my thoughts exactly. From what I can gather from here and there (and I HAVEN'T been following it that closely) there were at least three people, possibly four, living in that basement, at least two of whom were young adults in their very late teens or early twenties. These people had to move, to speak, to make a noise - and unless the basement was a concrete bunker once used to torture prisoners of the Third Reich and therefore completely sound proofed there had to have been SOME evidence that All Was Not Right Downstairs. Also, these people needed to eat (which assumes a certain budgetary cost of food) and I don't think that adding four more invisible people to the household food budget without anyone (read: the wife) noticing is remotely plausible. Who did the shopping? The 73-year-old partirach? I doubt it. And if the wife did, didn't she ever question - not ONCE, in twenty four fricking years?!? - the sudden and inexplicable disappearance of certain items she knew she had bought for the household?
If he was the primary abuser, the wife was an accomplice. They did not live in a castle, they lived in an ordinary suburban home, and there is no way that a prisoner could be kept in such a house - not even one, let alone four - without the other people in the house having SOME sort of inkling. If they were terrorised into silence, that's one thing. But to claim ignorance... that just doesn't wash.
The father bought all the food, and I'll bet he handled all the money, too. The room was soundproofed (he was a retired electrician and presumably knowledgeable about house construction). He was apparently extremely authoritarian and forbid the family to go into the basement, and they did not dare disobey them. The searchers said they never would have found the room without being shown where it was.
In addition, the father told his prisoners that the basement space was wired with explosives. I presume the threat cowed them from trying to rush him when he opened the door or from making too much noise.
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pegkerr![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2008-04-29 06:47 pm (UTC)If he was the primary abuser, the wife was an accomplice. They did not live in a castle, they lived in an ordinary suburban home, and there is no way that a prisoner could be kept in such a house - not even one, let alone four - without the other people in the house having SOME sort of inkling. If they were terrorised into silence, that's one thing. But to claim ignorance... that just doesn't wash.
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Date: 2008-04-29 06:53 pm (UTC)At this point, I believe the mother didn't know.
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Date: 2008-04-29 07:07 pm (UTC)