Sarah Burning

Acrid smoke filled the valley with the odors of burnt home, burnt hopes, burnt dreams, burnt flesh. On a cold night, in the short span of less than five minutes, the Ritter family crossed a threshold from which there was no return. Peaceful slumber in the early morning hours of October 27th, 1959, quickly became madness and horror.

Cruel blue, orange and yellow flames leapt high into the air casting an eerie glow on three blackened and blistered survivors huddled on the ground under a towering oak. Barely visible, save for the ever-present mist emanating from their nostrils as they panted and shivered, they suffered together in a singular wailing cry.

Nearby, barely conscious, broken and bleeding in the bottom of the overgrown and thorny ravine, lay another blackened and burned survivor. Worst of all, among the horrifying demise of the once-proud simple farmhouse, somewhere beneath the blaze and collapsed beams, lay two burning bodies. Their screams at last silenced.

How do you continue with life when you’ve lost everything? How do you face each day when you know it means more pain from the burns? How do you get past the guilt, knowing you lived, and others died? How do you silence the echo in your head; the sound of him screaming your name as he burned alive?

After more than 60 years, the story of the survivors is ready to be told…

You’re invited to learn the history of this real-life tragedy, within the pages of Sarah Burning.