The Skelton Brothers /// Part 1

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Full investigators from multiple agencies spent all evening here at the home in Morency, where the boys were last seen on Thanksgiving evening.

They took evidence from the home.

There's also concern tonight because of a posting on Facebook from the boy's father.

John Skelton's last Facebook post reads, I love my wife very much.

May God and Tanya forgive me.

A cryptic message that police are now trying to decipher.

Meanwhile, FBI, Michigan State Police, and Morency Police brought out the chopper and searched John Skelton's home late into Saturday night.

Skelton's house was the last place his three sons were seen alive.

Five-year-old Tanner, seven-year-old Alexander, and nine-year-old Andrew have not been seen or heard from since Thursday night.

Anytime you have children this old that are not with a caring loved one, I think you have to assume they're in some kind of jeopardy.

Everybody is still, like I said, hoping and praying

and trying to remain positive.

So we're hoping that the community can still stay with us and be positive and be there and be our support.

Police say the three little boys disappeared after a bizarre chain of events reported by their father.

Morency police say John Skelton tried to kill himself in his home on Friday, but before doing so, Skelton says he handed off the kids to a woman he met years ago on the side of the road.

Skelton is telling investigators the woman, Joanne Taylor, had car trouble, so he pulled over to help her and has maintained contact with her over email.

Skelton says Joanne picked up the kids Friday morning at the house before he attempted suicide.

Police are not sure this story adds up.

Up to this point, we've not been able to locate a Joanne Taylor or confirm

that she even exists.

Skelton's neighbor said he recently lost his job and separated from his wife, but they didn't know his troubles had reached a boiling point.

If my husband was in the yard, they'd be over seeing what he was doing and helping, and just seemed like a very normal family.

Police say they do appreciate the many tips they have received from the community.

So far, though, the whereabouts of the little boys are not known.

The key persons in this case are John Skelton, his wife Tanya, and their three sons, Andrew, Alexander, and Tanner.

The boys are young, ages 9, 7, and 5.

And in late 2010, it's important to know that the parents, John and Tanya, are living in separate residences and in the process of ending the marriage.

Let's jump right into the timeline of some of the key events in the second half of 2010.

On Monday, September 13th, 2010, John says he's leaving for work, but instead of going to work, John Skelton takes the three boys out of school.

He signs them out and drives them to Florida.

John's parents live in Jacksonville, Florida.

Tanya finds out about this.

This is because the school called her to say that they are confused about what's going on because Tanya brought the kids to school that morning and she even dropped off medicine when dropping off the kids.

They called because later John shows up and checks the boys out telling the school that the family was going on vacation to Florida.

John is weird about the whole thing when Tanya reaches out to him.

This is just after noon that day and John and the kids are still in the area with the attempt of going to Florida.

So they're not in Florida.

They're still in Michigan at this time.

He first says that they are going to Florida for a three-week vacation, but he also adds that that he will put the kids in school once he's down in Florida.

So this doesn't sound much like a vacation to their mother, Tanya.

Tanya calls an attorney, and she finds out the only way she can prevent John from taking the kids to Florida is for her to file for a divorce and request emergency custody of the children.

A judge signs papers granting custody to Tanya, but before John could be served the papers, he catches wind of what is going on and he orders the boys into his vehicle.

Now he only gets the two oldest boys into his vehicle and John then drives those two kids down to Florida, leaving the youngest boy Tanner back in Michigan with his mother.

The next day, John has the boys call home to speak with their mother.

Now, after this phone call, Tanya jumps into action and she goes down to Florida and she gets the Jacksonville Sheriff's Department Department involved in this whole situation.

They serve John a custody order.

Then they have to meet with a judge.

This is down in Jacksonville.

This judge orders John, the boys, and Tanya to return to Michigan and states that the two parents will have joint custody for the drive home until they reach the Michigan state line.

There, the boys are to be in the custody of their mother per the Michigan judge's previous order.

This whole process from the time the boys were taken on Monday, September 13th until they get back to Michigan, this takes a little over a week.

This was not a quick process.

This was not a quick turnaround.

And the mother had to go to great lengths to make sure that her two oldest sons were returned back to Michigan.

Well, it's not the best foot to start a divorce on, having these kind of battles.

Yeah, and this whole battle is super weird because from both standpoints, because you have Tanya who's kind of left there going, what's going on?

Why is my soon-to-be ex-husband just taking the kids and going down to Florida?

Right.

And John has parents there.

So, I mean, he has family there.

So it's not super weird on that level.

But what is weird is that this was not like talked about between the two of them.

I mean,

to at great lengths.

We do have John at some point who suggests that maybe the whole family should go move down to Florida.

And Tanya says, you know, I can't really do that right now.

I can't do that.

Mind you, she's thinking that the marriage is ending.

Why would the whole family, you know, pick up roots and go down to Florida?

And the whole statement, too, of, well, We're going on a three-week vacation, but while I'm down there, because now, mind you, this is September, right?

School starts around that time for these these boys.

So Tanya's wondering, what are you doing taking the kids out of school?

School just started.

You're taking them on a three-week vacation.

That's like the guy that just signs up for a new job and then goes on vacation the second week after he started working there.

It just doesn't make any sense.

You know, asking, why would you go on this three-week vacation?

Yeah, I'm sure the kids would have fun down there.

But he's like, oh, well, while I'm down there, I'll just sign them up for school.

Well, that doesn't seem like a vacation.

Who signs up people for school school once they get to a new location?

Sounds like you're moving.

Yeah, against her best wishes.

Well, then on Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010, all three boys were living with their mother, Tanya.

According to Tanya, John is still trying to determine if they could get back together.

They are not living together, but Tanya believed it was in everyone's best interest that even though she had full custody at this time of the boys, that they should be allowed to visit with their father.

Tanya was not really interested in getting the marriage back together, but the boys loved their father, and she was not going to deny them seeing him or staying the night at his new place.

Well, it's kind of his new place.

It's now him living at their old place without her.

Right.

It's his new old place.

Right.

So the way that this works is Tanya goes and she has to live elsewhere because they're separating.

John's at the family's home with the three boys.

Now, Tanya is staying with the help of some friends.

It sounds like somebody was selling a house or in the process of moving out.

Regardless, she's living at this house in the same neighborhood as John, and it's two blocks away.

They're close enough that you can see portions of each of the properties.

from the other property, if that makes sense.

Well, and this is good for them, too, because then they're close to their house.

Yeah.

And I believe it's a rented house, but that's the house they know.

And yeah, like you said, they know other kids in the neighborhood.

This is a familiar place for them.

I mean, divorce is tough on children, and Tanya seems to be going above and beyond and out of her way to make it easier on the children, allowing them to see their father, even though she has the custody rights.

One, you could walk to your other house.

You could walk to see your mom.

You could walk to see your dad.

And also, like I said, with it getting off to such a rocky start, maybe they said, hey, we got to do something better

for the kids.

Well, Tanya also does not fear at this time that John would attempt to leave to Florida again with the kids, as she believe it appeared that he had learned his lesson the first time and that he was obeying the Michigan judges' instructions.

Plus, Tanya was recommending to John counseling, and he seemed to be open to the idea.

Remember, it appears John had an interest in getting back together with Tanya.

Tanya wanted counseling, both couples counseling and family counseling, and they were going to counseling sessions together.

Previous to this day, Tanya has agreed to let John have the boys for the Thanksgiving Day holiday.

The next day, November 24th, 2010, The boys are at Tanya's parents' home that morning until John can pick them up later that day around 5 5 p.m.

John picks up the three boys around the scheduled time.

From there, they go to his home.

John would later say, and mind you, it's a little confusing if he is referring to Wednesday or Thursday.

But he says while the kids are with him, he cooked them one of their favorite meals, fried chicken, and baked them a cake.

Then we have Thursday.

November 25th, Thanksgiving.

My favorite day of the year.

Food, football, a good amount of libations.

Well,

some bubbly.

Yeah.

Tanya later states that on this day, she is on the phone with John, and according to her, John is asking if there is any chance that they could get back together.

Tanya is giving him the old, I don't know, probably not, you know, giving him that routine.

Tanya can hear her three sons in the background while talking with John and says it sounds to her like the boys are having a great time.

They're playing and such.

Later, Tanya would say she is not 100% certain that she spoke with John on this day, on this Thursday.

She says there is a chance it was on Wednesday night, but

with the holidays going on, there's a lot going on here.

So it does sound to me that she feels stronger that the conversation took place on this Thursday.

Regardless of which day it actually was, we do have a neighbor of John's.

This is the lady, I believe she lived across the street.

She tells police later that she saw all three boys playing outside that afternoon.

Most reports state this is around 5 p.m.

on that Thursday, November 25th, Thanksgiving Day.

Friday, November 26th, Black Friday, one of my least favorite days.

Tanya, per the arrangements made before Thanksgiving, is scheduled to pick the three boys up at John's place at 3 p.m.

That morning, however, Tanya and John trade phone calls and text.

The topic, Tanya would like to pick the boys up earlier if possible.

She's asking if she could get them around noon.

John says he would, however, they are not at his home.

Tanya says to John, what are you talking about?

From my place I can see your driveway and your van is parked in the driveway.

John says friends of his came and picked him up and the boys up and and they were out having fun.

Now, please keep in mind as we go through this, this is Tanya and John having multiple conversations that day.

Because later that day, he says the boys are still with his friends,

that he, John, is home and his friend is scheduled to drop the kids off at his place at 3 p.m.

so they can be picked up by Tanya at 3 p.m.

So now Tanya is asking, well,

can they just just drop them off to me at my place?

You know,

I obviously live in the same neighborhood.

Unfortunately, regardless of all of these conversations, they never agree to a time for Tanya to pick up the boys.

In fact, this is where it all falls apart.

The next time Tanya talks to John, he says, I'm on my way to the hospital.

I think I broke my leg.

Tanya wants to know where her sons are and how is she going to get them back.

John says they are not with me.

They are still with my friend and she is going to bring them back to my house, he thinks.

Tanya wants to get in touch with this friend of John's or at least for him to do so, but he is saying he does not have his friend's phone number on him and he doesn't know what will happen with the boys getting to Tanya's.

This very obviously upsets the boy's mother and she calls her attorney.

The attorney advises Tanya to wait until after the scheduled time.

Wait until after 3 p.m.

before you do anything.

At 3.01 p.m., Tanya calls the police and reports her boys as missing.

So remember we said John was on his way to the hospital.

This is because he called a friend to drive him there.

Once at the hospital, John checks himself in, seeking treatment for an ankle injury.

I've seen this reported as everything from a sprained ankle, a broken ankle.

It is first reported that John tried unsuccessfully to hang himself.

This either in a hotel or in his home.

In the course of this, he suffered the leg injury in the process.

Where are the three boys?

Andrew, age nine, Alexander, age seven, and Tanner, age five.

John says a friend of his, Joanne Taylor, was put in charge of returning the boys to Tanya's home.

Joanne, of course, never arrives.

In fact, apparently, John knows little to nothing about this Joanne person.

John was a truck driver by occupation.

According to John, this is someone who he met when he came across her and Joanne's husband when they were having vehicle trouble.

Their vehicle broke down, and he stopped and helped them.

Well, John and Joanne then became friends afterward and maintained their relationship via the internet.

Tanya does not believe John's story.

In fact, she fears that her sons may be lying dead in John's home.

The Morency police search the home and they do not find the boys.

What they do find is a home of broken and destroyed furniture and household items.

We're talking broken glass, smashed furniture, a mattress cut and slashed with a knife.

Right.

And it's not clear if the stuff was like smashed on that Wednesday and Thursday or if it's been smashed for a while.

Friday night at 11 p.m., an amber alert goes out for the three missing Skelton boys.

The following is an Amber alert issued for the three sons of John and Tanya Skelton of of Morency.

Police are searching the neighborhood now.

The FBI is on the way.

An amber alert has been issued for three young boys in Lenaway County who are believed to be in extreme danger.

Andrew Ryan Skelton, age 9, Alexander William Skelton, age 7, and Tanner Lucas Skelton, age 5, were reportedly last seen Friday at 2.30 p.m.

with Joanne Taylor, a woman who their father, John Skelton, met on the internet.

The suspect was to return the children to their mother, but the children have been missing since.

Taylor is believed to be a resident of either Jackson County or Hillsdale County and drives a silver van.

Police say the father of the three boys has been hospitalized following a suicide attempt.

The missing children are all described as white males.

Andrew is 4'1 inch tall, weighs 57 pounds, and has brown eyes and hair.

Alexander is 3'9 inches tall, weighs 45 pounds, has brown eyes and hair, and has a scar on his hairline and on his chin.

Tanner is 3'6 inches tall with blue eyes and blonde hair.

The Morenzi Police Department is investigating and was to hold a news conference today.

If you have any information regarding the three missing children, the alleged abductor or the suspect's vehicle, please call 911, the Morency Police Department at 517-458-2323 or Lenaway County Dispatch at 517-263-0524.

At 1:30 a.m.

early Saturday morning, the Morency Police Chief contacted Tanya.

She was asked to get to the police department as soon as possible to discuss the situation.

This is because the local authorities want to try to get a handle on what was going going on before the feds came in, as you heard in the Amber alert.

They also stated that they contemplated even doing an Amber alert because that would set off everything.

You're going to have all these searchers come in.

You're going to have FBI come in.

Would this help or hinder what they're trying to do?

Well, and we've seen this in plenty of other cases before, where you have to get certain information out to the public because you do need the public's help, especially when you're looking for three missing persons, possible abductor, and you have a description of the abductor's vehicle?

But then the problem with that is when you are racing for time, when you feel like you are in a race against time to find these three missing children, you run into the problem of: could you be getting just frantic tips from the public?

Right?

Tips that aren't valuable to the actual case.

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John's story, John Skelton's story or stories regarding the location of the three boys

is a very difficult portion of this case.

What is not difficult but is scary is law enforcement worked to track John's cell phone and if his phone was moving at any point during the times when the boys were in his care.

So here's the scary part.

On Friday, so the same day that the boys would later be reported missing.

Early Friday morning, we know John's phone was on the move.

At 4.29 a.m., John's cell phone was approximately three miles from his home on Congress Street and moving.

At about 5 a.m., his phone is near Holiday City, Ohio and Pioneer, Ohio.

So Holiday City is a tiny little town in northwest Ohio near the Michigan-Ohio state lines.

Holiday City is about seven or eight miles south of Michigan.

And by everything that's out there, John traveled straight from his house to this area.

This is a place that he would have drove through multiple times when he was a trucker.

Yeah, and if you check the approximate travel time on any directions or maps application, you get, depending on the route, it's about a 24 to 25 mile one-way trip that would take about 30 to 32 minutes of travel time,

which matches up perfectly with what the cell phone evidence shows.

4.29 a.m., he is just about three miles from his house, and then 31 minutes later, his phone is in Holiday City, Ohio.

Then at 6.46 a.m., according to the evidence, his cell phone is back at his house.

So what we have here is John, assuming he is with his phone, he is in this Holiday City location for 70-some minutes and with no reason to be there.

And then he returns home, where later we are told, after several communications with Tanya, he attempts to commit suicide, fails, injures himself, and calls a friend to take him to the hospital.

Yeah, your marriage has fallen apart.

You don't have custody of your children.

Well, you have part-time custody of your children.

You lose your job, and then something happens over this

Thanksgiving.

And you go to a town in Ohio that you're familiar with.

Right.

But your story to the police is this person that you know, that you gave your kids to,

they met you at your house.

They picked them up from your house.

Right.

This doesn't make a lot of sense at all.

Well, that's a big part of the difficulty with his story and with this case.

So then the difficult thing becomes when did he hand his children over to this woman?

And just how complicated is his story?

And could it possibly be true?

Well, there was this report.

A possible sighting at this donut shop in Sandusky, Ohio, of the three skeleton boys may offer the first glimmer of hope that the brothers are still alive.

Shop worker Sandy Jones says she thinks she saw Tanner, Alexander, and Andrew in the store three days after Thanksgiving.

The two older ones are really, they didn't act like they wanted to come through that door when they first came in.

Sandy says the three were with a woman, that they looked tired and hungry.

The woman who was with the boys even called Tanner by name.

They kind of huddled together.

The younger one kind of looked up and was looking around.

He just didn't know what he wanted at first, like he wanted everything.

And she kept saying, just pick out your donut, Danner.

Just pick out your donut.

That's how the only reason I know his name.

And then it was funny when I saw the newspaper.

I'm like, that's too much of a coincidence.

Jones says she didn't know about the story until she saw it in the paper after the holiday weekend.

She then told her co-worker.

And I said, Stephanie, I said, these little boys, I swear we're in the donut shop.

The owner of the donut shop is a former police officer.

After Jones and the owner talked it over, they filed this report, but not until several days after the sighting.

I thought I was going crazy, so I waited and talked to him and he,

the owner Terry, and he was like, you know what?

They do look like them.

And we went around about the name again, and then we didn't know what to do because

we didn't know the car or license plates.

And we didn't know if it could be any kind of help or not.

And the more we thought about it, the more we were like, no, we need to call because

it's a chance that it could have been them.

As for the woman, Jones says she was disheveled.

She was about 5'5, 5'6.

Like I said, she looked like she was in her 40s.

She looked very tired, haggard.

She had dark, scraggly hair that looked like it had just been dyed.

So, of course, police are working to confirm this tip.

The boy's father, John Skelton, was caring for the boys when they went missing back on Thanksgiving.

His extradition hearing is scheduled for December 14th.

Governor Granholm is already expediting his case.

All right, so I know you're all chuckling, but grow up.

Yes,

a former police officer owns a donut shop,

but grow up if you're laughing about that.

And you can't hear it on the

portion of the clip that we played, but at the very tail end of that, when he's done giving the report and he's going to turn it back over to the,

you know, the people in the studio, the news studio, he says, Joanne.

That's the news anchor's name.

So kind of some ironic things inside that story itself.

Well, let's just go over this eyewitness account.

Do we believe this at all?

Well, so it's interesting for a few different reasons, right?

One, it's a sighting of three boys

at a donut shop.

This is the House of Donuts in Sandusky, Ohio.

It's not terribly far from Morency, Ohio.

It's about 100 miles east.

It's more east than southeast, but it's technically southeast.

And Sandusky's right on Lake Erie.

So about 100 miles away, three days after Thanksgiving, or three days after they went missing, I'm a little uncertain of that point, of that portion, but

they're with a woman.

So there's some things that are lining up here to John's story.

Three boys,

not two, not one.

You know, no other people reported with them, not a little girl, not a grown man, not anybody else.

Three boys that this woman at the donut shop believes to be of the appropriate age of the missing children with a disheveled-looking woman who looks tired, and the kids look tired as well, tired and hungry.

Yeah, it seems more believable to me because, yes, one, they're with a woman, but that she's saying one of the kids' names and that the person behind the counter picked up on that.

Yeah.

Yeah, and it must have, I mean, the three kids as well as the woman must have stuck out like a sore thumb to this eyewitness

because she's kind of recalling this after the fact.

She was unaware at the time that there were missing people that could have been, you know,

in the general area of where this donut should be.

But this is 100 miles away, not terribly far.

Right, but this is also one of the problems with the Amber Alert is that you will get so many sightings.

And that could be a bad thing because when they should maybe be looking closer

like this search to me doesn't make a lot of sense they're searching so much of the hometown they're searching the the house

but we have cell phone ping technology that puts him in a whole nother state in a whole nother area that's very rural and we lose track of his cell phone pings for about an hour and 45 minutes.

So the phone either dies or it gets turned off, and we're in an area that there's acres upon acres upon acres.

This would be a perfect dumping ground if you're trying to hide bodies.

Well, I thought that we

the downtime, let's call it, of the cell phone information or evidence is closer to like 70,

75 minutes.

Because we have to factor in the travel time that's involved on on the way to this location and then on the return trip to his home.

Right.

So we have that cell phone moving, as you say, and as we know,

the interesting thing here, and I agree with you because on the surface, it's like, well, why are they, I mean, they got hundreds of searchers looking at his neighborhood, looking in the general vicinity of his home.

I mean, we even have helicopters flying over and they did thermal searches as well.

You know, that's that's where they're going to be looking for any indication thermally of where they could find these boys if they were being hid somewhere.

But I think what we can deduce from this information that we have, not knowing exactly what tactics police and searchers are going to actually implement,

is the amber alert.

and the phone call from the police chief to Tanya, to the boy's mother,

where

we know the feds are coming in.

We know the FBI is coming in.

So what I believe we have here is a couple of things.

Let's not just limit ourselves to one search area.

I believe the feds, the FBI was brought in because we do have information that there's a possibility that these kids were taken against their will, be it with their father or anyone else.

And they were taken possibly across state lines, from Michigan to Ohio.

Therefore, now we have an FBI situation, kidnapping across state lines.

That's a double whammy for the FBI.

So you bring them in and maybe they are the ones that are in charge of searching the area that is across the state line, where on the local level, where you have local jurisdiction, you can then police, search, grid search the neighborhood of John Skelton.

Well, the area in Ohio, it would probably be better if you just search by helicopter and maybe some kind of

infrared

infrared.

The other thing too to keep in mind here is

as suspicious as the movements of his cell phone are because of how early in the day that is, that doesn't seem to be typical routine.

He has no reason for being in that area.

As suspicious as that seems, you also have a bunch of information saying, well, his cell phone was in the

general area of his home for a much longer period of time when he had the children.

So you can't overlook searching that immediate area.

Right.

Well, and then also it's not clear if he left with his vehicle or did he get into somebody else's vehicle.

Right.

There's a situation where he says, this lady came and picked them up from me.

Oh, by the way, I went with them for a while.

Yeah.

And then she brought me back home.

But also around this point, isn't this where he starts stating, hey, I wanted to give them to this woman because my wife was abusing them.

Well, that's where I think we need to go through his story a little bit as well as some background information on the Skelton family, right?

Because let's say that sighting that we, the clip that we just played, and I got to tell you, Captain, hearing that, I'm hopeful that there's information in that sighting that that eyewitness eyewitness told us.

Sounds more legitimate than most.

Gives me cause for hope, gives me cause to believe that her story is spot on.

Yeah, it makes me want donuts.

So, if we are to believe that this sighting is real

and she was correct that she did see the three boys, then we have to believe John's story.

Right.

His explanation regarding the whereabouts of the three boys.

And

here's what I will say to try to to sum this up as best as I can, having looked at this for a while now.

I don't feel like I can say that it's a changing story regarding John's story

in a sense that it contradicts his original story.

But John's story to me seems more to evolve rather than to change completely.

So he first tells Tanya he gave the kids to a friend of his named Joanne, and she was in charge of driving the boys to Tanya's home.

He gave them to Joanne because he was going to commit suicide.

That's the first story.

Then we hear John tells investigators he gave the boys to a foster care home, an underground foster care home because their mother, Tanya, was abusing the boys.

This is where we need the background information on the Skeleton family.

So this is both John's and Tanya's second marriages, right?

They've both been married before.

John and Tanya, they had their first child together after one year of marriage.

So Andrew is the oldest, nine years old at the time of the disappearance.

He's described as very smart and great in school.

He loves video and computer games and is very competitive when playing.

He is very inquisitive.

And out of all the boys, he is the most timid and quiet.

Then you have Alexander, who was born just about two years after Andrew.

He was seven at the time of the disappearance.

Alexander is the daredevil of the boys, and he has a few stitches to prove it.

He enjoys riding and jumping on his bike, playing in the dirt, starting water fights.

He's the one described as, quote, always getting into trouble.

But they say when it comes down to it, he is a lover.

And Alex loves cell phones, working or not, real or fake, he loves.

cell phones or the idea of a cell phone.

He often would play with a cell phone that were no longer in service.

He enjoys charging them and using the camera feature.

Tanner is the little one, the littlest one.

And he was born just two years after Alexander.

And Tanner is by far the storyteller of the three boys.

He has a great imagination.

He gets that from his father.

He can tell the most far-out stories or tell something that really happened.

He will get you to believe it and then will tell you, no, it really didn't happen, and he'll laugh at you.

Right, like he's pranking me.

Yeah.

Tanner doesn't like tomatoes.

He will not eat anything if there are tomatoes in it or around it, including ketchup.

Tanner really looks up to all of his siblings.

He doesn't want to be left behind, so he is always trying to keep up and do what everyone else is doing.

Now, John and Tanya were married for 10 years before this all went down.

John was married before and had a child.

Tanya speculates that John may have freaked out when it was likely that she and John were going to get a divorce and she was going to get custody of the kids.

She cites that's what happened in his first marriage.

Tanya's story is more complicated.

Tanya was married before and had two daughters in that previous relationship.

These two daughters are very, very close to Tanya to this day, but are much older than her three boys.

Tanya's first marriage ended because of criminal charges.

Tanya had some kind of inappropriate actions and behavior with a 14-year-old boy.

When charged, she pled guilty and she did serve time in prison for this offense.

And she is a registered sex offender in the state of Michigan.

According to everything I could find, this is not something that Tanya hid from John.

He knew about her background before they got married.

He knew about it before they had children.

So this is why.

That doesn't.

It's good that she didn't hide that from him, but at the same time, it's like

that's a very odd situation and very gross situation.

Well, yeah.

Yeah.

And you know what's difficult for me as I sit here in this garage chair after we've covered so many cases and I've been so hardcore.

of saying, you know, once a child molester, always a child molester.

And, you know that that i may have put myself in a difficult position when discussing this case because i feel like

i i feel like we should i feel like we should give her credit for not being for not hiding this from him you know what i mean it it deserves some credit because we have seen situations where well she has to register where she lives yeah and stuff like that so he's going to find out eventually anyway she might not be able to find out and it's one of those things where

look i mean it's a it's a crime against a child the the boy was 14 years old

so that's that's awful yeah and but at the same time she in this case she is a victim or possibly is a victim and so you don't want to have it come across as victim blamey right Well, but ultimately, this is why John tells law enforcement he gave the boys to someone else to raise, either because he feared losing them in the divorce or because he was planning to commit suicide.

And Tanya was abusing the boys.

He didn't want them to live out the rest of their days with her.

So now John, following his treatment for his injured leg, he was sent to a facility for evaluation.

Once released, there, he is immediately taken into custody and held in jail because of the situation with the missing boys.

John's parents talk to him, and they believe his side of the story.

In fact, at some point, they say that John told them previously about possible abuse in the household.

Hence, that's his reasoning for wanting to take the boys to Florida to set up a new life there.

The police don't believe him.

They publicly announce that they are unable to confirm that a Joanne Taylor even exists at all.

Well, what we do know is his mother believes him.

The father believes him.

Yes.

And his sister believes him.

They believe that John is telling the truth.

Correct.

Right.

And

not only does law enforcement come out and announce that

we don't believe that he gave his sons to this Joanne Taylor person.

Right.

We can't confirm that she even exists.

The difficult thing about that for law enforcement is you're kind of sitting on a fence there, right?

Not so much in that statement, but in the course of your investigation, because you have to be sitting there wondering, well, crap, just because we can't confirm that this person exists doesn't mean that his story is not true.

What if he gave them to someone claiming to be Joanne Taylor?

Right.

So the other thing, though, too, that they announce is that they fear that John has done something terrible, terrible with the children.

They don't believe that the outcome, they publicly state this, they don't believe that the outcome is going to be a good one, meaning we should be looking for bodies.

And of course, they had good reason

to.

Yeah.

And I think the first part of that good reasoning behind that comes from the cryptic Facebook post by John on that Wednesday, on Wednesday, November 24th,

that said, may God and Tanya forgive me.

Well, that doesn't sound promising, does it?

Right, but you wonder if that is implying towards the suicide that he eventually is going to try to commit.

Yeah, that's a good point.

That's a very good point.

Because some religions claim that taking your own life is a sin, so maybe he's confessing his sin to

his God and his wife.

Well, and the other thing, too, is keep in mind,

if it was an asking for forgiveness because of the suicide, or the attempted suicide,

from every indication I could find, it seems like John was still very much in love with Tanya during this time, that he was

focused on trying to get the family back together or get his marriage back together.

So you could be very right that it could be for asking for forgiveness for that act.

Or I guess, in a sense, it could be asking for forgiveness

for giving the children away and then committing suicide.

Right.

Both.

Right.

So.

Yeah.

And the thing, thing, too, is you could love your wife, but know that she is sick on some level and that she's molesting the boys.

Then you don't want her to be around, but

that doesn't mean he can just shut off all the feelings that he had for her.

I mean, I would.

I mean, it would be seconds.

Oh, you're molesting kids.

Oh, no feelings for you anymore.

You can die in rot in hell.

Yeah.

So, so may God and Tanya forgive me.

That was

Jon Skelton's Facebook message to the world two days before he unsuccessfully tried to hang himself.

It was also two days before the disappearance of his three children.

Right.

Again,

is he also apologizing for him murdering the children?

Right.

I mean, we didn't bring up that aspect.

Well, and that's what I think most people take it as, that he's apologizing for murdering the children and then also trying to take his own life.

Well, and I think that's the common initial reaction that most would have.

I know that that's the initial reaction I had.

Right.

Now, the other reason to believe that this outcome is not going to be a good one, as law enforcement stated, is

what they found on John's computer.

So the night before the boys disappeared, now keep in mind.

At this time, John is considered by law enforcement and by his own admission to be the only adult in the home, in his home, with the computer that we are going to talk about at the time of these two searches.

Okay.

And this is not verbatim, but one search was something to the effect of how to break a neck or can you break someone's neck using your hands.

Another, I mean, that's.

Dark as hell.

And again, not very promising.

Well, right, but let me, hold on.

I'm going to play a little devil's advocate here.

Yes, sir.

The night, which we think was the Wednesday, or maybe it was the Thursday,

he claims that he made the boys' favorite dinner and that they got fried chicken and he made a cake because it's going to be one of the boys' birthdays soon.

And then they watched a karate movie.

Mm-hmm.

Now, kung fu.

Kung Fu.

Well, they said karate movie, so I was actually guessing that they probably watched Karate Kid or something.

But But think about it this way.

You're watching Karate Kid.

You're watching some Kung Fu movie.

You see a guy maybe break somebody's neck with some move, and then you Google search it.

Well, that's his explanation.

That's what John's explanation is when he's confronted with this information.

Why would you look that up if you didn't do something terrible to these boys?

Well, we were watching a karate movie or a kung fu movie.

What he fails to provide, and I shouldn't fault him too much for this, but again, I've never been in a room being questioned about a triple homicide.

That you're going to admit on air.

What he fails to provide in his defense is the title of the movie that he claims they were watching.

Yeah, but anybody that has kids knows that sometimes you throw on a movie or a movie's on TV and kids are watching it.

They seem to entertain and you're in the kitchen cleaning dishes and you're not really part of the movie-watching

process.

Right.

See what I'm saying?

So, it's like then, if you went, oh, well, what were they watching?

Well, I'm not really for sure because I wasn't really watching, I was doing the dishes, or I was cleaning the house, or whatever was going on.

Well, this seems like an awfully violent movie to be allowing your three children under the age of 10 to watch.

Oh, come on.

What do you mean?

Everybody watch, you know, you don't think that's a fair assessment of this situation?

No, I think, I mean, it'd be like telling children they shouldn't shouldn't watch WWE or something.

Well, but I'm stating.

We also don't know the title of the movie, so if they're watching Karate Kid at the age of under 10, I'd say, go for it.

Yeah, but it can't be Karate Kid.

And I'll tell you why.

Because of what John says in his defense.

He says the reason why there was a search on his computer for the phrase, how to break a neck, or can you break someone's neck using your hands?

They're watching a karate type, kung fu type movie.

Right.

And in the movie, somebody breaks someone's neck just with their hands.

You know, like what is that?

Stephen Seagal Van Dam kind of move there.

And he says that it was at the kids asking him or not believing that that was realistic, what they were seeing on TV.

You know, oh, you can't break somebody's neck with your bare hands or dad, can you actually do that?

And so he says, I Google searched it with the boys to see if that was even a real thing.

Which sounds like a...

I know Mr.

Miyagi was pretty tough on those teenagers for beating up Daniel's son, but I don't remember any necks being snapped in.

I think he twisted one of their necks.

I believe he did.

And then,

again, you're talking about kids under the age of 10.

They're coming up.

They don't have to see something verbatim to come up with a question.

Oh, we saw this guy twist this guy's neck.

Hey, did he break his neck?

I don't know.

Can you break somebody's neck by twisting it?

Right.

I don't know.

Let's ask dad.

That's all I'm saying.

So we have no clue what the title is.

We don't have a clue how violent it was.

But again,

I wouldn't say that Karate Kid, for example, would be like a movie I wouldn't want a 10-year-old to watch.

Maybe Bloodsport, something different.

But, you know, they're also

little boys.

That's what kind of movies they like.

Yeah, no, I'm not saying that you not to let young children watch Karate Kid.

I love the original Karate Kid, the first one, one of my favorite movies.

And my father, who's pretty strict with what I could watch when I was little,

sometimes his judgment was a little cloudy, or my

understanding of his judgment was a little cloudy.

Because I recall watching Conan the Barbarian when I was in The Destroyer when I was very little.

And that's a pretty violent movie.

Very violent.

Look at how you turned out.

So the other thing here is

there's another search on the computer, and that is for something to the effect of rat poison, or can rat poison kill a human?

Okay.

Also very dark, dark as hell, not very promising.

Again, John's explanation for this is this search on the computer was, again, at the request of his three children, that during the course of that same movie, somebody is killed by poisoning or rat poison, according to the movie that he's watching with the kids.

And so they search this to figure out if that can actually happen.

Yeah, well, my big problem with this search there, buddy, is you made chicken.

You made your boys' favorite meal.

Seems like if you're going to make your boys' favorite meal, you're going to make a cake, right, for their birthday.

These are things that are pretty simple to get them to eat.

Did you make these favorite things for them on purpose so you can put poison in there?

And then you took their bodies

once they were poisoned, you took their bodies in the morning when nobody else was up and you drove out to some field somewhere and you dumped them off.

That makes a lot of logical sense to me.

Well, and then on top of that, think about the state of the home when it was found, when they entered the home.

It looked like it was destroyed, like somebody just in a tornado of rage just went through there upending furniture and tossing things and cutting things and breaking and smashing things.

Is that a

very,

you know, trite, juvenile, lame attempt at hiding some evidence or at least confusing the scene?

You know, right, or were you losing your shit for so long that you're busting plates, you know, when you got mad at them because you couldn't control them because you weren't being such a good parent, and everything in your life is crumbling.

And this guy seems so worried about getting back together with somebody that didn't seem to give a shit about him.

It's like you could, you could take that time and refocus on being a better father or refocus that on your career or whatever.

Yeah.

But there's also guys that get into the state, guys and girls will get to the state where they're so desperate to be with somebody that everything is collapsing around them and

that's all that matters.

So is it every time that you called her that she said that she didn't want to get back together, are you going into some other room and smashing up, you know, or punching your hole through the wall or smashing some dishes or whatever?

Right.

And are you,

who knows?

Yeah, and did that tornado of rage, did that take place after the phone call?

Remember, Tanya says that he, at some point, John speaks with her on the phone and says, are you sure there's no chance that we can get back together?

Right.

You know, did that occur immediately after that or a result of something else?

And from the outside looking in, it appears like, you know, like you said, Tanya may care for him

on some level, but it appears that she only cares for him.

as being the father of her three boys.

Right, but this moron can't see that.

And let me just give you some advice, everybody out out there if you're with somebody and they don't know if they want to be with you Here's what you do and here's what you do every time a hundred percent of the time you go okay Well, I'm gonna go over here and work on myself I'm gonna focus on myself because if they come back you're gonna be a better person anyways and you're gonna be better for them and if they don't come back you're already going to be working on yourself and it just seemed like this guy's world's collapsing collapsing and we've seen i was actually just listening to a show the other day where they're talking about you know the the suicide rate for men jumps up dramatically after losing a job and so

i would argue that if this guy is suicidal that he's possibly also homicidal

yeah

yeah i mean

Here's some advice for the flip side of that coin.

If you are with somebody and they love you completely, just let yourself go 100%.

Just let yourself completely go.

So

regarding the things

as for

like Homer Simpson, just let yourself go.

Don't ever listen to him.

Regarding the things to kind of back up law enforcement's statement of not feeling like we're going to have a good outcome in this situation, there's another item.

And this is another cryptic message, if you want to call it that.

But this is in the form of what John Skelton tells his pastor, Donna Galloway.

Remember, he's locked up shortly after the boys go missing, shortly after his failed suicide attempt.

And when he spoke, when Donna Galloway spoke to him,

his statement, John's statement, refers to when it comes to the timeframe in question that we're all wondering about.

John says there is a blank spot in his brain.

It was like like a big dark hole.

Now, without going too far into that as to what that could mean, because

with a lot of John's statements, all we're left with saying is, well, what could this mean?

It doesn't straight up,

it's not straightened to the point.

Right.

This is, there's a big blank spot in my brain.

There's a big dark hole.

What does that mean?

Well, it sounds like OJ, actually.

Yeah.

You know, in OJ's book where he is confessing to the the murders, he states, oh, well, then I blacked out.

Then when I came to, there they were, dead, blood everywhere.

It's like, did he have a blackout for hours?

Right.

I mean, do we have any evidence of him using drugs or possibly alcohol?

It's from the information I could find, he was a drinker.

I don't think he was a a big, big drinker.

No indication of drug use that I could find.

But again, this is not a promising statement.

And like you said, you referenced OJ.

We've read several stories where somebody later states,

for some reason, you know, I feel like it did something bad.

I just don't know what it is.

I can't recall what it is.

There's a period of time I don't know what I was doing.

I don't know if I was awake.

I don't know if I was asleep.

You know, so this is another dark, very dark statement.

Well, you'd think they'd be able to test for fluids found at the scene, and you would assume that if he, let's say he did try to poison these kids,

that a lot of the reaction would be throwing up, and that we'd at least have some evidence of that happening at the house.

I mean, yes, you could clean that up, but it didn't look like he cleaned up much in that house.

Right.

So.

There must not be any evidence of that.

And they did.

I mean, they've searched that place from top to bottom.

Well, and what's also, it's a small town, so they probably know all his whereabouts because of the cell phone pings.

And they probably know everything he probably purchased.

So I'd be interested to know if he even purchased poison.

Or it's a good, again,

it's a logical answer.

You're

watching a movie with your kids.

They ask you a question: hey, can you can you twist somebody's neck and kill them?

Right.

No, you can't.

Or yes, you can.

Then you go, oh, we saw this day on the movie.

Can you kill somebody with rat poison?

It might not

even be in the movie.

It could, I mean, this is the kind of questions that kids come up with.

I mean, anytime I pick up my nephew and it's like it's a 10-minute drive, I think he asked me 20 questions that are impossible to answer, you know?

So

it's so weird because it's a logical answer,

but on the flip side, it's a logical

explanation what could have happened to these poor boys.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Well, you referenced that this is a small town just to give those of you out there that are not familiar with this, because I wasn't super familiar with this area either.

Well, with this town of Marensi.

I've been to Michigan.

I go to Michigan twice a year.

Great state.

Best place to go in summertime is Michigan, in my opinion.

But Morenzi is like a town of like 2,000 people.

It's a town that's like two square miles, you know, two miles by two miles by two, you know, it's a two-square-mile town.

Right.

Tiny little town.

Everybody's got to know everybody's business.

And like you said, had he purchased anything that would go along with those searches on his computer, with what their suspicions were, if they would have found any signs of vomiting or certain fluids inside that home,

be it blood or anything like that, he probably would be facing murder charges or something to that effect.

Right.

Because they already got this guy locked up.

And then the other thing regarding the cell phone movements on that day in question, that early morning Friday that you have pointed out, that I have pointed out, is so suspicious.

John has an answer for everything.

John says regarding his cell phone, going to Holiday City early Friday, November 26th, well, that's easily explained because someone I know, a friend of mine, borrowed my vehicle.

I forgot that my cell phone was in the vehicle.

Who was your friend?

Who borrowed your vehicle?

Can we talk to them?

And then John says, I can't tell you who that is.

We're just getting started with this case, so tune in tomorrow.

We'll see you back in the garage.

Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.

So, um, I was just parking my car, and then I saw you, a Gecko, a huge fan.

I'm always honored to meet fans out in the wild.

The honor's mine.

I just love being able to file a claim in under two minutes with the Geico app.

Well, the Geico app is top-notch.

I know you get asked this all the time, but could you sign it?

Sign what?

The app?

Yeah, sure.

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Oh, it rubbed off the screen when I touched it.

Could you sign it again?

Anything to help, I suppose.

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