KUNKLE, Ohio, Dec. 3 (UPI) -- Authorities say they used sonar to scour an Ohio lake during freezing temperatures in their effort to find three Michigan boys missing since Thanksgiving.
"We're using a side-scan sonar to capture a visual image of the bottom," Toledo (Ohio) Fire Department Lt. Mike Maraldo said Friday.
That solid image of the contours of the 110-acre Harrison Lake would provide divers a particular spot to focus on if the sonar detected anything unusual.
"If it was a body, we'd be able to tell it's a body," Maraldo said of what the sonar images. "We'll be able to tell if it doesn't belong there."
Maraldo said his crew would spend a few hours at that location before pressing on to another, although he did not specify where that would be, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Police and fire department personnel, along with volunteers, were conducting a more focused search Friday for the Skelton brothers -- Tanner, 5, Alexander, 7, and Andrew, 9, of Morenci, Mich. -- the newspaper said.
"They're scaling back, but only because they've eliminated areas of interest," said Thomas Jaksetic, battalion chief with the Toledo Fire and Rescue Department.
The boys' father, John Skelton, 39, is being held on $3 million bond in Toledo on parental kidnapping charges, after a failed apparent suicide attempt.
