Trust me. They knew he was dead. They are just crazy in the head. When you have a dead body in the house, everyone knows it.
He couldn't have been dead. His SS checks were still being cashed.........
My daughter used to take horseback riding lessons. One morning we showed up at the stables. We parked about 50 feet from the entrance and as soon as we opened the door, it hit us, the smell of decomp. A horse had keeled over during the night and the knacker hadn't come yet. My clothes smelled for days. There is absolutely no mistaking the smell of death.
Right. If the neighbors could smell him, so could the people living under the same roof.
I'm not convinced about them being crazy, though. Some people just have no heart and will do anything for money. I think it is likely that once his death became official, they would have to move out of the house (it was his) and his SS checks would stop. They likely only had foster children for the sake of the $$ they got from the government, too.
You're right. After thinking about it and realizing how horrible the smell would be, there wouldn't be any way that they couldn't know.