10 Years After the Skelton Brothers Went Missing, Their Dad, John Skelton, Was Charged with Murder

An underground group. A woman named Joann Taylor. An ex-Amish reality television star. John Skelton gave multiple explanations about who had his three sons.

The boys, Andrew, 9, Alexander, 7, and Tanner Skelton, 5, were last seen on November 25, 2010, while visiting their father, John Skelton, for Thanksgiving. In 2011, Skelton pleaded no contest in 2011 to unlawful imprisonment.

Skelton has repeatedly refused to reveal what happened to his sons or their whereabouts, presumably to avoid upgraded charges stemming from their deaths. In November 2025—mere weeks before his release from prison—Lenawee County prosecutors charged Skelton with his missing sons’ murders.

“There really isn't anything to say. It's been 15 years, still no answers and nothing new to discuss,” the boys’ mother, Tanya Zuvers, told A&E Crime + Investigation a month before Skelton was charged.

In June 2024, Zuvers filed to have the boys declared legally deceased.

“Their father showed them no respect," Zuvers told the court. "I shouldn’t even say their father. John Skelton showed them no respect.”

The Skelton brothers’ bodies have never been found, making it more difficult to build a case against their dad.

Months before the boys vanished, John took his sons out of school and brought them to Florida without Zuvers’ permission, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. After that, Skelton and Zuvers, who married in 2002, divorced, and she was granted sole custody of the boys. Zuvers and Skelton eventually agreed outside of court to facilitate visitation, but despite this agreement, the divorce grew contentious.

On September 27, 2010, Skelton filed for custody, noting Zuvers’s sex offender status. (In 1998, Zuvers pleaded guilty to having sex with a 14-year-old boy who worked for her and her former husband's rental properties.) Conversely, Zuvers wrote in her initial divorce motion that she was seeking custody because Skelton was a long-haul truck driver who would be away for extended periods of time.

Despite their ensuing legal row, the pair agreed he would keep their sons for Thanksgiving and return them to Zuvers the following day.

The day after Thanksgiving, Skelton told Zuvers he was in the hospital following a failed suicide attempt, which left him with a broken ankle. With no sign of their sons, Zuvers reported them missing. She and the police searched Skelton’s home and found it disheveled with broken furniture, severed appliance cords and a shredded mattress.

Skelton eventually said he gave his sons to a woman named Joann Taylor because he did not want them in the home when he killed himself. He said he met Taylor online years earlier, and they were in a relationship. Investigators confirmed both the woman and the relationship to be fabricated.

Authorities searched throughout Michigan and Ohio for Alexander, Tanner and Andrew as their father underwent mental health treatment in Ohio. He was still in treatment when police charged him with parental kidnapping. At that time, Skelton claimed the boys were with an “underground sanctuary” at a farm on the Ohio-Indiana border to ensure their safety. Despite not naming the purported organization, state police stated in a probable cause affidavit that they “extensively investigated” the “underground sanctuary” and determined it didn’t exist.

Detectives used phone data to provide a fragmented timeline of Skelton’s movements when his sons vanished. According to state police, phone records placed him in Morenci, Mich., early on November 26, 2010. His phone reportedly later pinged in Ohio, roughly 20 miles from his home, before it was shut off. Two hours and 15 minutes later, his phone turned back on, but back in Morenci. It remains unclear what happened during those two hours, but the probable cause affidavit from November 2025 stated he killed the boys at an unknown location sometime between November 25 and 26, 2010.

“The only next step to reinvigorate this investigation is to try to find these children's bodies in the area where the cell phones stopped pinging,” former New York City lieutenant Michael Gould tells A&E Crime + Investigation.

Days into their investigation, law enforcement publicized that Skelton was not being forthcoming or honest about what happened to his sons. On November 30, 2010, Morenci Police Chief Larry Weeks told People that he didn’t “expect a positive outcome” in this case, noting they were “certainly skeptical about any stories or information” Skelton provided.

Years into his prison sentence, Skelton told investigators that a man named Mose Gingerich, who appeared on the reality series Amish in the City, could help locate his sons. Gingerich cooperated with the investigation and met with Skelton at Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility in Michigan, though Gingerich said he’d never heard of the boys prior to his name being brought up in the case. Skelton notably did not ask Gingerich anything regarding his missing sons during the meeting.

"John Skelton has told himself and the world so many lies and so many falsehoods over the last seven years, he's come to believe most of them," Gingerich told WDIV in 2018.

In March 2025, Lenawee County Judge Catherine Sala granted Zuvers’s petition to have her sons declared legally deceased. It came with the caveat that it wasn’t proven the boys were murdered.

“In a criminal case, a death certificate may be admissible to prove a person is deceased, but it doesn't necessarily show how a person might have died,” Miami-based personal injury attorney Jason Turchin tells A&E Crime + Investigation, adding that many states have a waiting period of at least five years before one can be sought. “A lot of times, you can still prove a person is deceased or was killed based on circumstantial evidence like witness testimony, forensic evidence or phone records.”

At the time the boys were deemed deceased, investigators revealed grim details about the case to not only convince the court that the Skelton brothers were dead, but that their father killed them. FBI agent Corey Burras testified that Skelton conducted internet searches about how to break a neck and whether rat poison was odorless. Burras also said Skelton left a suicide note to Zuvers in which he wrote, “You will hate me." The note heavily implied he killed his sons, according to Burras.

When Sala declared the Skelton brothers legally deceased, she said that the evidence offered did not “present clear and convincing evidence that John Skelton murdered these children,” per Fox 2 Detroit.

"The information provided in this trial provides ample opportunity for speculation and theories, but to make such a finding, the court would only be joining those voices offering such speculation and theory, given the lack of information,” the judge continued.

Gould calls prosecuting no-body homicides “very difficult” and notes it requires establishing “evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.” “It's an uphill battle to definitively prove he murdered the boy,” he adds.

In November 2025, Skelton was charged in Lenawee County with three counts of open murder and tampering with evidence. It remains unclear what specific evidence led to the criminal charges, but a judge set his bond at $60 million. Michigan State Police stated in the affidavit that multiple proof-of-life checks yielded no signs of Alex, Andrew or Tanner. A preliminary hearing was pushed back from March to May 2026 due to the breadth of information in the case.

“This development marks a significant moment in a long and painful journey,” Zuvers said in a statement issued to A&E Crime + Investigation. “I want to express my gratitude to the law enforcement agencies and prosecutors who have worked tirelessly over the years to seek justice for my sons.”