They disappeared during a Thanksgiving weekend in 2010, three little boys full of life — Andrew, 9, Alexander, 7, and Tanner Skelton, 5 — never to be seen again. Their father, John Skelton, spent the next 15 years feeding investigators and the public a string of bizarre, ever-changing stories about mysterious women and secretive underground communities that supposedly took the children to keep them safe.
But now, in a dramatic turn just weeks before he was due to walk free from prison, Skelton has been hit with murder charges for the deaths of his own sons. Prosecutors allege the elaborate lies were carefully crafted to conceal a horrific crime.
For their heartbroken mother and a community that never stopped searching, this marks the end of a long, painful wait for someone to be held accountable. After more than a decade of false hope and dead ends, the Skelton brothers case is finally breaking wide open — and the hunt for the real story behind their disappearance is back on.
In a stunning development that has rocked a small Michigan town, John Skelton, now 53, was formally charged on November 12, 2025, with three counts of open murder and three counts of tampering with evidence in connection with the presumed killings of his sons Andrew, Alexander, and Tanner. The charges came as Skelton neared the end of a 10-to-15-year sentence for unlawful imprisonment — a plea deal he took in 2011 while continuing to insist he had not harmed the boys.
Appearing via video link from prison during a December 17 hearing, Skelton pleaded not guilty as a judge set an astronomical $60 million bond and scheduled key pretrial dates for May 2026. Prosecutors have made clear they believe Skelton’s years of wild fabrications were designed to mask the truth: that he murdered his children during that fateful 2010 holiday visit.
The case, one of the most enduring missing-children mysteries in Michigan history, has captivated and tormented the public for 15 years. From the desperate searches in frozen fields to Skelton’s shifting alibis involving phantom protectors, the saga has been a rollercoaster of hope, frustration, and suspicion. Now, with murder charges on the table, authorities are signaling they have enough circumstantial evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt — even without bodies. A Bitter Divorce and a Holiday Visit Gone Wrong The nightmare began in Morenci, a close-knit rural community near the Ohio border, amid a messy divorce between John Skelton and his wife Tanya Zuvers. The couple had been battling over custody, with Zuvers holding primary rights to their three energetic sons — boys who loved baseball, video games, and spending time with their mom.
Despite the tension, Zuvers agreed to let the children spend Thanksgiving 2010 with their father at his modest home on Cambria Street. On November 26 — Black Friday — she called to check in and was told everything was fine. But when she arrived later that day to collect them, the house was silent. Toys were strewn about, clothes and toothbrushes left behind, but the boys — and Skelton — were gone.
