A standoff involving convicted pedophile Peter Whitmore ended late Tuesday on an abandoned Saskatchewan farm with his surrender shortly after the release of a 14-year-old boy.

Police said after 10 hours of negotiations, he walked out of the farm a few minutes before Whitmore's ultimate surrender.

Earlier Tuesday, a 10-year-old was found alive and in good physical condition at an abandoned farm near Kipling.

"We have the resolution to this whole investigation we were hoping for, that is, everybody is safe and sound at this time and being looked after," RCMP Sgt. Tammy Patterson said late Tuesday.

The younger boy has been reunited with his parents but was first taken to a Regina hospital for a checkup.

The teenager was later taken to the same hospital and found to be in good physical health. He remains in the care of the RCMP and was expected to be reunited with his family.

Whitmore, 35, is charged with the abduction of the younger boy. He is in police custody and is expected to appear in court Thursday in Regina.

Sgt. Patterson told CTV's Canada AM Wednesday that the investigation was ongoing. Prosecutors, meanwhile, are looking into additional charges against Whitmore.

Farmer spots vehicle

Farmer Pat Beaujot, a resident of the Kipling area, told CTV he spotted an abandoned van that matched the description of the vehicle police had been searching for in relation to the 10-year-old's abduction.

He rushed home to phone the police, who arrived and immediately set up a perimeter around the farm. They also had a helicopter overhead and dispatched an emergency response team.

"Police cars were coming from all directions at that time, and they were talking to me and we were some distance from the yard. And one of the police noticed a young boy coming out," said Beaujot. "He came through the trees."

That boy was the 10-year-old, who walked over to police after they called him over.

Before he spotted the vehicle, Beaujot said he saw tracks into the yard going to a small car garage just to the east of the house. In the garage, he saw a bucket of chicken and bones -- along with the van Whitmore was believed to be using -- which aroused his suspicions.

He went home, had his wife phone police, then returned to the farmyard to keep an eye on the place.

Police used a robot to bring a cell phone to Whitmore. The standoff took about nine hours to resolve.

Earlier in the day, an RCMP officer who once worked with Whitmore issued a plea for him to release the two missing boys believed to be in his custody.

In an audio statement on the RCMP Saskatchewan website, Cpl. Laural Mathew told Whitmore that he was doing well in his rehabilitation in Chilliwack, B.C., and that he needs to do the right thing.

"You were doing so well while you were here, and I know you've been going through some stress lately," said Mathew in her audio statement.

"But Peter, this needs to come to an end. The best thing for you to do, right now, is to find a way to do what you've always done before -- and release the children."

Whitmore is a repeat sex offender. After serving his most recent sentence of three years, Whitmore initially relocated to Chilliwack, B.C. in June 2005, and then to Morinville, Alta. in June.

He failed to appear at a June 29 court date and then disappeared.

How it started

The teenager was travelling with Whitmore and was last seen in Brandon, Man. on July 22. He had been considered missing, but police did not call his case a kidnapping.

His mother said Whitmore travelled with her son and her husband to Brandon to pick up a new truck.

Whitmore managed to convince the husband to return to Winnipeg after asking him to pick up $2,000 that he said he had left behind.

She said Whitmore promised to return later with the boy, but never did.

"I'm just going to get my van fixed here in Brandon and I'll bring (him) home," she quoted Whitmore as saying.

He then called the next day and repeated the promise but he never returned the boy.

"I talked to my son. I asked him if he was OK. He said yes," she said.

"I tried to find out where he was, (but) he kept telling me 'Mom, I don't know where I am.'"

Whitmore then showed up in Whitewood, about 180 km west of Brandon, with the teen. He posed as a family man from Alberta.

The two boys became friends, and ended up going for a bike ride on Sunday. Their bikes were found abandoned at a farmyard.

The RCMP issued a rare national Amber Alert on Sunday after the younger boy went missing.

Relief, anger in communities

The case has sparked anger with some groups who complained that the public doesn't have enough information about sex offenders living in their midst.

Justice Minister Vic Toews said he would like to see a broadening of the dangerous offender designation -- which allows judges to impose sentences with no set end date.

In Kipling, Mayor Pat Jackson said there is tremendous relief in the community that both boys were found safe, but said there now needs to be a debate about how to better protect children from people like Whitmore.

"I also suspect there's going to be a lot of discussion over the next while, both at SUMA (the urban municipalities association in Saskatchewan) and at SARM (Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities), about approaching governments on both levels to take a look at tightening things up a little bit," she told Canada AM.

"I don't want any of our children at risk."

Jackson said people in the community will be cautious for a while, but that eventually, "we have to get back to normal living."

Whitewood Mayor Malcolm Green told Canada AM that sadness turned to relief in his community of less than 1,000 people after hearing news Tuesday that the boys were safe.

"I don't think there was a dry eye in the community or anywhere. It was just a very emotional afternoon yesterday for our community," he told CTV Newsnet.

Green said he is planning on starting a letter-writing campaign in Whitewood in an effort to persuade both levels of government to toughen laws protecting children.

The mayor expressed anger on that a convicted pedophile such as Whitmore could freely walk his streets.

"This has to be changed. We have to have some kind of system, where people like this can be tracked and communities can be informed so we can take the necessary measures to protect the residents," he said. "We just can't believe, after researching this guy's background, that he could be loose."

Criminal history

Whitmore is well known in Ontario for a string of high-profile sex assault convictions against children. He was first convicted in 1993 of abduction and five sexual offences involving four young boys and spent 16 months in custody.

Nine days after his release, he took an eight-year-old girl from Guelph, Ont., to Toronto, and was sentenced to 56 months in prison.

Less than a month after his November 2000 release, he was found in a downtown Toronto motel with a 13-year-old boy. He was sentenced to one year in jail.

In 2002 he fled to British Columbia in an attempt to avoid the media spotlight in Ontario after he was found in the company of a five-year-old boy.

In B.C., he pleaded guilty to parole violations because a "rape kit" had been found on him.

A search of Whitmore's backpack turned up latex gloves, pictures of young children, tubes of jelly lubricant, duct tape, a sleeping bag and plastic zipper ties that can be used as handcuffs.

The Canadian Press reported Tuesday that the National Parole Board considered Whitmore to have a 100 per cent chance of reoffending.

In 2002, Whitmore told CTV's Canada AM that he was not going to re-offend. "I can't change the past, but I can change the future. I won't do it again," he said.

With a report by CTV's Jill Macyshon and files from The Canadian Press