One of the six children involved in an armed stand-off with police in Idaho in the US was last night in custody after leaving the family property.
Benjamin McGuckin, 15, who had started the stand-off, now in its fifth day, told police he could try to help bring the situation to an end by talking to his three sisters and two brothers who remain in the house.
On Tuesday, the teenager shouted "get the guns" and released a pack of wild dogs on deputies, starting the armed stand-off at the end of a dirt road in Sandpoint, a remote settlement in Bonner County, in the west of Idaho.
But last night police said they were unsure if he had ever been in the house after releasing the dogs and he had told them he could help.
The children have no running water, or heat and their mother, 45-year-old JoAnn, is also in custody after being charged with child neglect. Their father died of multiple sclerosis three weeks ago.
They are thought to have a cache of rifles at their home, which they are due to leave in September after it was sold to cover taxes their parents, described by locals as "dirt poor", had not paid.
Last nightBenjamin's lawyer, Mr Edgar Steele, said he had been taken into custody last night after going to a neighbour for help.
Mr Steele told CNN: "The son Ben, 15 years old, a couple of days ago had left the house and for whatever reason had been able to get back into it across police lines and so for two days now has been walking around the woods."
Medical tests showed some signs of malnutrition, but he was not in need of hospital care.
It is now unclear who was in charge at the house, where children Kathryn, 16, Mary, 13, James, 11, Frederick, nine, and eight-year-old Jane, remained.
They are thought to be dirty and malnourished, although it emerged the family received a 90-kilogram parcel of canned food last Friday and do have electricity, contrary to the sheriff's earlier claims they had no power and were eating lily pads.
The standoff is just 25 miles from Ruby Ridge, where a 1992 armed siege ended in an attack by FBI agents on the home of an anti-government isolationist.
An ensuing exchange of fire killed the wife and son of militia member Randy Weaver and claimed the life of a government agent, one of several sent to arrest Weaver on a weapons charge.