Missing Michigan Boys Update: Police Call Off Volunteer Effort to Find Three Skelton Sons

TOLEDO, Ohio (CBS/AP) Countless volunteers have joined the search for Alexander, Andrew and Tanner Skelton, the three missing boys from Michigan who were last seen on Thanksgiving, but now the police are asking citizens to stop searching after Friday to let investigators process what has been gathered, and to reevaluate their strategy.

PICTURES: Missing Children, Where are They?

Morenci Police Chief Larry Weeks announced at a daily news conference Wednesday that volunteers should report to the Morenci Fire Station on Thursday and Friday, but that police and investigators will continue alone beginning on Saturday, according to CBS affiliate WTOL.

The chief said they will take the weekend to evaluate all of the information they have, the station reported.

Local authorities and federal investigators have been trying to find 9-year-old Andrew Skelton, 7-year-old Alexander William Skelton and 5-year-old Tanner Skelton, all last seen on Thanksgiving.

Weeks has cautioned the public that police do not expect "a positive outcome," but he also told reporters he simply refuses to believe at this point that the children were killed.

"It is my desire to maintain hope," Weeks said.

Many residents of the small Michigan community of about 2,000 residents 75 miles southwest of Detroit, echo that sentiment.

PICTURES: Missing Children, Where are They?

"Please don't say RIP," 19-year-old Megan Nagy and another friend wrote in response to one Facebook post that read "RIP missing Morenci Boys."

"We all need to keep hope," Nagy wrote.

The boys were last seen with their father, John Skelton, who faces three kidnapping charges, and Morenci police Chief Larry Weeks has said Skelton hasn't said much about where the boys might be.

Police say he tried to hang himself, and that he lied to investigators when he first said he gave the boys to a female acquaintance to hand over to their mother, Skelton's estranged wife Tanya, who was awarded custody of their sons.

Rev. Donna Galloway, of the United Methodist Church in Morenci, recalled the boys and their parents helping decorate the church and a nearby park for the Christmas season on the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

"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," she added.

That was the last time Galloway saw the family together.

John Skelton appeared at a hearing Wednesday in Toledo, Ohio, where he fought extradition to Michigan. The 39-year-old unemployed long-haul truck driver sat throughout the hearing in a wheelchair, covered by a green blanket, answering the judge's yes-or-no questions in a whisper. The judge set bond at $3 million and scheduled another hearing for Dec. 14.

COMPLETE COVERAGE OF MISSING SKELTON BOYS