A couple whose three sons have been missing since Thanksgiving had bickered over custody as they negotiated their divorce, but they still did things together as a family.
On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, John and Tanya Skelton took their boys to the United Methodist Church in Morenci to help decorate it and a nearby park for the Christmas season.
"Andrew said to me, 'With the park all lit up and church all lit up, we're going to light up the town,'" the Rev. Donna Galloway, who also serves as the chaplain for the Morenci Fire Department, said Wednesday.
"It was a good day, it was a family day, for all of us at the church. That light — and the season of light — is what we're holding on to," Galloway said.
That was the first time Galloway saw the whole family together.
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Police say Tanya Skelton's family has asked for their privacy.
Galloway said she has spoken with Tanya Skelton since the boys' disappearance, and that she thinks it's absurd when people ask how Skelton's doing.
"How would you be doing?" Galloway said. "She wants her boys home. We all want her boys home. She's a mom."
Adam Johnson, who lives next door to John Skelton, said Wednesday that he was among the last people to see the boys. He and his wife, Gail, had company over and were putting coolers on the back porch.
"Two of the boys were playing out back. They called to me and I said 'hi,'" said Johnson, 69.
Whatever might have happened last week, Johnson said he never saw anything that concerned him.
"He seemed to be very caring around the boys — I never saw him really yell at the boys," said Johnson, who owns a local hardware store with his wife.
Johnson said he often saw the boys playing loudly and happily on bikes, in a backyard playhouse and even in the dirt. The Skelton family also liked to gather for outdoor barbeques, he said.
Morenci Police Chief Larry Weeks said John Skelton hasn't said much about where the boys might be, and that he was no longer speaking to investigators. Asked whether he thought the children had been killed, Weeks said he refused to believe that "at this point."
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-01/father-of-3-missing-boys-fights-return-to-mich-.html
