A heartbroken Michigan mother is one step closer to closure on Monday, with a 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 were spending Thanksgiving with their father, John, and were last seen in his backyard in Morency, Michigan, a town of 2,200 near the 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 kept their Christmas presents ready for them upon their eventual return.
Last month, Zuvers posted an announcement on a Facebook page set up to receive tips and guidance from the public, and shared her decision to file the petition, saying she chose to do so “after much thought and consultation with my family and friends.”
“This was not an easy decision and was definitely a difficult one to make,” Zuvers wrote. “No parent wants to lose a child, but for the court to have to step in and declare them dead is simply incomprehensible. Ultimately, one person is responsible for the disappearance of my sons… As of today, June 14, 2024, all 3 boys are over 18 and would have all graduated from high school, but they still have not been returned to me and are still missing.”
John Russell Skelton, who is currently incarcerated, is “unable or unwilling to provide a 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, “has done nothing to assist authorities, his family or his ex-wife’s family in what has become an exhaustive search [the boys] since they disappeared in 2010,” the petition states. “In the hours immediately following [they went missing]Skelton began his journey of deception and lies when his story began to unfold regarding the whereabouts of his sons.”
Zuvers could not be reached Monday. Her attorney, R. Burke Castleberry, did not immediately respond to The independent‘s request for comment.
Skelton was sentenced in September 2011 to 10 to 15 years in prison on three counts of false imprisonment in connection with his three sons. He was never charged in their deaths, and is expected to be released in November 2025. according to prison recordsSkelton and Zuvers, who had sole custody of the boys, were in the midst of a vindictive divorce at the time.
Investigators used cell phone data to track Skelton’s movements during the time period in question, which the petition says is “completely at odds with the[ed] the story he began to tell his wife and the authorities.”
Skelton broke his ankle the next day in a suicide attempt and was hospitalized for his injury, the petition says.
When Zuvers called Skelton to ask where the boys were, Skelton told her, untruthfully, that they were “at a friend of his” and that they would be home soon.
“He later lied again and stated that he did not know where the boys were because he was not sure who had the boys,” the petition continues. “Due to the multiple lies and bizarre circumstances that led to John having these conversations with Tanya while he was in the hospital following his suicide attempt, Tanya had called authorities and notified them that the boys were missing. John was soon taken into custody.”
Skelton’s story would change several times during questioning by police, with him alternately telling them that he had turned the children over to “some kind of underground group” to protect them from Zuvers, whom he called “a danger.” Another story was that he had given them to a seemingly nonexistent woman named Joanne Taylor, and that “he had a vision of the boys being thrown in a dumpster in an area of Ohio,” the petition said.
All of Skelton’s phone calls and letters from prison were monitored, but, the petition states, “John or anyone he communicated with never said anything about the welfare or whereabouts of his children. There was never any mention of when the boys would return. John never showed any emotion when his missing boys came up in conversation.”
At some point, “years later,” the petition states, Skelton told investigators to speak with a local man who ran a boarding house for members of the Amish community who wanted to leave and enter the “real world,” about the boys’ whereabouts.
However, when investigators tracked down the man Skelton had named, he said he had never heard of the father. It turned out Skelton had seen the man on a reality show on Cell Block TV and made up the false story out of thin air, the petition said.
“All the information provided by the last person to see the boys, John Skelton, leads investigators to believe that [he] murdered his sons,” the petition concludes. “At this point, all three boys would be over 18 years old… If John Skelton’s lies were true, the boys should now be able to be released back into society, but that has not happened and the authorities have received no cooperation from [him].”
By officially declaring the children deceased, Zuvers can gain some closure and resolve the legal and financial issues arising from the heartbreaking loss, Castleberry said.