Michigan father of 3 boys who disappeared in 2010 to be released from prison

Max Reinhart, The Detroit News on Nov 9, 2025

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Fifteen years after his three young sons went missing — and more than eight months after they were declared legally dead — John Skelton is preparing to walk out of prison.

Skelton, 53, whose sons Andrew, Alexander and Tanner were last seen at his Morenci, Michigan, home on Thanksgiving Day 2010, is scheduled to be released from Bellamy Creek Correction Facility in Ionia on Nov. 29, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections' online inmate database.

Though police have testified that they believe Skelton killed his children, he's never been charged in their deaths, in part because their bodies have never been found.

In 2011, he pleaded no contest to three counts of unlawful imprisonment in their disappearance and was sentenced to 10-15 years in prison. According to online court records, he received credit for 289 days he had already served while awaiting sentencing.

The boys, ages 5, 7 and 9, were last seen in their father's backyard in Morenci on Thanksgiving Day 2010.

In the wake of their disappearance, John Skelton told the boys' mother, Tanya Zuvers, that a woman he knew had been caring for them when they went missing. In an April 2025 hearing to declare the boys dead, police testified that they never found any record of such a woman.

Zuvers had been married to John Skelton since 2002 and has said their relationship took a turn in September 2010 when John signed the boys out of school for a "family trip" to Florida without her knowledge. She then obtained a court order granting her sole custody, according to testimony.

That November, Zuvers and Skelton came to an agreement that the father could take the boys for the Thanksgiving holiday and he would turn them back over to Zuver the next day.

When they weren't returned the following afternoon, Zuvers called 911 and went with police for a welfare check at John Skelton's home. There, according to testimony, they found inexplicable destruction, including a shredded mattress, an overturned china cabinet and cut appliance cords.

In the ensuing investigation, authorities found that John Skelton had conducted internet searches about rat poison and how to break someone's neck, officials testified in April.

John Skelton has given conflicting accounts about what may have happened to his children. In addition to saying he gave them to a group to protect them from their mother, he has claimed they could be found in a dumpster in Holiday City, Ohio, or wrapped in blankets in an old schoolhouse. Searches of those locations have been fruitless, authorities said.

A Lenawee County judge's ruling in April declared the boys legally dead. Zuvers said she requested the declaration so she could acquire death certificates, put a date on her sons' tombstones and find some semblance of closure.

The mother's attorney, Burke Castlebury, said Michigan law allows individuals to be declared dead if they have been missing for more than five years and their absence can't be explained.

Zuvers has asked that media inquiries be directed to Castlebury, who didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

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