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Photo by Taos County Sheriff's Department / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was scheduled to appear in court Wednesday on a warrant from Georgia that seeks his extradition to face a charge of abducting his son from that state last December. The warrant says he had expressed wanting to perform an exorcism on his son.

The group had arrived in Amalia in December, with enough money to buy groceries and construction supplies, according to Tyler Anderson, a 41-year-old auto mechanic who lives nearby.

He said Tuesday he had helped the newcomers install solar panels after they arrived. But he eventually stopped visiting.

He had met both of the men in the group, but never the women, who authorities say are the mothers of the 11 children, ages 1 to 15.

Photo by Morgan Lee/AP Photo

He doesn’t recall seeing the Georgia boy who was missing. But he does remember that some of the smaller children from the compound turned up to play with children at neighbouring properties at first.

“We just figured they were doing what we were doing, getting a piece of land and getting off the grid,” said Anderson, who moved to New Mexico from Seattle with his wife seven years ago.

I started to try and kick them off about three months ago and everything I tried to do kept getting knocked down

As the months passed, however, they stopped seeing the smaller children playing in the area. They also stopped hearing guns fired off at a shooting range on the property, he said.

Jason Badger, who owned the property where the compound was built, said he and his wife had pressed authorities to remove the group after becoming concerned about the children. The group had built the compound on their acreage instead of a neighbouring tract owned by Lucas Morton, one of the men arrested during the raid.