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[music] [music] >> [music] >> Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks
00:01:44
for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me as always is a man who maxed out
00:01:48
all of his credit cards for this year's Christmas, the captain. It was all that cocaine and strippers. It's good to be
00:01:54
seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. [music] Thanks for telling a friend.
00:02:01
Today we are extra Holly and extra jolly. If you shake us, we jingle. That's right. We are still sipping on
00:02:08
some holiday cheer from Shiner. This is a Christmas and holiday brew dressed up with some Texas peaches and roasted
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pecans. Some say it's too peachy. I think it's absolutely delicious. I'll tell you how I do it. I only have two
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because yes, after that it is too much peach. But pour this one into your favorite frosted mug and sit by the
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fireplace with a nice warm blanket and chill out. Garage grade four and 3/4 bottle caps out of five. Deck the halls,
00:02:41
baby. And let's give some thanks and praise to our good friends for helping us out with this week's beer fund. First
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up, a cheers to Andrew Busum from Roseville, Michigan. >> And a big we like your jib and tall hand
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cans in the air to Jamie from Prince George, Virginia. >> And last, but certainly not least, we
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have Rona McDonald in Glasgow, Scotland. [music] Rona, we like the cut of your jib. Rona's attempting to reconnect with
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Laura Miller [music] from here in central Ohio. So, cheers to both of you. Hope you connect and cheers to everyone
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we just mentioned. And to all for listening and to all of you, we say thank you.
00:03:22
>> Yeah, bw. Are you in? Beer run [music] for everything true crime. Check out true crimegar.com. Make sure you follow
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enough of the BSN. [music] All right, everybody, gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk
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some true crime. [music] >> [music] >> The Solder House fire and the subsequent disappearance of five of their children
00:04:09
is one of America's most enduring unsolved mysteries. The events of which unfolded rapidly on Christmas Eve and
00:04:17
Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve, of course, we have the Solder family of Fateville, West Virginia preparing for
00:04:25
Christmas. Around 10 to 11 p.m., the parents and some of the children go to bed, go to sleep, but some of the other
00:04:35
kids stay up to play with new toys and listen to the radio. Around 12:30 a.m. approximately, early Christmas morning,
00:04:43
the phone rings, waking up mother and wife Jenny Solder, she does not recognize the voice on the other end of
00:04:52
the line. She hangs up. She also notices that the front door is unlocked. The lights are still on, and she corrects
00:04:59
this before going to bed. And shortly after time uncertain, Jenny hears a noise, a loud bang on the roof followed
00:05:08
by some rolling. And then the next time when Jan Jenny wakes up, this time is through the smell of smoke and there is
00:05:17
fire. The house is on fire. Some of the families able to make it outside. Some are believed by others to have been
00:05:26
trapped inside of the home. The fire department experienced delays for one reason or another. They are late to
00:05:36
get to the fire and by the time they get there, the house has been burned to the
00:05:41
ground and they are now searching through the ruins looking for the missing Solder family members.
00:05:51
On Christmas Day, firefighters search the wreckage but find no human remains, not even a single bone fragment. The
00:05:59
fire chief suggests that the children were completely incinerated. We went through the events of the fire as
00:06:08
they've been reported over the years. And we went through the emergency services arriving on the scene and then
00:06:16
later the determination by the inquests that the the kids had perished in the fire completely incinerated as the fire
00:06:24
chief had suggest and death certificates signed for each one of these five solder
00:06:31
children. So now what? Okay, where do we go from here? We have a mess on our hands. If you fill the garage with with
00:06:40
the people in this true crime story, we have half of the room saying it's so obvious these poor
00:06:51
little five kids perished in the fire. The other half of this room, Captain saying, shout out to the great Lee
00:06:58
Corso. Not so fast. Not so fast, my friend. I want to give my children a proper burial. Where are they? Where are
00:07:06
the remains? Where? Yeah, I think there's two ways to look at this. If you're the father, okay, I can either
00:07:11
accept that they died in the fire. Now, I want to figure out how the fire started. Was it truly an accident or
00:07:20
just faulty electrical work? And if so, then what happened to my what happened to my ladder that was always leaning
00:07:28
against the house? What happened to my cars that night? I mean, I'd be interested to know how cold it was
00:07:36
outside because if they couldn't get the vehicles to start, it could just be simply that they were too cold.
00:07:45
Sometimes that happens and that will it will stop your car from turning over. But you would think that within
00:07:53
a week or so, George would have been able to figure out if something actually happened. And and I I've never seen
00:08:01
anybody talk about Oh, yeah. Well, they they let her learn that somebody tampered with these engines or whatever
00:08:07
to get them not to start. >> Yeah. One online article and you know when we talk about where are
00:08:14
the kids because that to me and to everyone I think that is the the the biggest part of this mystery right with
00:08:22
and one online article and it was a good one. And forgive me for not recalling the name of the publication, but the
00:08:27
article was titled, "What happened to the solder children? The siblings who went up in smoke." I like the title. Not
00:08:34
sure if it was supposed to be a little tongue and cheek, maybe a throwback reference to Chichin Chong, but
00:08:39
regardless, it's a tit brilliant as it's quick, to the point, and haunting. The children who went up in smoke when the
00:08:47
flames were extinguished and the smoke cleared. Where are the children? Where are they? We got a lot to get to, but
00:08:54
while mentioning that article, it now occurs to me that I should add to the New York Times article that I referenced
00:09:01
at the top of the show of episode 1 with the title 11 children die in four home fires. the December 26, 1945 article
00:09:11
that was across the country. That previous day or two, the five solder kids in West Virginia are a part of that
00:09:21
11 counts. Three kids in Pennsylvania in a fire there. Two in Kansas and one in New York, but this is the only one in
00:09:31
that story where we don't have remains. We have several items to get to. some that you could say is evidence that the
00:09:39
children did in fact perish in the fire and some that is suggestive that maybe they were taken whisked away just before
00:09:49
the fire even started. So we have a statement made that the five kids were definitely in the house after the fire
00:09:57
started. We have the ladder that the captain has brought up. We have a phone line. We have a witness, an excavation,
00:10:05
some bones, a heart, and a mysterious photo perhaps of one of the children. But in the photo, that
00:10:12
child is now a grown man. I think one thing here that I want to leapfrog over the items I just listed would be the
00:10:22
layout of the home. As we mentioned, this is a two-story home with a basement. This is helpful and necessary,
00:10:28
but hardly ever reported. Many, many articles out there describing the events as they happen so quickly of the family
00:10:37
trying to flee a burning house and details of how they're attempting to flee and what happened, what they
00:10:44
observed once outside, but no details as to the layout of the house. So, I'll do
00:10:50
my best to describe it to the good folks out there in listener land. We have a a
00:10:55
front porch. This is as if I'm walking in the front of the house, right, Captain? So, I'm I'm up on the front
00:11:02
porch. I go into the home. Now, out front of the house, looking to my right, will be Mr. and Mrs. Solder's bedroom.
00:11:09
This is on the ground level. So, in part, that makes sense that they would make it out of the home and some of the
00:11:17
kids that may have been upstairs did not. Right? So, to the right you have their bedroom, to the left you have the
00:11:24
living room. One key detail that's important about that living room is remember Marian was sleeping on the
00:11:29
couch. Again, she's on the ground level. She made it out. If you continue past these two rooms, you will now be in
00:11:37
front of the stairwell. All right, these stairs, they go up, there's a landing, they go up again, and on that second
00:11:44
floor is separated into two rooms. You have a large boy's room and you have a large girls room. Those are the only
00:11:52
rooms upstairs in the in the second floor of this home. If you go back to the ground level, past the stairs, to
00:11:59
your right, you have the office. To the left, you have a dining room. Okay. What's key about that office is a couple
00:12:06
of things. This is where the phone, the house phone was. This was the phone that
00:12:11
Mrs. Solder says that one, she she wakes up in the middle of the night because the phone was ringing. Answers it.
00:12:17
Doesn't recognize the voice. Call ends. And then later when she wakes up again smelling smoke, realizing there's a
00:12:24
fire, she her her first instinct is to run to this phone to call for help. That's when she's met with the fire.
00:12:33
According to her statement, I I I think this is fascinating. According to her statement, this is where the first time
00:12:41
the fire is seen really by by anybody. So, if you want to try to figure out where this fire started, this would be
00:12:50
to me where where one would be looking >> right >> now. Past the on the left there, past
00:12:55
the dining room, you have the kitchen and then I guess you would say past the the office, but but on the exterior of
00:13:02
the home, you have another porch. So, you have a back porch. And remember, we talked about the landing on the stairway
00:13:10
having that window that we know Mr. solder broke in an attempt to get to his children, but was unable to do so
00:13:19
because by the time he busted out that window, the uh stairs were completely engulfed in flame. Let's talk about this
00:13:28
statement here. Okay, so this is from an official report of the investigation by
00:13:35
the Department of Public Safety. It says that this report was taken the day of the fire, but officially reported on
00:13:44
January 21st, 1946. So, less than a month later is the I guess it's officially reported. And this
00:13:53
[clears throat] document states that we have the the five kids who were killed. This official document
00:14:01
states the cause of the fire stated as undetermined, but it is believed that the fire started either from defective
00:14:07
wiring or from spontaneous igniting of combustibles in the basement. It is mentioned that the
00:14:14
basement was used as a workshop for their trucks, but there is no mention of gasoline being in the basement. Okay.
00:14:21
So, this is >> I believe the family denies that there was materials, combustible materials
00:14:27
left in the basement. >> Correct. From what we've reviewed, it the family is stating there there was an
00:14:34
engine, maybe two engines that were down in the basement, but no gasoline. I do want to not gloss over the obvious here.
00:14:44
Defective wiring. I would I would really like to know the date of when this electric stove was installed and then it
00:14:53
required the second fuse box, the one that's some guy pointed to and said that's going to start a fire someday,
00:15:01
right? >> Because we know according to those statements that was weeks before the
00:15:07
fire. We don't I don't have an exact date, but it's interesting to me on two fronts, right? That's a recent addition
00:15:15
to the home. Would make sense that that something went wrong with it. But they they appeared to have had that for night
00:15:21
after night for however many nights now. It was considerably colder this night. So the statement here that is troubling
00:15:31
is as follows from this report. John Solder, so this is one of the older boys, stated he heard his mother
00:15:38
yelling, woke up his brother George, goes by Ted, and then went into the other room, and shook the kids awake.
00:15:46
Note, we should note here that John later denies this and changes his statement to that he was yelling up to
00:15:54
the kids after he himself had already fled downstairs. >> Right? >> Of course, this is going to be a huge
00:16:01
point of contention in this case. And one of the factors that leads many to believe that they did in fact die in the
00:16:07
fire. Because if his original statement is factual and true, that places the missing kids inside the home after the
00:16:15
fire had started. >> And obviously, if the parents are questioning whether or not those kids
00:16:21
were in the house, they're going to do the best shakeddown to get the truthful information out of
00:16:28
their son. He then went outside to try to put the fire out, then ran back in to bring the rest of the kids down, but by
00:16:35
that point, the stairs had been engulfed in flames. He also tried to start one of
00:16:39
the trucks, but could not. And he states that the wind was blowing from the direction of the corner of the house
00:16:45
where the fire started, the southeast corner. He also states that they repaired motors in the basement, and to
00:16:52
his knowledge, there were two motors down there at the time of the fire. I guess trying to crawl inside inside of
00:16:59
this dude's head here. I mean, what level of guilt does he have? A massive amount of guilt that they died in the
00:17:06
fire, right? And and and keep in mind, this report, this official report is stated that it was taken the day of but
00:17:15
not reported officially until January 21st. So, here's what I'm getting at. Bear
00:17:21
with me here, Captain. I know that a lot of times all we have to go off of is someone's words, right? And but we both
00:17:29
agree that this case has been reported on a lot of different ways over the eight decades. I don't know. I just
00:17:40
could see a situation where in the moment, right, your brothers and sisters died in this houseire and in his grief
00:17:48
and in the moment and just reacting to the unimaginable, he says, "I tried to I woke them up.
00:17:55
They didn't get out of the house." >> And then later with a clearer head and a clearer view of what he remembers,
00:18:03
states, "I I didn't wake them up. I ran downstairs and I was yelling for them to
00:18:08
get up." >> Yeah. I can't remember who said it but cuz I'd love to give him credit for this
00:18:13
thought but the thought was that his initial statement is what he should have done and the later statement was the
00:18:22
truth because of eventually >> as the as there's questions are they in the house or not these little details
00:18:30
then matter and once this individual knows that these details matter he just tells the truth.
00:18:36
>> Exactly. I I could see that. I mean again in the moment reacting to the unimaginable. What did he say and is
00:18:45
that a reflection of the truth or not or more of his feelings? The latter is an interesting part of this story. I think
00:18:54
it's one that's talked about at length, but you and I agree on the general statements regarding this ladder. I we
00:19:03
have multiple members of the solder family saying the ladder was always here in this position. We always kept it here
00:19:10
and then when we went to go and get it when we needed it the most during the middle of this fire all of a sudden it
00:19:16
wasn't there. Now the h the ladder is stored outside of the home. Any person could get to it. Anybody could take it.
00:19:23
Somebody could do something with the ladder. What we do know, and this is in every report, distance varies, but the
00:19:31
general statement is always the same. The latter was later found over an embankment. And some take it a step
00:19:39
further to say, you know, it appears somebody had thrown it over an embankment. And the report I have in
00:19:43
front of me here, Captain, states that it was approximately 70 ft from the hole.
00:19:48
>> Yeah. So, this would be an implication that if the fire was arson, somebody got
00:19:55
rid of the ladder, thinking that that would slow people to get out of the house or maybe even slow
00:20:05
extinguishing the flames. >> Yeah. It's also a very good possibility because you have so many kids that at
00:20:11
some point maybe one of the kids moved this ladder and obviously we have five missing kids. So, we have five kids that
00:20:19
could have moved the ladder before the fire took place and they can't they're not around to confess to it.
00:20:28
>> Yes, that that could very well be true. And that doesn't necessarily mean that
00:20:34
it was an accidental fire or an arson. It kind of leaves it >> right >> still in the the gray area. We've
00:20:43
mentioned the trucks several times. I kind I I appreciate the cander here because I found later reports.
00:20:54
Look, it's often been speculated and often been reported that the trucks were possibly messed with or disturbed. We
00:21:03
have in in a a later article, one of the family members who was attempting to start the truck that night
00:21:12
admitting that we probably choked them too hard as we were panicked and in a hurry and we probably prevented them
00:21:20
from from starting. Now, that's not scientifically conclusive information, but I find that interesting that the the
00:21:28
folks that are in the camp, the family members that are in the camp of someone stole our loved ones and set our house
00:21:35
on fire are openly saying years later, we think the truck part of this was just us rushing to rescue and we we failed.
00:21:47
>> Yeah. I really wish they would have brought out some kind of scent dogs because
00:21:52
you have another scenario too where you have kids that are saying, "Hey, we want
00:21:55
to stay up and play." Is there any do we have any cause for concern that they left the property like on their own?
00:22:05
>> Very cold that night. It was snowing at some point. It was a white Christmas um
00:22:11
that night. The here here's another and this is fact. After the fire, remember we had the the one-time boss, the
00:22:21
one-time business partner, the co-signer on the home, Fenzo Jonnutello, the man who was encouraging George to increase
00:22:32
the insurance on the house and take out insurance on family members of the Solder family. It was learned after the
00:22:41
fire that Johnello did it on his own. Raised the insurance anyways on the home without telling George Solder from 1,500
00:22:51
to750. Jonatella was was paid out after the fire. Remember he was the beneficiary of
00:22:59
this insurance. >> Well, that could be a motive. >> Yes, it very well could have. So the
00:23:05
that would have been a little over $30,000 today, which is a lot of money. >> Can be and and we've seen unfortunately
00:23:16
we've seen people killed or bad things done to people for a lot less. A lot lot less unfortunately, but to me it does
00:23:23
seem like a rather small amount to nine children. Not saying it's impossible. >> Yeah. But see, but again, that's the
00:23:31
difficult thing here because you could go his plan could have been, well, screw this George guy. I'm going to burn down
00:23:39
the house, but they'll get out. Nobody will get killed. And we've seen plenty of times where somebody holds a grudge,
00:23:49
some weird crazy grudge, and all reasoning tossed aside, right? just it's all it's
00:23:58
it's it's about getting even and nothing else. >> Yeah. But I'd also say desperate times
00:24:03
cause for desperate [clears throat] measures. And I think again we don't know what was going on in his world. One
00:24:10
of the things that people talk about is because of the because that they were from Italy and we don't we don't really
00:24:20
know why he left. like there's not like a complete story of why why did George decide to come to America and start a
00:24:30
new life and so then there's some thoughts that maybe he was tied to some bad or shady businesses back there he
00:24:38
could have been but we need to keep in mind he was 13 years old when he came from Italy to the United States
00:24:45
>> right and then I just wonder because and again this is probably because I I'm really late to the party, but I just
00:24:55
finished I just finished The Sopranos a little bit ago. And you see in that situation where they're like, "Well, if
00:25:03
we're going to mess with if this guy owes us money or this guy is uh dead to us, the actions of terror or the actions
00:25:12
of uh violence is towards that individual. They normally stay away from children and and wives and stuff and so
00:25:21
but that that gets brought up often in this case. >> Well, and the witness that we have is
00:25:27
quite interesting because we talked about where did the fire start. That's always been something that is heavily
00:25:34
debated and we do know that based off of the statements given by Mrs. solder that
00:25:40
she first she appears to be the first one in the family to see the flames and she sees them in the office already
00:25:48
inside of the home. But it's later learned that a witness come comes forward saying that I'm driving past the
00:25:57
house. He states that he saw what looked like balls of fire in the air in the sky
00:26:03
being thrown onto the roof or or thrown at the house. >> Yeah. that didn't they find some weird
00:26:11
like cocktail bomb? >> Yeah. So that's what when I read that statement I immediately went to Molotov
00:26:17
cocktail thinking that that's what may have been thrown there. There is a report a statement in one of the reports
00:26:26
that later they found what they described as either a pineapple bomb or a grenade type device. But the and some
00:26:38
reports state that they were like little green balls, but I don't know. I I would
00:26:44
like to you would think that that would be something that would be photographed and well doumented and not kind of like
00:26:51
a oh by the way again because this case is so bizarre and mysterious, it lends itself to some wacky rumors.
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filthy animals. Talk hands in the air. Cheers [music] to you, Colonel. Cheers to you, Captain. Little little shiner
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holiday cheer beer with a eggnog side car. Everybody out there, wishing you the very best and happiest of holidays.
00:29:41
The phone line is something that should be discussed as well because there were reports that the phone line, and this
00:29:48
makes sense, simply melted, was destroyed in the fire. Some of the reports state that Jenny Solders picked
00:29:57
up the phone and the phone didn't work. Right. The report I gave and chose to use here for the telling of this true
00:30:05
crime story is that she didn't make it to the phone because of the flames. The office space was already in engulfed in
00:30:13
flames and she she couldn't make it to the phone. >> Yeah. >> Either way, the result is the same. No
00:30:21
phone call for help came from inside the solder home. >> Yeah. And again, I'm not electrician,
00:30:26
but this is we get into this weird gray area because you have some eyewitnesses saying, "Well, yeah, we saw a fire, but
00:30:34
the lights were still on." And then you go, "Well, they have this separate fuse box." So, is that two separate systems?
00:30:42
So could hypothetically could you have the one system have faulty electronics? It goes up in flame and it
00:30:52
has really zero effect on the other electricity to the house until the fire gets big enough.
00:31:00
>> I agree. I'm I'm no Al Borland or Bob Vila, but I would it would stand to reason that one could operate while the
00:31:07
other has is not. Yeah, I'm no Bob Va, but I got a whole trunk of duct tape >> that it was later. So later when it came
00:31:16
time to restore the phone line. So we should point out something here that that is unique about this story as well.
00:31:22
When they came time to rebuild their home or build a new home, they didn't build it over top of where the old one
00:31:29
once stood. >> No, >> they put they they basically built it next to there. >> Yeah. He ended up basically George.
00:31:38
That's what I'm talking about. The father ended up just burying the whole old building and it was basically like a
00:31:46
little hill in their yard that was a burial to his children. >> And you know, >> I I should say a memorial to the
00:31:54
children because I I don't think the family had a gut feeling that their loved ones were gone. I think their gut
00:32:02
feeling was telling them, "No, they're still alive. They're out there somewhere."
00:32:06
>> Gut feel. I mean, they fought till till they for the rest of their lives to try
00:32:11
to find these children. >> Yeah. >> And what what I find interesting, too, and this goes back to something that was
00:32:18
said that we said on the show many many moons ago in in the first season of our show, that you know, I had said, I'm
00:32:26
always suspicious when a a a kid disappears, goes missing, and then later the family moves away.
00:32:33
>> Yes. >> I always find that very strange. Here you have the exact opposite. You would
00:32:38
have what I would expect a grieving family, grieving parents, parents that are convinced that their child could be
00:32:46
alive out there somewhere. They never move. They never change their phone number. Why? Because, god forbid that
00:32:53
kid get the chance to to, you know, not god forbid. Let's hope that that kid gets the opportunity to get to a phone
00:33:00
and can call home. We can't change the phone number. we should never move because what if they try to come back
00:33:05
and the solders didn't move. They built their home right next to the old one. So
00:33:09
the phone company has to come out and put up a new restore phone service now to the new house, right? The phone
00:33:18
company informs the solders that hey the old phone line uh it didn't melt in the
00:33:24
fire. It w we found that it was cut and it was cut 14 ft in the air and 2 feet away from the pole. This many people
00:33:34
saying and rightfully so meaning that a ladder would have to have been needed to
00:33:39
reach it. Makes sense. So think about this for the moment. You manage to set the house ablaze. You're attempting an
00:33:48
arson either prior to or shortly after. You want to cut the phone line. You borrow the ladder. Maybe the ladder
00:33:55
wasn't You didn't Maybe the perpetrator or whoever set the fire walk down this road with me and pretend for a moment.
00:34:02
Maybe they didn't move the ladder and throw it down the embankment because they were hoping that it would deter
00:34:08
people from getting outside or or extinguishing the flames. >> It was simply they moved it to cut the
00:34:14
phone line at some point and toss the ladder after doing so. >> Yeah. I always wondered too, did they
00:34:20
use the ladder to remove the children from the house? That's a strong possibility. I always wondered if the
00:34:27
kids never went back upstairs if they were removed from the ground level. >> Right.
00:34:34
>> Right near the front porch. But then why wasn't the littlest one removed? The one
00:34:39
that was on the couch. >> You're right. So I failed to report that in our timeline. She went to bed with
00:34:45
the mother. >> Right. So that makes sense. We don't want to try to wake the mother. She went
00:34:50
to bed with the with the littlest one in the parents room from from my understanding. This part is odd because
00:34:57
it's not reported in a lot of the reports on this, but again, the captain was right. A lot of times near Christmas
00:35:04
time, you get the retelling of the story and you kind of get the 10-minute version. So, you're you're not going to
00:35:10
have every fine detail that is involved in the story. But what was learned and reported on that at some point either
00:35:20
prior to or after the fire had been set, we don't know. Lonnie Johnson and Jeff Atkins, remember these are the two that
00:35:28
own that Cass's place, the the beer place that was Cass's Park that we had mentioned.
00:35:35
Lonnie Johnson and Jeff Atkins entered the solder's barn, stole a pair of chain hoist, and threw them over an embankment
00:35:43
to retrieve at a later time. Now, stealing these chain hoist would not have been an easy task as they were
00:35:50
connected to the ceiling in the barn and would take a fair amount of time and assistance to remove them. Now, when
00:35:57
George Solder found out after the fire, he finds out about this, reports it. Jeff Atkins, he around the same time
00:36:07
enrolls in the army and he goes off and he is gone for about two years. >> Yeah.
00:36:14
>> Jeff Atkins, the other guy was, as this report goes, never questioned or charged
00:36:20
for this theft. However, the Lonnie Johnson was ordered to appear in court but never did and was eventually fined
00:36:31
$25 for this and nothing else was done. >> Part of this chain hoist story includes
00:36:41
the telephone line. Lonnie Johnson also admitted to cutting the telephone lines because quote he thought it was the
00:36:49
power line and thought cutting the power line would stop the fire. And we know based off of the other reports that
00:36:56
Lonnie Johnson and Jeff Atkins were persons that showed up to the fire that morning. So his statement is, "Yeah, I
00:37:03
cut the I cut the phone line, but I didn't know that it was the phone line. I thought there's faulty wiring. It's an
00:37:10
electrical fire. if I cut the the power to running to the house that that would would help put out this fire
00:37:18
>> which would which would have probably killed him. >> Yeah. >> Well, he's probably your criminal
00:37:24
because what what have we learned in the last 10 years? A lot of these criminals
00:37:29
are dumb. Well, and what okay when the ladder part is a big part of the story again that what he thought was the power
00:37:39
line but turns out to be the telephone line and they say well a ladder would have had to been used to cut it at that
00:37:45
point. >> Yeah. >> Where's the followup of okay well how did you get up there sir and oh you used
00:37:52
the family's ladder because here's here's the part that that matters with this. If it was cut before
00:38:00
the fire and he used that ladder, he moved the ladder. If it was cut after the fire,
00:38:05
which we don't have, we don't have that marker on our timeline. It's not known. But it goes back to well, did he bring
00:38:14
his own ladder to the to the situation to cut it to try to save the day? Or did he did he move the ladder after the fire
00:38:21
had started? Because if he was the one to move the ladder, then the ladder was still in its position when he found it.
00:38:28
>> Yeah. Then it makes you wonder if George the father is telling the whole truth
00:38:32
and nothing but the truth or again, it's a very chaotic scene. So the fact that some of these
00:38:41
individuals are going to report things that might not have been true because there's just chaos, that's a very good
00:38:49
likelihood. So then if you can explain the cutting of the phone line and you can explain the ladder and you can
00:38:56
explain the cars. Oh, we just probably choked them out too quickly. Okay, that's great. And maybe it was just an
00:39:04
accident, but where are the children? And I think that's what's very difficult, too, because
00:39:13
I'm not a I'm not a scientist. I can't tell you when somebody's cremated, how much is left behind? How big are the
00:39:21
bone fragments? Because these were smaller children. Would that play a role? Is there a
00:39:31
difference in the bone density of a smaller children? Would that affect how? And it's no easy way to say that, but
00:39:40
it's like there could be all these reasons that would affect if we find their remains or not.
00:39:46
>> Mhm. >> So, you could have a situation where Yeah. Um and and that's where I go back
00:39:52
to with like the insurance man when when he goes, "Oh, well, your your house is going to burn down and your kids are
00:39:57
going to suffer and blah blah blah." Did he do an inspection? Because I was watching the show the other day. You
00:40:04
might have heard of it. It's called The Gilmore Girls. and she had a bed and breakfast basically a inn and she
00:40:13
thought she was getting screwed on her insurance. So she had a agent come out but the agent had to do an inspection on
00:40:22
the house. So this is information that George would have been privy to. When the agent came to the house, did he just
00:40:30
was he making threats or did he go around the house and look at things and go, "Hey,
00:40:37
yeah, your your electrician told you this stuff is correct, but it's not, and you need to do something about this."
00:40:43
And so then when George says, "Well, no, I'm not going to do anything. I'm not raising the insurance on this house
00:40:49
because well, I wouldn't benefit from it anyways." And the agent's like, "Yeah, but I just I just in inspected your
00:40:56
house and you have some problems. So if you don't do this, you your whole house is going to burn down. Your children are
00:41:03
going to die." Like where's trying to talk some sense into him? So that's where it's like did this individual
00:41:09
threaten him or was the individual trying to say what are you doing? Like you have things that you need to fix or
00:41:16
bad things can happen. >> Well, later we have bones that are found. We have an excavation that takes
00:41:22
place and it yields some findings. Those findings are some bones. Okay. So this report
00:41:32
report on examination of bones by Oscar B. Hunter. The items that are being tested were received on August 19th,
00:41:42
1949. The report is from August 25th, 1949. We have eight fragments of bone that were
00:41:51
found in the northeast corner and were determined to be animal bones. Six bones, two of which are fragments,
00:42:02
were found in the southeast corner. Two fragments were determined to be chicken femurss, but the other four definitely
00:42:09
consisted of a lumbar vertebrae. Okay, so eight fragments of bone were determined to be animal bones. And then
00:42:18
we have six bones. Two of those fragments were determined to be chicken femurss, but the other four definitely
00:42:26
consisted of lumbar vertebrae. These vertebrae show no evidence of being burned. However, the approximate age of
00:42:35
this vertebrae, 14 to 15 year old child. Now, here's the problem. you don't find the rest of the
00:42:43
skeleton. What this report states is that this vertebrae would have had to have been forcibly removed from the rest
00:42:49
of the skeleton, suggesting that these bones were separated from the remaining portion of
00:42:56
the skeleton at a later time and that the skeleton was the vertebrae too have no evidence of being burned. This is
00:43:03
very strange. So, while it it may tell some people that this could be one of the kids remains of one of the kids,
00:43:11
it's also saying these remains weren't burned at any time. So, there's a shipping invoice to the Smithsonian
00:43:18
Institute that took place on September 20th, 1949. Inside of it were those human
00:43:25
and animal bones. And the human bones consisted of four lumbar lumbar vertebrae belonging to one individual.
00:43:33
the age of that individual is anywhere from 16 to 22 years of age in at the time of death. So this this is a
00:43:42
different report by a different agency. It is possible but not probable that these bones would belong to a 14
00:43:49
12year-old boy. So that would be Maurice. Again, this report too states vertebrae
00:43:55
showed no evidence of being exposed to fire. This report also states that it is very strange that no other bones were
00:44:01
found. also states that since the house was estimated to have burned for only this report says half an hour, but I'm
00:44:08
with the captain. I've seen reports 45 minutes to an hour that they would expect to have found full skeletons of
00:44:15
the children, not just fragments. And then did you hear the story about the heart? You saved the best for last.
00:44:21
>> We have a heart that was found. All right, bear with me on this because it's complicated. It stated that a heart was
00:44:29
found and that it was buried at the scene. Now, when the Solder parents catch wind of this, they want to know
00:44:38
that where where was this heart? We want to retrieve it, where was it buried? And they were told that it was a a stake
00:44:49
was used to mark where it was buried. The problem with that portion of the story is there's no stake. The family
00:44:56
remained on the property. They lived on that property. No stake. So eventually they're shown where this air quotes
00:45:03
heart was buried to which when they retrieve this item, it is sent off for testing and it's determined to be a beef
00:45:15
liver. So not a heart at all and not human. And some reports state that it is fresh.
00:45:24
So, keep in mind this this is quite a bit of time later. So, this is saying that somebody went back to the location
00:45:33
of the fire, the house fire, and planted this item in hopes that whoever found it
00:45:41
would buy what this person was selling, that it was in fact a heart. Now, later,
00:45:47
this person admitted that, hey, I went there and I put this item there. I was hoping that the family would find it.
00:45:53
And then in turn they would accept what happened to their children. That they they clearly needed some strong evidence
00:46:00
to tell them that their kids perished in that fire. They don't have the mental, emotional capacity to accept that,
00:46:08
right? >> And so I placed this item there, >> a place to live >> because I was hoping to help them. I was
00:46:14
hoping to help them. >> So stupid. >> And then we also have >> small town. So all these people are
00:46:19
connected. You know, the old boss is connected to the fire department. The fire department people are connected to
00:46:26
the coroner. The coroner is connected to the insurance agent. They're all connected.
00:46:32
>> But it's weird cuz it's like, okay, if these five children, everything scientifically kind of points to that
00:46:39
they're not in the house. And then you go, cool. Okay. So, maybe the fire was a distraction for kidnapping these
00:46:47
children >> or an attempt to cover up them being taken, right? If >> No, that's what I mean. Like, we're
00:46:55
going to take the children and then we'll start this fire and then >> everyone will think that they died in
00:47:02
the fire. And as you pointed out, that was >> unfortunately such a a a common thing,
00:47:09
much more common back then than it is today. So it would seem conceivable, right?
00:47:16
>> Yeah. >> The And also I think it's like winter time, especially back then, winter time
00:47:21
and and Christmas time was like that was the houseire season. But then you also wonder too like well I wonder too like
00:47:33
maybe it was more sinister than that. Maybe this ex boss had this fondness for his children but thought you know what
00:47:41
I'll burn down the house so I'll get the money but I'll take the children because
00:47:45
I want to make sure that they're safe. I don't want them to die but I can't get to all of them. Well I'll just you know
00:47:52
whoever is going to start the fire. You just tell hey start the fire. Get as many of the kids you can. And then the
00:47:58
kids will go away. We'll send them to somebody to raise. And then I get to see this the destruction that I caused. Like
00:48:07
you said, this would this would have to be somebody that was not not just in it for the money, but in it for the revenge
00:48:14
to watch George Solder suffer for the rest of his life. >> Yeah. But then it's also too like some
00:48:23
of these businesses were backed by organized crime and and that I think that's something again I don't think
00:48:34
George would have told anybody that except for maybe his other family members. Well, this might have happened
00:48:41
because I had some ties to some people I shouldn't have had ties to, but I don't
00:48:46
think anybody's reporting that he was a a drunk or a gambler or whatever. And most people don't
00:48:54
steal your kids and add responsibility to their own plate because you owe somebody money. Well, years later, the
00:49:03
Sauders receive a letter. And this, many say, is believed to be possibly the most credible evidence that they were
00:49:14
right, that that the children were still alive. And in this specific scenario, at
00:49:20
least Lewis was still alive. Because as the story goes here, Captain, one day Jenny found in the mail a letter
00:49:27
addressed to her postmarked in central city, Kentucky with no return address. Inside Jenny finds a picture of a young
00:49:36
man who appears to be in his late 20s, maybe 30 years old, with she says, features that strongly resembled Lewis,
00:49:46
one of their missing kids, who would have been in his 30s if he had survived. On the back of this was written Lewis
00:49:54
Solder, I love brother Frankie L boys. And then this is handwritten too. So little bit of speculation here.
00:50:04
A90132 or A90135 on the back of this, but we were there was they were never able to determine if
00:50:15
this was in fact Lewis, where it came from, who sent it, or really any other information about this picture. Yeah.
00:50:23
>> Well, no. I I I believe they actually had the return address and they This is
00:50:28
the one where they sent the private investigator out to look for the individual, but the private investigator
00:50:36
took their money. I don't think ever returned. And so, a lot of people make that a big deal of the story. Well, a
00:50:42
private investigator disappeared as well. Well, we don't know if he just took the money or not, right?
00:50:47
>> Yeah. So, I I think that part of this is I think from my understanding that was a
00:50:54
story that came out of Houston, Texas, that that it was a tip that came into the family with this one that we have
00:51:02
with the picture of the unidentified person with the name Lewis Solder written on the back. The reports I have
00:51:10
say that it was postmarked in central city, Kentucky with no return address. >> Even if they had an address on it,
00:51:17
they're probably not going to put their house address on it so you could come looking for them. You wonder, too, like,
00:51:24
okay, so if this kid, let's just go down a hypothetical road here. If this child
00:51:30
is alive, then the other ones got out of the fire as well, and they're living somewhere else. Now, are they all still
00:51:36
alive? Who knows? But that means all five got out and and they're alive somewhere. And
00:51:45
it's probably somebody that just saw from a distance what was happening and felt like they had to do something to
00:51:54
give this family some answers or some type of closure. And then I guess you can also these stories get so big. The
00:52:04
amount of pictures I've received of people that go, "Hey, don't you think this person looks like Mara Murray? Hey,
00:52:11
don't you think this person looks like Brian Schaefer?" And it's like, I don't know. Did you go
00:52:19
up and talk to him? Like, you just took a picture from afar or or you found this
00:52:23
picture on the internet. So this story being as popular as it was and as talked about it as it was, even though it was a
00:52:33
long long time ago, the the story would have traveled slower, but it still would
00:52:38
have traveled. So it could just be somebody that thought that this looked like one of the children all grown up.
00:52:46
>> Well, and I think one part too that that is important to understand here. Okay.
00:52:54
So, this story when you review it and you just start to look at it from the 30,000 ft view to me, I go,
00:53:06
"The kids burned up in the house." And I'm terribly sorry that that happened, but that seems to be the obvious
00:53:16
explanation. Then when you tell me that nothing was found and then when stuff is found, it's
00:53:22
not remains that can be identified as any of these these children. Uh most of it not human at all. And then what the
00:53:33
remains that were human show no signs of being part of a fire. That's when I start to go, you know what? I I have a
00:53:42
difficult time wrapping my head around the idea that somebody took the kids and set the fire and and managed to keep
00:53:48
them away forever, but you don't have a body. You don't you don't have any bodies.
00:53:58
And then there's also the science of it. Okay, we talked about items that were found that were recovered from the sight
00:54:06
of the fire and some of those items were coins. So, up until 1982, pennies were made of 95% copper,
00:54:17
5% zinc. Copper burns melts at just under 20, sorry, just under 2,000° F. Zinc burns melts at just under
00:54:30
800° F. Nickels. Up until 1942, nickels were made of 25% nickel and 75% copper. Nickel burns melts at 2600°
00:54:46
F. Now, from 1942 to 1945, nickels were made from a threepart alloy that contains silver and copper because they
00:54:57
were saving nickel supplies for the war effort. So, this alloy in particular burns, melts at 1630°
00:55:06
F. Bone is difficult. Okay. Bone turns to ash through a process where extreme heat removes water
00:55:15
and burns organic material, mostly collagen, causing mineral crystals to change and fuse, requiring temperatures
00:55:23
generally from 1292° F to over 1,800° F. Okay. So that that temperature certainly falls within
00:55:38
the range of nickels that may have melted, but we have things that are burning and and or or sorry not burning
00:55:47
and surviving at the scene that burn and melt at a much lower temperature than bone. And then here's the problem though
00:55:56
too. If if you were to burn bone, so a cremation, right? Let's take cremation for example.
00:56:05
>> Yeah. >> Crematories reach around 1,800° F. So you're going to burn for 1 to two hours.
00:56:14
1,800° F. 1,800° F is much higher than the zinc. >> Yeah. >> And it has to burn for one to two hours.
00:56:24
Now, let's say let's pretend maybe that fire did burn for for 1 hour. This reducing the body to bone fragments.
00:56:32
They didn't find fragments. 1,800° gets you to fragments. If you were to get true ash, complete combustion to mineral
00:56:43
ash requires a much higher heat and longer durations of that heat, making bone fully disappear.
00:56:53
And it's such a high heat and such a lengthy process that this isn't typically the standard in cremation. You
00:57:01
look at the science of it and I'm and I don't want to sit here and pretend to say that look that definitively says
00:57:07
what did or did not happen that day. I think what it says is this is more reason to question
00:57:15
why they didn't find remains of five people. Not of one person, of five people. And what are the odds of that?
00:57:22
Slim to none. And where I'm going when this is all said and done, I'm going to burn for a lot longer than that, my
00:57:29
friend. For those that are saying, "Absolutely not. They died in the fire." I just want you to to to
00:57:37
have this information because if it could happen once, it's very conceivable that it could have happened before.
00:57:45
Okay, this is a story out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The headline is, "A fire that
00:57:52
authorities six years ago thought killed a 10day old girl was a ruse to kidnap the infant, Philadelphia police said."
00:58:02
And I'll just read you part of the story, and that is the baby, Delmomar Vera, was sleeping in an upstairs front
00:58:11
bedroom when a fire broke out at her family's twostory rowhouse in North Philadelphia. This took place December
00:58:18
15th, 1997. Her mother runs upstairs, could not find Delmare, the baby, when she ran into the room. She eventually
00:58:28
ran out of the house, overcome by smoke. She was burned herself. Her other two children survived, thank God. The
00:58:37
remains of the infant's body were never found, and police concluded that they had been incinerated in the flames. The
00:58:46
official cause of the fire was listed as an overheated extension cord attached to
00:58:51
a space heater. Six years six years later, the mother sees a young girl and she says, "I
00:59:00
recognize the face. That's my daughter." They do DNA test and confirm that it was
00:59:07
this woman's missing daughter. So, just have the information that when they when the officials
00:59:20
ruled on this house fire and a deceased, completely incinerated body in the flames in 1997,
00:59:32
52 years after the Christmas fire on 1945, if they got it wrong, in 97 using that
00:59:42
technology, those resources. Then it's very conceivable that they may have gotten it wrong back in 1945. [music]
01:00:01
I want to thank everybody so much for keeping us company in the garage all year long. Thanks for being our friends.
01:00:07
Thanks for listening to these true crime stories. Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everybody. And happy
01:00:13
holidays to you as well, my friend, Colonel. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays to you as well, Captain. And cheers to
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everybody out there listening to my voice right now. I hope you have the best of holidays for you and yours and a
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