Mom of 3 Missing Boys Asks They Be Declared Dead

On Monday, a judge in Lenawee County, Michigan, will lead a hearing for a Michigan mom petitioning the courts to declare her three sons, missing for 15 years, officially dead. Per the AP, authorities believe that Tanner, Alexander, and Andrew Skelton—who were 5, 7, and 9, respectively, when they vanished—are deceased, and they clearly suspect that the boys' father, John Skelton, is responsible, though he hasn't been charged with killing his sons. By November, he's expected to complete a 15-year prison sentence for his failure to give the boys back to his estranged wife Tanya Zuvers, who was seeking a divorce from him at the time their sons disappeared.

The case began the day after Thanksgiving in 2010, when Skelton was supposed to return the boys to Zuvers' home in Morenci, which he didn't live far from. That hand-off never happened, and cops later said that Skelton's cellphone had been tracked to Ohio, just over the border, around 4:30am on that November day; police say the phone was turned off, then turned back on at 6am back in Morenci.

Skelton, for his part, denied the boys had been harmed and said they were being kept by an underground group for their safety. He was arrested, charged with unlawful imprisonment, and convicted and sentenced in 2011 to 10 to 15 years behind bars. He's been denied parole each time he's been up for it, and WTOL notes that the Michigan Parole Board recently decided to permanently turn down his parole requests. His max sentence is set to expire at the end of November.

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WTOL reports that the hearing regarding Zuvers' petition had originally been set for last year, but was delayed due to illness (it's not clear whose illness). The Village Reporter notes that, according to Michigan law, relatives have to wait at least five years before they can ask to have a missing person declared legally dead. Zuvers, meanwhile, just wants closure, and to be able to wrap up any legal or financial matters tied to the case, her legal team says. Still, this hasn't been an easy request for her. "No parent wants to lose a child, but to have to have the courts step in and declare them deceased is just unfathomable," she said last year. (More missing child stories.)