totally. But being controlled and in denial are not the same as not knowing. Obviously the man was controlling and willing to do anything to get his way no matter how horrendous.

the daughter bore him 7 children, total.

unbelievable.

and someone in the town turned him in--people knew.

>3 kids he had to sneak babies up and they kept some of them as their own...where did he tell her they came from?

He said they were dropped off at the door anonymously. One thing to keep in mind, she was married to a lunatic and that would affect her mentality also. He undoubtedly abused her also, and that can put a person into a frame of mind where she may have been confused and unaware.

"Come on, you don't realize all the extra food and expenses, and diapers and all that shit"

Do you really think a man like that lets his wife have ANY control over their joint finances? I agree that a certain level of denial had to be involved. She had to know SOMETHING wasn't right, but she might have assumed he was having an affair or some other such thing. She may truly never have guessed what it was that he was hiding. Granted, some of that was from not wanting to know, but if you suspect it's some infidelity (which it technically was) and don't want to ruin your marriage you might turn a blind eye. Perhaps she thought it was some consuming project or a drug addiction. Perhaps she just thought he disliked his wife enough that he had created a room where he could be rid of her. Who knows? And if babies show up on your doorstep with notes from your daughter, who you believe to have run away, do you suspect she's actually locked up in your basement?

Those kids.... one of them's 19 and has never socialized with anybody but his abused mother, abusive grand/father, and other similarly isolated siblings. How do you recover from such a thing? What does the world look like to that young adults eyes? Can you imagine being pulled from a hole in the ground which had been your entire life and suddenly encountering the 21st century head on? This isn't the first case of long-term isolates, but it's the longest I've heard of.
As horrified as I am a part of me can't help but be fascinated. The scientist in the back of my head wants to test them, observe them, see what such a thing does to a human being. The humanist in me agonizes over how such children will find a fulfilling life in the world.

As to who tipped the police off and how they knew? I don't know. Perhaps somebody finally grew too suspicious to keep quiet. Perhaps Daddy started getting cocky and bragging in his cups. Perhaps the boy at the checkout counter could no longer ignore that he was buying WAY more food and supplies than his family could ever need. Perhaps a doctor broke confidentiality to protect children he suspected were being abused. It sounds like one of the children might have already been out of the basement, sick and headed to the hospital, before the police were tipped off. We've no way of knowing how long anybody knew. What do you know about your neighbors? Do you know what's in their cellar? Would you pry if they dug a hole, installed a room, and told you they were building a bomb shelter for the end of days and then started slowly stocking it full of food and supplies? Would you search for a darker explanation or write them up as a nut?
It's easy to be angry at people and refusing to believe they couldn't have known. We don't want to believe such a thing could live next door to us and we never the wiser. The truth is that most of us will never have to face such an atrocity, but there is no way to tell who will or in what community it will happen, or if you'll even notice it's going on until it hits the front page of the news.

Sure, blame the grand/father for what he's done. It's atrocious and I'm fucking appalled that he only stands to serve fifteen years for what he's done. Withhold judgment from the grandmother and their community though. We have no way of knowing how well or how poorly this man hid his actions.