by A heartbroken Michigan mom will take one step closer to closure Monday, with an evidentiary hearing scheduled for her petition to have her three sons, who have been missing for nearly 15 years, declared legally dead.
Tanya Lynn Zuvers’ boys, Andrew, Alexander and Tanner Skelton, disappeared in November 2010. They spent Thanksgiving with their father, John, and were last seen in his backyard in Morency, Michigan, a town of 2,200 near Ohio state line. The children, who were 9, 7 and 5 when they disappeared, have not been seen since.
In the years immediately following the boys’ disappearance, Zuvers is said to have They continued to keep their Christmas presents ready for them on their return at last.
Last month, Zuvers posted an announcement on a Facebook page set up to receive tips and directions from the public, sharing her decision to file the petition, saying she chose to do so “after much thought and discussion with my family and friends.”
“It didn’t come lightly and it was definitely a difficult decision,” Zuvers wrote. “No parent wants to lose a child, but it’s unbelievable that the courts would have to step in and declare him dead. At the end of the day, one person is responsible for my son’s departure… As of today, June 14, 2024, all 3 boys are over 18 and would have all graduated high school , but they were not returned to me and are still missing.”
John Russell Skelton, who is currently incarcerated, “has been unable or unwilling to provide any plausible explanation as to the whereabouts of these children,” according to Zuvers’ petition, which she filed in Lenawee County Probate Court last December .
Skelton, 52, “did nothing to help the authorities, his family, or his ex-wife’s family in the exhaustive search [the boys] since they went missing in 2010,” the petition says. “In the hours immediately following [they went missing]Skelton began his journey of misdirection and lies when his story began to reveal the whereabouts of his sons.”
Zuvers could not be reached Monday. Her attorney, R. Burke Castleberry, did not immediately respond The Independentrequest for comment.
Skelton was sentenced in September 2011 to 10 to 15 years behind bars, on three counts of unlawful imprisonment involving his three sons. He was never charged in their deaths, and is due to be released in November 2025, according to jail records. Skelton and Zuvers, who had sole custody of the boys, were in the midst of an acrimonious divorce at the time.
Investigators used cell phone records to retrace Skelton’s movements during the period in question, which the petition says is “totally inconsistent[ed] the story he began telling his wife and the authorities.”
Skelton broke his ankle while trying to kill himself the next day, and was hospitalized for his injury, the petition explains.
When Zuvers called Skelton to find out where the boys were, Skelton told her, untruthfully, that they were “with a friend of his” and would be back home soon.
“He continued to lie again later and said he didn’t know where the boys were because he wasn’t sure who his boys were,” the petition continues. “Due to the many lies and strange circumstances that caused John to have these conversations with Tanya while he was in the hospital from his suicide attempt, Tanya called the authorities and informed them that the boys were missing. Sean was soon taken into custody.”
Skelton’s story would change several times under police questioning, telling them, variously, that he had given the children to “some kind of underground group” to protect them from Zuvers, who he said was “a danger. ” Another story was that he gave them to an apparently non-existent woman named Joanne Taylor, and that he “had a vision of the boys being put in a dumpster in an area in Ohio,” according to the petition.
All of Skelton’s prison calls and letters were monitored, but, the petition says, “John and no one he communicated with mentioned the well-being or whereabouts of his children. It was never mentioned when the boys would return. Seán never showed any emotion if his missing boys were mentioned in conversation.”
At some point “years later,” the petition says Skelton told investigators to talk to a local man who ran a boarding house for members of the Amish community who wanted to leave and join the “real world,” about the boys’ location.
When detectives found the man Skelton named, however, he said he had never heard of the father. As it turns out, Skelton had seen the man on a blockchain TV reality show and made the joke out of whole cloth, the petition says.
“Investigators believe all the information provided by the last person to believe the boys, John Skelton [he] killed his sons,” concluded the petition. “At this time, the three boys would have been over 18 years of age… If John Skelton’s lies were true, the boys should now be able to be returned to society, however, that did not happen and there is no kind received by the authorities. cooperation from [him].”
Declaring the children legally deceased, according to Castlebar, will give Zuvers some closure, as well as pave the way for her to resolve various legal and financial issues stemming from the heartbreaking loss.
