Missing From the Ashes

0:00 Speaker 1: The vanishing of the Solder children. On Christmas Eve in

0:03 Speaker 1: nineteen forty five, the Solder family home in Fayetteville, West

0:07 Speaker 1: Virginia was filled with everything you would expect during the holidays, laughter, warmth,

0:13 Speaker 1: and the excitement of children waiting for Christmas morning. George

0:17 Speaker 1: and Jenny Sowter lived there with their ten children. They

0:20 Speaker 1: were a large, close family, and that night seemed ordinary

0:24 Speaker 1: until just after midnight, Jenny suddenly woke up to a

0:28 Speaker 1: strange smell. First, she thought something was wrong with the wiring.

0:32 Speaker 1: Then she heard a noise from above, a sound like

0:35 Speaker 1: something hitting the roof. Minutes later, smoke began filling the house.

0:40 Speaker 1: The Sowters rushed to escape. George, Jenny, and four of

0:44 Speaker 1: their children managed to get outside, but five children were

0:48 Speaker 1: still trapped upstairs. George tried to run back inside, the

0:52 Speaker 1: staircase was already destroyed by flames. He grabbed a ladder

0:56 Speaker 1: to climb through a window, but the ladder was gone.

1:00 Speaker 1: He tried starting his trucks to reach the upper floors,

1:03 Speaker 1: but both vehicles mysteriously failed to work. Neighbors rushed over

1:07 Speaker 1: to help, but the fire spread too quickly. By the

1:10 Speaker 1: time firefighters arrived, the house was completely consumed. Everyone believed

1:16 Speaker 1: the five children had died, But then something strange happened.

1:20 Speaker 1: When investigators searched through the ashes, they found almost no remains,

1:25 Speaker 1: no bones, no clear evidence that the children had ever

1:28 Speaker 1: been inside the burned home. The official explanation was that

1:32 Speaker 1: the fire was so intense it destroyed everything, but George

1:36 Speaker 1: and Jenny were not convinced. They noticed strange details that

1:39 Speaker 1: bothered them. A few months before the fire, a man

1:43 Speaker 1: had warned George that his home would burn down and

1:46 Speaker 1: his children would disappear. George had dismissed it as a threat.

1:50 Speaker 1: Then there was the night of the fire itself. The

1:53 Speaker 1: family's phone line had been cut. The children's bodies were

1:57 Speaker 1: never recovered, and a witness later claimed they saw the

2:00 Speaker 1: missing children alive after the fire, riding in a passing car.

2:05 Speaker 1: The Sowters refused to believe their children were gone. They

2:08 Speaker 1: put up a billboard along the highway showing photographs of

2:11 Speaker 1: the five missing children, asking anyone with information to come forward.

2:16 Speaker 1: For decades, they searched. They received mysterious letters. They received

2:21 Speaker 1: strange photographs. One letter claimed the children were alive and

2:25 Speaker 1: that someone had taken them, but no one ever proved

2:28 Speaker 1: what happened. Years passed, George and Jenny grew old, still

2:32 Speaker 1: searching for answers. The five children, Maurice, Martha, Louis, Jenny,

2:39 Speaker 1: and Betty were never found. To this day, the Solter

2:43 Speaker 1: Children remain one of America's most haunting missing person's mysteries.

2:48 Speaker 1: A family went to sleep on Christmas Eve, and by

2:51 Speaker 1: morning five children had vanished without a trace.