MORENCI, Mich. — The head of Detroit’s FBI office says two planes, police dogs and the agency’s behavioral science experts are aiding the search for three southern Michigan boys who went missing on the same day their father tried to hang himself.
Police in Morenci say they fear the boys are in “extreme danger,” and the father hasn’t been ruled out as a suspect.
Chief Larry Weeks says 39-year-old John Skelton is being treated at a hospital in Ohio for “mental health issues” following Friday’s suicide attempt.
Nine-year-old Andrew, 7-year-old Alexander and 5-year-old Tanner Skelton were last seen Thursday. Tanya Skelton reported them missing Friday after her estranged husband failed to return them on time.
FBI Detroit chief Andrew Arena said Sunday that it’s routine for his agency to join suspected abduction cases.
Authorities were searching Sunday not just for the boys but also a female acquaintance, Joann Taylor, whom Skelton said he had given them to before the suicide attempt. However, officials haven’t even been able to confirm Taylor’s existence, Weeks said.
The search for the missing boys extended to an Ohio state park just south of the Michigan state line, said a dispatcher with the sheriff’s office in Fulton County, Ohio. There was no word of any immediate results.
An Amber Alert was issued for the boys Friday, the same day police said John Skelton tried to kill himself.
When asked if Skelton was a suspect in the boys’ disappearance, Weeks told The Associated Press: “We haven’t ruled anything out, yet.”
Skelton, who lives in Morenci, about 75 miles southwest of Detroit and just north of the Ohio state line, is separated from Tanya Skelton and had been caring for his sons.
He told investigators Friday he wanted the boys out of his house when he committed suicide and that he had asked Taylor to take them to their mother.
Skelton said he met Taylor several years ago and that the two had been involved in an online relationship. She was believed to live in Jackson or Hillsdale counties in southern Michigan.
But officers have had no success tracking down a woman by that name or the silver van Skelton said she was driving.
“The bulk of our action has been putting together a timeline and trying to locate this Joann Taylor,” Weeks said Saturday.
Michigan State Police and the FBI have joined the search. Family and friends of the missing boys planned a vigil Sunday night at Morenci United Methodist Church.
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Associated Press writers Jeannie Nuss in Columbus, Ohio, and David N. Goodman in Detroit contributed to this story.
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