Authorities searching the remote mountaintop compound of fugitive white supremacist Randy Weaver found the body of his 13-year-old son and said he may have died in a shootout last week that killed a U.S. marshal.
U.S. Marshal's Service spokesman Jo Simpson said the boy, whose body was found Monday in an outbuilding, appeared to have died of a gunshot wound, but she said the official cause of death would be determined by an autopsy."It's suspected that he died Friday in the initial exchange of gunfire," Simpson said.
A task force of more than 100 local, state and federal agents surrounded Weaver's log cabin, perched on a peak in the Idaho Panhandle 30 miles from the Canadian border. Floodlights were erected to illuminate the compound.
In Boston, funeral arrangements were pending for Deputy U.S. Marshal William F. Degan, shot dead as he surveilled the Weaver compound with six other deputies last Friday. In an ensuing shootout, two deputies were pinned by rifle fire for six hours but escaped under cover of darkness.
As a result, federal arrest warrants were issued for Randall C. Weaver and Kevin Harris, a longtime friend who has been living for nine years at the cabin with Weaver, his wife and four children. The warrants accuse Harris of first-degree murder and Weaver with assault.
"Hostage negotiators are attempting to establish contact with the Weavers and negotiate a peaceful surrender," said marshal's spokesman Bill Dempsey.
Efforts to communicate with the family were hampered by the compound's lack of a telephone or electricity and by snow and freezing rain in the area.
Prior to Friday's shootout, the Marshal's Service had been in a standoff with Weaver for 18 months, resulting from his refusal to reappear in court on weapons violations. Weaver, 44, is a reported member of the white separatist Aryans Nations Church.
It was not immediately known who fired the shot that killed Degan, but Deputy Director James Roche of the Marshal's Service said one of the officers involved in the shootout believed he killed the triggerman.
Since the escalation of events late last week, about a dozen of Weaver's neighbors have emerged from their homes to taunt police at a roadblock, reminding them of Weaver's vows that neither he nor his family would be taken alive.
Police reported some of the supporters seemed to be preparing to smuggle food into the family but left when the temperature dipped to 30 degrees.