. She heard nothing else and fell asleep again.
1:30 Mother is awakened again by the smell of smoke. She wakes up Father, who wakes up John (22) and George Jr. (16). Mother was apparently rescuing 3-year-old Sylvia, with whom she went upstairs, so she did not try to find the other children.
Father's movements.
He most likely went to bed somewhere upstairs, before 10 pm, that is,
around 9:00 pm - 9:30 pm, or earlier.
1:30 The father was woken up by his mother. The father woke up only the two eldest sons, maybe because they were sleeping in the same room, I don't know, but why he didn't save the others and where he ran next is unclear. Then it turns out that he and all the survivors are already downstairs, and the stairs leading up to the 5 missing are engulfed in flames.
Then the father tries to get into the house from the outside, hurts his hand, looks for a ladder, doesn’t find one, sees that the water has frozen, can’t start the trucks, that is, this is all the activity outside.
The movements of Marion's older sister (19). There seems to be nothing complicated here, but it is interesting because if you believe this sequence, then she started the process that led to the mysterious disappearance and should have been the last to see the 5 children.
22:00 Marion brings toys into the house. Because of this, the younger children do not go to bed on time.
After 22:00 Father sleeps, Mother sleeps, Marion should ideally stay downstairs, somewhere near the younger children.
00:30 Mother sees that Marion is sleeping somewhere downstairs in the living room. But the 5 children are not there.
1:30 Marion, along with everyone else, begins to escape from the burning house, then runs to the neighbors to call the fire department.
Since 10:00 p.m., none of the Sodders have seen the missing five except Marion, but I have not found any detailed interviews with her on this topic.
If we follow this timeline, it turns out that the key figure is Marion, because it all started with her and she should have been the last one to see the children.
And several important questions arise:
Why did Marion fall asleep without turning off the light, without drawing the curtains, and without closing the door? If she followed the missing 5th as expected and took them upstairs to sleep, then why didn't she tidy up the rooms downstairs? Logically, one thing should have led to another. And if she abandoned the children and simply fell asleep, then why did she act so irresponsibly, and didn't the children playing disturb her sleep?
The phone was downstairs. At 00:30 it rang. Even if the mother heard it upstairs and came down, Marion who was downstairs should have heard it too. But she seemed to be pretending to be asleep or sleeping very soundly and not talking to her mother, why?
There may be a simple explanation for all this, but Marion's behavior is suspicious in any case.
Mary Ann “Marion” Sodder Crowder (1926-2005) -...
Marion died on September 12, 2005, in some nursing home or something, she got married and changed her last name from Sodder to Crowder, so her name was Mary Ann "Marion" Crowder, her husband's name was John Robert "Bob" Crowder, he died before her. Marion worked as a secretary at Lamson and Sessions in Cleveland, Ohio.
Unfortunately, it won't be possible to ask Marion these questions in person.
www.abc.net.au
