Judge declares 3 missing boys dead 14 years after they disappeared
03/17/2025 3:26 pm PDT
MORENCI, Mich. (TCN) -- A judge declared three boys dead more than 14 years after they spent Thanksgiving with their father and were never seen again.
WDIV-TV reports a Lenawee County judge rendered the decision March 5 but reportedly said she could not rule that the boys had been murdered.
The case began when Tanya Zuvers was scheduled to pick up her sons Andrew, 9, Alexander, 7, and Tanner, 5, from her estranged husband, John Skelton, on Thanksgiving 2010. Zuvers told "True Crime News" that she was supposed to get them at 3 p.m., but she reached out and asked if she could pick them up earlier. Skelton allegedly told her that he wasn’t home, but Zuvers became concerned because his van was in his driveway.
Zuvers explained Skelton kept giving her different excuses, until he said he was at the hospital and the boys were with a friend he had recently met on the internet. Zuvers called local police and asked them to go to Skelton’s house. Officers searched the home and reportedly found broken dishes, cut-up mattresses, and the house in disarray. Skelton allegedly claimed he hid the boys with an underground organization in order to "protect them from Tanya’s abuse."
Phone data showed Skelton drove to Ohio the morning the boys went missing and turned his phone off for two hours, then returned to Michigan.
Authorities continued to search for the boys, but to no avail. Skelton was eventually arrested and charged with parental kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment. He pleaded no contest and is in prison until his release in November.
For more information about the case, watch the "True Crime News" segment below!
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