Search Will Stop For Missing Boys
Search for Missing Michigan Boys Will Stop Friday, Police Says
December 2, 2010
The search for the three missing Michigan boys is scheduled to stop on Friday, December 4, 2010, according to a request from police authorities to search volunteers on December 2.
Morenci law enforcement and federal investigators have been trying to track Andrew Skelton, 9 years old, Alexander William Skelton, 7 years old and 5-year-old Tanner Skelton who were last seen on Thanksgiving playing in the backyard of their father, John Skelton.
Authorities related that stopping the volunteer searches will allow them to process the information and the steps they had done regarding the case. Additionally, halting the search will also allow them to “re-evaluate our direction for the following week,” Larry Weeks, Morenci, Michigan chief of police told reporters.
The boys’ biological father had already been charged with parental kidnapping in connection with the boys’ disappearance on November 29. Police arrested him Tuesday upon his release from a mental health facility where he was treated after trying to commit suicide.
The boys’ whereabouts are not yet established, but law enforcement have already Obtained “a number of items,” Weeks told CNN. While he was asked whether he believes that the boys are deceased, Weeks responded: “I refuse to believe that at this point,” saying he wanted to preserve hope. He did, however, repeat his Tuesday statement that a clear outcome is not anticipated.”
Weeks said additionally that authorities are doubtful about the information given by Skelton regarding the case. Skelton originally told investigators that in the morning before he attempted to hang himself, he had left the boys with a woman named Joann Taylor who agreed to bring the children to their mother – to make sure that they would not witness him taking his own life.
But Tanya Skelton, the boys’ mother reported that her children had been missing since Friday, the day John Skelton was supposed to bring them back to Morenci. A police inquiry on the identity of Joann Taylor and John Skelton’s supposed relationship with her also produced negative results.