76 Minutes: The search for the missing Skelton brothers

UPDATE!!

John Skelton charged with triple homicide! As author Lynn Thomson Lynn Thompson predicted, charges were filed before Skelton was released after serving his prison term on an unlawful imprisonment conviction.

To prove John Skelton murdered his sons in 2010 prosecutors need an eyewitness, a proverbial smoking gun or human remains.

Maybe they have something like that now - Detective Lt. Jeremy Brewer has led the investigation for more than a decade from the Michigan State Police headquarters in Lansing, but the Lenawee County 2A District Court docket indicates Wednesday’s charges were filed by Detective Sgt. Daniel Bowman from the Monroe Post south of Detroit.

For prosecutors that would be the best possible scenario. Key evidence reveals what happened and allows authorities to find the kids and finally bring them home.

The problem is that Skelton appears to be the only witness to what happened. To control all that information, all he has to do is not share it, and he hasn’t for 15 years.

The more likely scenario is that prosecutors want to buy more time.

The open murder charges will keep Skelton incarcerated until trial but those can be dropped or bargained and re-instated at any time while a felony tampering conviction in Michigan carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence. Three counts served consecutively would keep him incarcerated for  another 30 years. Whether or not the prosecution can prove Skelton murdered his sons beyond reasonable doubt, he most certainly caused their disappearance and cannot be released until they are found.

Lynn Thompson's book focused on the abandoned Williams County Road O.30, which runs along the St. Joe River between Pioneer and Holiday City. Two things still support that, though circumstantially:

In 2012, sheriff’s deputies searched the area and found a Spaulding Little League baseball perched in the fork of a tree. It was a tournament ball, not sold off-the-shelf, and nobody knows how it got there.

P-Rocks Canoe livery also operated along the St Joe in 2010 and the owner stated he found lots of kids shoes along the river. After the book, I surveyed all the canoe liveries in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan. Those who responded said they had never seen anything like that. Finding one or a pair would indicate an accident and prompt 911 calls. Finding several along the same river isn't likely to happen.

Another theory Thompson researched after the book focused on the dumpster poem Skelton wrote before the kids disappeared. It is known his cell phone was in or around Holiday City for 76 Minutes when the kids disappeared, but police were never able to ping exact locations. The FBI used cadaver dogs to search the Williams County landfill within a week of the kids disappearance but never found anything. Thompson's question was whether or not all dumpsters from Holiday City end up there. To find that out, police would have to subpoena waste management contracts in Holiday City from 2010, but without exact cell phone ping locations there is no probable cause to indicate which one he could have used.

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76 Minutes: My Search for Andrew, Alexander and Tanner Skelton

By Lynn Thompson

Three young Michigan brothers disappeared in 2010.
Their father says they will "hibernate until they graduate" but police believe it's a triple homicide.
Eight years later, this remains one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in the United States, stretching from Michigan to Montana, and national coverage from John Walsh to Nancy Grace have yet to turn up a clue.
If police are right, Andrew, Alexander and Tanner Skelton were the victims of a personal war between John Russell Skelton and his ex-wife. If they are wrong, the boys live among strangers cut off from the world and everything they had ever known.

John Skelton is the only one who knows what happened and he still controls the fate of his sons. Silence is his victory.
Bryan Times Reporter Lynn Thompson has covered this story since the day the boys disappeared. Based on what he has learned, and drawing from his newspaper and U.S. Army experience, Lynn exposes the elements of control to narrow the search, speed the recovery and bring the boys back home.
Now retired, Don Allison served as author Lynn Thompson's editor at The Bryan Times as the story unfolded. "Lynn Thompson has doggedly followed the disappearance of Andrew, Alexander and Tanner Skelton since day one," Allison said. "It is more than just another story to Lynn – two of the missing boys are the same age as his own sons, and he has made the quest to find them a personal one.
“With the eye of an experienced crime reporter and the compassion of a parent, Lynn weaves a compelling insightful narrative." 

Index and Illustrations
165 Pages
$17.95
​Faded Banner Publications