Omaha, NE - The biggest Safe Haven shocker resurfaced in court Thursday in Omaha. It's official! The father who dropped off nine kids at the hospital last fall under the state's Safe Haven law, now has no rights to those children.

A year and a half after Gary Staton's wife died, he gave them up under the controversial safe haven law. Thursday, all sides agreed, it turned out to be a good thing.

Nine kids abandoned at a hospital. It's a Safe Haven case that shocked the nation. But this was no temporary fix. On Thursday afternoon, the kids' dad walked into court and voluntarily gave up the kids for good. As a widower, Gary Staton raised all nine kids on his own in a modest home. He's since moved out and the family home is slapped with a condemned sign.

We went to Staton's new house Thursday morning and no answer. And after his court hearing he snuck out down the back stairs. But Staton's father-in-law spoke candidly about his grandkids. "They're all in school, they've made new friends down there. I know when they first moved down it was kind of traumatic because they didn't think they'd ever meet new friends," says Jack Manzer. Manzer tells Action 3 News the seven youngest are staying with his sister in Lincoln and the two older boys are in foster care. All nine are once again healthy and happy. "Any hard feelings toward Gary? I'd like if things would have come out better, but no, he's their father and that's just the way it is."

Even the judge was impressed by Staton's decision. Judge Elizabeth Crnkovich told him in court, "What you've done today, oddly enough, is very generous."

Reported by Molli Graham, mgraham@action3news.com