I guess brain dead was close enough

Mr. "Dead or Alive" Ed Brown, the convicted tax evader who holed up in his compound for months was arrested peacefully authorities.

A couple convicted of tax evasion who threatened violence if authorities approached them were arrested peacefully at their rural Plainfield home after holing up at the fortress-like compound for months, U.S. Marshals said.

The big question Thursday night was how authorities managed to take Ed and Elaine Brown into custody without the confrontation they had promised.

U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier, who said repeatedly he would seek a peaceful surrender, planned to explain Friday morning in a news conference at the federal courthouse in Concord.

Update:

U.S. marshals posing as supporters carried out the arrests of convicted tax-evaders Ed and Elaine Brown in Plainfield, the head marshal said Friday.


"They invited us in, and we escorted them out," U.S. Marshal Stephen Monier said about the Thursday night arrest.

A small team of marhals pulled off the ruse, arresting the Browns without incident on the front porch of their fortress-like rural home, Monier said.