Concord, NH (AP)  -- 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, the U.S. Marshals Service said.

The big question: How did authorities do it Thursday night, avoiding such a confrontation with Ed and Elaine Brown?

At a Friday news conference, U.S. Marshals say they posed as supporters of the Browns to get close enough to carry out the arrests.

Ed Brown had warned authorities the couple wouldn't take him alive: "We either walk out of here free or we die," he said earlier this year.

The Browns, who were turned over to the custody of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, were convicted on federal tax charges in January and refused to turn themselves in to authorities when they were sentenced in April to five years and three months in prison.

"We had no indication that the Browns intended to voluntarily surrender, so we had to move forward with an operation that promised the safest possible outcome. That day was today," Monier said in a news release Thursday.

Expert observers had praised the authorities' hands-off approach, but patience wore thin for Plainfield's 2,400 residents. During the summer, town selectmen asked Monier to stop the influx of militiamen and other anti-government groups to the Browns' home and to bring the couple to justice. But some supporters lost favor with the Browns.

Last month, authorities arrested four men accused of helping obstruct justice in the Browns' case. Charges ranged from accessory after the fact to possession and use of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence. Authorities also blocked access to a fundraising event on the Browns' property.

Monier said in the news release that since those arrests, "there had been a dip in the number of visitors to the house."

Ed Brown, 65, and his wife, 67, have claimed the federal income tax is not legitimate.

Earlier this year, officials cut power and telephone service in an effort to ratchet up pressure on the couple convicted of scheming to avoid federal income taxes by hiding $1.9 million of income between 1996 and 2003.

After abandoning his federal trial and retreating to his home on 103 wooded acres, Ed Brown repeatedly said that any attempts to arrest him would result in a violent confrontation.

The home is on an isolated dirt road and includes a turret that offers a 360-degree view of the property and a driveway that is sometimes barricaded with sport utility vehicles.

Heavily armed police surrounded the home in June while they seized commercial property the couple owned in a neighboring town. SWAT teams, military and explosives vehicles marshaled in the tiny town and sparked rumors of a raid.

The Marshals Service said it was only for surveillance.

The arrests "will be a relief to everyone in the community," state Agriculture Commissioner Stephen Taylor, a Plainfield resident, said Thursday night. "This has been such a distraction to everybody."

A message left for Elaine Brown's son, David Hatch-Bernier of Worcester, Mass., was not returned Thursday night.

Neighbors of the Browns were relieved to hear the news.

"I think it's great that it happened without incident," said David Grobe, who lives about a quarter of a mile from the Browns. He's a former patient of Elaine Brown, who used to run a dental practice.

Grobe said he noticed "an unusual amount of traffic all of a sudden" passing by the house, about 30 to 40 cars, about the time of the arrests. "There was no real indication that it was official."

Neither he nor neighbor Robert Carpenter said they heard anything unusual. Carpenter said there were no marked cruisers, but a lot of large SUVs. "We called Plainfield Police and they called back and told us what was going on," he said.

Supporters of the Browns' cause called them leaders who were trying to protect their freedom. "In many ways this was like a stab in the heart," said Mike Chambers, a talk show host on Republic Broadcasting Network, an Internet-based radio program based in Round Rock, Texas that has defended the Browns in the past. "All they said was, 'Show us the law."'

On another Web site, supporter David Ridley of Manchester said Brown supporters should take part in "peaceable protests" at places such as the U.S. District Court.