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Steven Avery's best friend Curtis Busse has told DailyMail.com that if the convicted murderer is released from prison, he wants to more children. 

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3987074/Making-Murderer-s-Steven-Avery-says-dreams-having-children-returning-auto-mechanic-business-lawyer-believes-ll-free-year-100-million-payout.html

I would like to pose two questions regarding the above sentence:

  1. Why is there "he wants" instead of "he will want" in the conditional clause?

  2. Don’t you think that "to" in the part "he wants to more children" is unnecessary?

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The line you quote was badly proof-read: the proofreader didn't see that the writer left out the verb have. He wants to have more children.

  1. It's "he wants" because he's doing the wanting now. It's about how he wants his future to be, but the wanting is happening in the present.

  2. Good question. I presume it was meant to read "he wants to have more children" but the "have" was missed out. But you're right, it could be that it was meant to read "he wants more children" and the "to" is superfluous.

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  • For any English Language learners who are still unsure: In this context "wants to have children" and "wants children" both mean "wants (to procreate / to become the father of) children." Dec 18, 2016 at 9:14

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