A family tragedy is threatening to develop in a town in Idaho where five armed children have kept police at bay since Wednesday, after their mother was arrested on charges of child abuse.
One of her six children, who range in age from eight to 16, surrendered on Thursday night after he accepted a neighbour's offer to drive him to a meeting with authorities, Bonner County Prosecutor Phil Robinson said.
Benjamin McGuckin (15), who initiated the stand-off and is said to be a reader of survivalist magazines, met a sheriff's deputy, a social worker and two doctors, a pediatrician and a family practitioner.
Although there was "some indication that he was suffering from malnutrition", the boy did not need to be hospitalised and was in the custody of the state Department of Health and Welfare, Mr Robinson said.
The children's mother, Ms JoAnn McGuckin (46), was arrested on Tuesday on a warrant charging felony injury to a child. Since then the children left at home, three girls and three boys, have refused to leave the house.
The stand-off began when deputies went to the house for the children after the mother was lured out and arrested. It was intended to put the youngsters in state custody. But the children spotted them, and Benjamin led the others in loosing a pack of vicious dogs and shouting "Get the guns", Mr Robinson said.
The prosecutor said he had not met the boy, who was not the subject of a criminal investigation.
"I don't anticipate filing any charges," Mr Robinson said.
An older daughter, Erina (19), has been helping the authorities to try to resolve the stand-off, but it was not immediately clear if Benjamin would assist.
Prosecutors said in court on Wednesday the children were malnourished, dirty and deprived of heat, and that the mother had been spending the family's meagre financial resources on alcohol.
Attorney Edgar Steele, representing the mother, argued that the children were not neglected. Friends and neighbours told police the family had been struggling for several years after the father was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. He died on May 12th, aged 61, and the county coroner attributed Mr McGuckin's death to malnutrition and dehydration.
A family friend picked up a 200-lb box of food for the children at the Bonner Community Food Centre last Friday, director Alice Wallace said.
She described the McGuckins as a normal family that had fallen on hard times. Caring for her husband and the children apparently took a toll on Mrs McGuckin, who grew convinced that chemicals sprayed on nearby roads were responsible for her husband's illness. She also feared the government would take their home and children.
The confrontation with the children raised the spectre of nearby Ruby Ridge. Three people died in that 1992 stand-off - anti-government isolationist Randy Weaver's wife and son, and a federal deputy marshal, one of several sent to arrest Weaver on a weapons charge.