http://www.boston.com/dailynews/151/nation/Children_hold_off_Idaho_author:.shtml

Children hold off Idaho authorities at rural home after mother's arrest

By Nicholas K. Geranios, Associated Press, 5/31/2001 04:56

SANDPOINT, Idaho (AP) For years, Michael and JoAnn McGuckin kept their children close to their dilapidated rural home, fearing illness and imagined government plots to take the home and split up the family.

Now the six youngest, ages 8 to 16, are holed up inside with a stash of rifles and a pack of vicious dogs.

With their father dead and their mother arrested, they are refusing to answer negotiators who have been trying since Tuesday to coax them out. The children released the dogs when deputies first approached the house, and one yelled ''Get the guns!'' before the officers pulled back, Sheriff Phil Jarvis said.

''I'm not going to force an issue with children,'' Jarvis said Wednesday. ''We are waiting for them to calm down. We want to convince them we are there to help.''

In the minds of many in the area is the 1992 shootout at nearby Ruby Ridge, where the wife and son of white separatist Randy Weaver were killed during a standoff with federal agents. But Jarvis said this standoff is different because authorities aren't out to arrest anyone inside the home.

It was triggered by Tuesday's arrest of JoAnn McGuckin, 46, on a warrant charging felony injury to a child. Jarvis declined to elaborate on the charge.

Deputies lured her from the house Tuesday with grocery money, and she was taken into custody after going to a store with a deputy who had brought the cash.

But when deputies returned to take the children to state social services, the children locked themselves inside the home.

''This is a mentally ill woman and she has her children scared to death,'' Jarvis said.

The stalemate at the McGuckin home, on a dirt road about a mile from the tiny Lake Pend Oreille community of Garfield Bay, continued early Thursday. It wasn't clear whether the children were communicating with officials.

Mary Peters, who knew the McGuckins, said the family was more sociable before Michael became ill with multiple sclerosis.

She brought out a decade-old photo of the family in a church directory showing a smiling Michael and JoAnn McGuckin and five of their eight children. Michael worked in a lumber mill to support his family then, she said.

The illness and the financial struggles that followed took a mental toll on JoAnn, Peters said. She became convinced her husband's illness was caused by chemicals sprayed on the roads, and that the government was planning to take the children and their home, Peters said.

''We haven't seen the kids for five years,'' she said.

The home is now rundown and no longer has power, water or heat. The children, kept home from school, have been largely caring for themselves, subsisting on water dragged from the lake and what food they can find, Jarvis said. The family refused help from social service agencies.

When Michael McGuckin died three weeks ago, the official cause of death was dehydration and malnutrition.

A 19-year-old sister who left the home recently after an argument with her mother was helping deputies try to draw the children out, Jarvis said.

They have told the children over a loudspeaker that they will be fed, housed and taken to see their mother, he said.

The Rev. Dennis Day, who officiated Michael McGuckin's funeral at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Sandpoint, about 10 miles from Garfield Bay, said the family rebuffed all offers of help and seemed consumed by paranoia.

The oldest of the children now lives in California and has little contact with his family, Day said.

''Everybody saw this coming. They were dirt-poor. The kids didn't have the right things to eat,'' Day said. ''They really alienated themselves from the world.''

-- Anonymous, May 31, 2001

Answers

Luckily the kids don't have to worry about Janet Reno.

Just those that learned from her....

-- Anonymous, May 31, 2001

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/152/nation/Lawyer_trying_to_free_mothe r_f:.shtml

Lawyer trying to free mother from jail as children remain holed up in Idaho house

By Nicholas K. Geranios, Associated Press, 6/1/2001 05:43

SANDPOINT, Idaho (AP) A lawyer who represents the mother of six children holed up in a northern Idaho house suggested the stalemate could be resolved by bringing the mother to the house.

But attorney Edgar Steele said he would not have any part in such an effort if the goal was to separate the children into foster care. He said family and friends stand ready to take them in.

''This is exactly what she was afraid of and that's exactly what they're trying to do,'' Steele said at a news conference Thursday.

The children, ages 8 to 16, have been hunkered down in their ramshackle home with sheriff's deputies at bay since Tuesday, when their mother, JoAnn McGuckin, was arrested on charges of injuring a child. Their father, Michael McGuckin, was buried last week.

After her arrest, deputies went to the house for the children, who were to be placed in state custody. But one of the boys spotted them, yelled, ''Get the guns!'' and set the dogs loose.

Steele disputed the assertion that the children had been starving and living in unhealthy conditions before authorities tried to remove them to social service agencies. He planned to ask a Bonner County judge to reduce the $100,000 bail for JoAnn McGuckin and reunite her with her children.

Deputies had no luck trying to negotiate with the children Thursday. Authorities say they will simply wait out the standoff near Sandpoint, about 40 miles north of Coeur d'Alene.

The children are said to be well-armed and proficient with weapons, although Steele noted that no weapons have been seen in the standoff.

A family friend picked up a 200-pound box of staples for the children at the Bonner Community Food Center last Friday, director Alice Wallace said Thursday.

Wallace characterized the McGuckins as ''a normal family that has fallen on hard times.''

Michael McGuckin died May 12 after suffering from multiple sclerosis for several years. The county coroner attributed McGuckin's death at age 61 to malnutrition and dehydration.

Steele, who recently represented Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler in a lawsuit, spent two hours Wednesday with the mother.

''This woman is perfectly capable of taking care of the kids and herself,'' he said, though he conceded the family had become reclusive since the father's illness.

Steele went to the house Thursday, but said the children would not speak to him.

The specter of nearby Ruby Ridge is inescapable. Three people died in that 1992 standoff 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.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2001

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/153/nation/Talks_with_children_holed_u p_i:.shtml

Talks with children holed up in Idaho house offer authorities hope of ending stalemate

By Nicholas K. Geranios, Associated Press, 6/2/2001 04:26

SANDPOINT, Idaho (AP) The first face-to-face talks with five children holed up in a decrepit rural house gave authorities fresh hope for a stalemate that entered its fifth day Saturday.

Bryce Powell, the court-appointed attorney for the children's mother, confirmed late Friday that talks have taken place with the children. However, he wouldn't say who was involved. He said progress had been made but more work remained to be done to coax the children from the house.

''The children have food and water and they know their mom is alive,'' Powell said as he drove away from the isolated home, set off in the north Idaho woods on a barricaded dirt road.

Bonner County prosecutor Phil Robinson said he hoped any contact with the children would escalate negotiations.

''We would like to allay the kids' fears that their mom's in custody and she's OK,'' Robinson said Friday evening.

The standoff began Tuesday after their mother, JoAnn McGuckin, was arrested, accused of child neglect. Sheriff's deputies later returned to the home near Garfield Bay, about 10 miles south of Sandpoint, to take the six children into state custody. But the children, armed with weapons, unleashed dogs on the deputies.

Late Thursday, the oldest boy, Benjamin McGuckin, 15, was taken into custody after he sought help from a neighbor, who drove him to meet with authorities in Sandpoint. Robinson said the boy confirmed there were five guns in the house.

His brothers and sisters Kathryn, 16; Mary, 13; James, 11; Frederick, 9; and Jane, 8 remained at the house early Friday.

The oldest sister Erina, 19, who left the house after an earlier falling-out with her parents, has been working with authorities.

Erina McGuckin's concerns about conditions at the home formed the basis of the neglect charge against JoAnn McGuckin, who was being on $100,000 bail. A bail-reduction hearing scheduled Friday was postponed when Powell failed to appear.

Deputies decided to wait out the children, anticipating they would run out of food quickly. Benjamin McGuckin told authorities the family received 200 pounds of staples last Friday, the day their father, Michael McGuckin, was buried.

Benjamin apparently had been outside for some time perhaps since Tuesday and the remaining children had probably been unaware that their brother had turned himself in, Robinson said.

The boy was in temporary ''shelter care'' provided by the state Department of Health and Welfare.

Michael McGuckin was diagnosed several years ago with multiple sclerosis. His May 12 death was attributed by the Bonner County coroner to malnutrition and dehydration.

Meanwhile, Sandpoint attorney Edgar Steele, withdrew his involvement from the mother's case Friday.

Steele, who recently represented Aryan Nations founder Richard Butler in a lawsuit, had pressed for JoAnn McGuckin's release to end the conflict. He had said the standoff could draw anti-government activists from around the country to the area 40 miles from the deadly 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge, where a deputy federal marshall and white supremacist Randy Weaver's wife and teen-age son were killed.

Steele said he withdrew from representing McGuckin after he called the jail and was told he couldn't talk to her because she was being represented by Powell. Steele says Powell was only representing her in the criminal case, and that McGuckin had asked him to handle other issues, such as her children's custody.

Robinson, the prosecutor, said the woman had informed his office Friday that ''under no circumstances was Steele going to be allowed to see her anymore.''

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2001