Christmas Eve, 1945.

Fayetteville, West Virginia.

George and Jenny Sotter are preparing to celebrate the holidays with nine of their children,

but shortly after they go to bed, their home burns completely to the ground.

When the smoke clears, five of the Sotter children are nowhere to be found, and a search of the

rubble fails to turn up any trace of their remains.

Due to a number of suspicious events surrounding the fire, the Sotters begin to suspect that

their five missing children were kidnapped, and over 20 years later, they would receive

a mysterious photo of a man whom they believed to be their now adult son.

After that, the trail went cold.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the latest episode of The Trail Went Cold.

I'm your host, Robin Warder, and since Christmas is right around the corner, I will be presenting

a special holiday-themed mystery today.

The bizarre 1945 disappearance of the Sotter children.

In case you're not familiar with it, this is a story of five children who vanished after

their family home burned down on Christmas Eve, and the whole thing is a lot more complex

than you'd expect.

Other than the John Binay Ramsey case, this might be the most famous unsolved mystery which

has ever taken place at Christmas time.

I've already covered quite a few stories on this podcast which took place around the holidays,

such as the four or three disappearance, the death of Rhonda Henson, and the Tommy

Ziegler case.

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