Dad with Changing Stories About 3 Sons' Disappearances Charged with Murder 15 Years Later

Previously set for release on November 29 on charges of wrongful imprisonment of his sons Andrew, 9, Alexander, 7 and Tanner, 5, after failing to return them to their mother after having them for Thanksgiving 2010, Skelton is now facing three counts of open murder and three counts of tampering with evidence, per Lenawee County District Court records reviewed by People. The new charges were filed November 12.

In pulling together the case for murder, authorities compiled evidence they'd previously found, including a noose hanging on the second floor of Skelton's home, a Bible with a verse circled and a note seemingly written to the boys' mother, Tanya Zuvers, that read in part, "You will hate me forever and I know this."

"That was his passive admission to killing the children," an FBI agent who testified at the mother's March 2025 hearing to have her sons legally declared dead, per The Associated Press.

When Zuvers tried to get her sons back after the holiday, she instead learned that Skelton had been hospitalized after an apparent suicide attempt. He spent the next several years telling different stories about what may or may not have happened to the boys, as detailed below.

ABC affiliate WTVG notes that no new evidence that may have helped lead to these charges has been revealed yet. The family of the young boys told the news station that the charges have left them "shocked and heartbroken all over again."

"It has been fifteen long years since our three boys - Andrew, Alexander, and Tanner- went missing. Throughout this time, our family has lived with unimaginable pain, unanswered questions, and the constant hope that one day we might learn the truth about what happened to them," they said in a statement.

"Our priority has always been - and continues to be - finding out what happened to Andrew, Alexander, and Tanner and seeking justice for them."

A Michigan man who failed to return his three young sons to their mother after Thanksgiving back in 2010 will soon walk free from prison after he was sentenced on three counts of wrongful imprisonment. The boys have not been seen alive since.

On November 29, he's set to be released after serving nearly his full 10 to 15 year sentence. John Skelton, 53, was found guilty of wrongful imprisonment in 2011, nearly a year after his three sons seemingly vanished without a trace while in his custody.

He has been eligible for parole since 2020, but the parole board has denied his requests for release, according to Fox affiliate WJBK.

Skelton had custody of sons Andrew, 9, Alexander, 7, and Tanner, 5 on Thanksgiving Day in 2010, according to Law&Crime, and assured their mother, Tanya Zuvers, that he would bring them back the next morning. They've not been seen since.

An investigation into their disappearances uncovered that Skelton's cell phone went to Ohio at around 4:30 a.m. on the morning after Thanksgiving, about 30 miles from the Michigan border. It was then turned off and approximately two hours and fifteen minutes later, turned back on again at his home. Also on that day, police reported that Skelton called a friend to bring him to the hospital after he'd broken his ankle following a failed suicide attempt.

WJBK reports that after Zuvers could not find him at his home, discovering that he was instead at the hospital and their sons were missing, police were able to get inside the home where they described finding the house destroyed, but no sign of the boys.

According to a prison interview years later, in 2018, Skelton told police that a van had arrived at his home and taken the boys away to an "underground sanctuary" run by two women and a man in his 60s. He allegedly said that they were sent away because his ex-wife was a "danger to the boys."

Investigators could find no evidence to support this story. "This begs the question that if John felt his boys were unsafe with Tanya and he was able to truly hide the boys with an underground group for their safety, why would he attempt suicide?" an attorney wrote in December 2023 alongside Zuvers' petition to have her sons legally declared dead.

"Why would he tell multiple lies and provide misdirection for the police? If his story were true, one would be led to believe that he should be happy in his endeavor to hide his boys, not suicidal," the petition added. "Why lie, deceive, misdirect and withhold information? His actions do not match up with the multiple lies he has told."

In March 2025, Zuvers' petition was granted, setting the dates of death for each of the boys to the day of their disappearance, per CBS News. Despite extensive searches in Michigan and Ohio, investigators have found no trace of the boys.

While in prison, investigators said that Skelton also sent them on an ultimately fruitless hunt into Amish county after telling them to look into a former reality TV personality and mystery writer who'd been excommunicated from the group, claiming this individual knew where they were.

Police did make contact with this individual, per the outlet, who told them that while he and his wife did have a boarding home for anyone wanting to leave the Amish community, they had never heard of Skelton, his missing children, or even the investigation at all. Skelton later told police he'd made that story up, per Law&Crime.

After his alleged failed suicide attempt on the day he was supposed to bring the boys back to her, Zuvers told investigators that she spoke with him and was told several different stories about what happened to their children. That conversation prompted her to contact the police and report them missing, triggering the investigation.

Those myriad stories, according to the bereft mother and police, purportedly ranged from the boys being with a "friend" to Skelton having "a vision" that they were "put in a dumpster" in Ohio, that they were with a woman named "Joanne Taylor," and even that he had no idea where they were.

Zuvers told police that she believes her ex-husband chose that television personality simply because he'd seen him on television. Her petition notes that the "tip" from Skelton came shortly after he was moved into protective custody and given access to a TV, and that the former Amish man's show was airing at the time.

She also said that Skelton had told her at one point that "the boys would hibernate until they graduate," per WJBK. Were they still alive, all three boys would now be old enough to have graduated high school.

"If the boys were still alive, they could be of age where they would now be adults," Zuver's petition insisted. "If John Skelton's lies were true, the boys should now be able to be brought back into society, however, this has not happened and the authorities have not received any type of cooperation from John Skelton."

This also wasn't the first time that Skelton had taken the boys from Zuvers, per WJBK. He also took them out of school two months before their disappearances in 2010, claiming that he was taking them on a trip to Florida to see his parents. Zuvers and Skelton divorced after this incident and she was granted custody just before they vanished.

Zuvers attempted to get a judge to declare Skelton responsible for their deaths, according to Law&Crime, but was denied. He has never been charged in connection with their alleged deaths.

Despite law enforcement and Zuvers testifying they have "no doubt" that Skelton killed his sons at the March hearing, per CourtTV, Lenawee County Judge Catherine Sala said there is still not sufficient evidence to prove Skelton killed them. She called the evidence speculative and circumstantial and the investigators' stance opinion based mainly on hearsay.