Timmothy Pitzen’s grandmother has said her family will ‘do everything to get him back to a good life’ after a teenager came forward claiming to be the missing Illinois boy.
Alana Anderson sent a loving message to her grandson after news broke that a 14-year-old found by police in Newport, Kentucky, was identifying as Timmothy.
Police are now trying to establish whether the teen really is the missing Aurora boy – who vanished without a trace in 2011 – or if it’s part of an elaborate hoax.
‘We never stopped looking for him, thinking about him and we love him, and we’ll do everything to get him back to a good life,’ Mrs Anderson told CBS.
Timmothy Pitzen’s grandmother has said her family will ‘do everything to get him back to a good life’ after a teenager came forward claiming to be the missing youngster (pictured before disappearing in 2011)
Alana Anderson (pictured), told her grandson the family ‘never stopped looking for him, thinking about him’ and loving him
The grandmother (sitting on a memorial bench for the youngster) said she was praying the boy was missing Timmothy but admitted she didn’t want to get her hopes up
The grandmother said she was praying the boy was missing Timmothy but admitted she didn’t want to get her hopes up.
Authorities are now awaiting the results of a DNA test conducted yesterday to determine whether the boy found in Cincinnati really is Timmothy, who has been missing for nearly eight years.
The results are expected to take at 24 hours to come back, and could be released publicly as early as Thursday afternoon, according to ABC 7.
Aurora police say they’re very cautious of the reports that the boy found in Kentucky is claiming to be Timmothy, as they have investigated several false sightings since his disappearance.
‘We hope it’s true. What’s hard is the story that he escaped from captors. And your mind goes in too many directions that you don’t want to think about,’ Kara Jacobs, Timmothy’s maternal aunt, told NBC Chicago.
‘And what I’ve prayed about since he’s been gone is that God will keep him close and take care of him, and that maybe by some stroke of luck, he was with people who would love him. And if that’s not the case, it will be heartbreaking to get through.’
Timmothy vanished without a trace in 2011 following his mother’s suicide. According to a police report filed on Wednesday, the boy in Kentucky told officers he’d managed to flee ‘from two kidnappers that have been holding him for seven years’.
The teen said that his abductors had most recently been keeping him in a Red Roof Inn, thought to be in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Residents who live near where the 14-year-old boy was found in Newport, Kentucky, have said the his face was bruised and was ‘very scared and agitated’ (pictured: a photo submitted to CBS Chicago allegedly depicts the boy who claims to be Pitzen)
Timmothy vanished without a trace in 2011 following his mother Amy Fry-Pitzen’s suicide (pictured together)
His mother took Timmothy on a three-day holiday, visiting the zoo and several water-parks before she was found dead inside a Rockford motel room, having committed suicide
When he saw his chance to escape, he took it and fled, and and ‘kept running across a bridge’ – the state line – and into Newport, Kentucky.
Residents who live near where the 14-year-old boy was found said the his face was bruised and he appeared to be ‘very scared and agitated’.
‘He walked up to my car and he went, “Can you help me? I just want to get home. Can you just please help me?'” a good Samaritan told a 911 dispatcher. ‘And I asked him what was going on and he told me he’s been kidnapped.’
One woman revealed to CBS Chicago that the boy told her he’d been running for two hours and that he had ‘been passed around for seven years’.
‘Really you felt bad for him, his face looked like he’d been beat up,’ she said. ‘He had a really big bruise on his face. I was hurt for him’
Another resident told ABC7: “He looked like he had been beat up, punched in the face a couple of times. You could see the fear on him and how nervous he was and how he kept pacing. He just looked odd.”
The boy found on Wednesday gave police a detailed description of his alleged kidnappers, who he says have held him captive for more than seven years.
‘Timmothy described the two kidnappers as two male, whites, body-builder type build,’ the police report details.
‘One had black curly hair, Mt. Dew shirt and jeans & has a spider web tattoo on his neck. The other was short in stature and had a snake tattoo on his arms.’
He then described his captor’s vehicle as a new white Ford SUV, with yellow transfer paint and a dent on the rear left bumper, registered to Wisconsin.
Several police departments have been instructed to search Red Roof Inns in both Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, after the boy informed police of alleged escape.
Workers at several of the hotels told WCPO that authorities have spoken to them and requested to access to their guest-lists, but failed to recall anyone matching the description.
‘It’s hard to remember people, to be honest, because of so many people coming in and out,’ Kennedy Slusher, a worker at the Red Roof Inn Beechmont, told the news station. ‘But to hear something like that, it’s kind of mind-blowing. It’s scary.’
Timmothy disappeared on May 11, 2011, shortly after being dropped off at Greenman Elementary School, in Aurora, Illinois, by his father.
The last known images of Pitzen and his mother were captured on CCTV, checking out of the Kalahari Resort, in Wisconsin Dells
The boy, just six-years-old at the time, was later picked-up by his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, who told the school she needed to take her son home because of a family emergency.
Fry-Pitzen, 43, then took her son on a three-day holiday, visiting the zoo and several water-parks before she was found dead inside a motel room, in Rockford.
Police reports at the time say Fry-Pitzen checked into the motel alone, without her son. An autopsy confirmed she had committed suicide with a series of slashes to her wrists.
A note left behind by the mother stated her son was safe and in the care of others, but added: ‘You’ll never find him’.
Timmothy’s Identification card was found among Fry-Pitzen’s possessions, but her son, and the Spiderman backpack he’d been pictured leaving school, with were nowhere to be found.
The 43-year-old grappled with depression for the majority of her adult life and attempted to commit suicide at least once before. But her family and husband describe her as a loving mother who would never hurt Timmothy.
Timmothy (shown aged 6) vanished after his mother picked him up from Greenman Elementary School and took him on a three day holiday
A report filed by the Sharonville Police Department on Wednesday details boy’s claims to be Timmothy, and even describes his alleged kidnappers
In an interview with People in 2015, Timmothy’s father, James Pitzen (left), described his son as a ‘little mini-me’ and vowed to never give up searching for him
Shortly before her daughter’s suicide, Anderson received a note from Fry-Pitzen, that read: ‘I’ve taken him somewhere safe. He will be well cared for and he says that he loves you. Please know that there is nothing you could have said or done that would have changed my mind.’
Timmothy’s dad, James Pitzen, said he’s never given up hope that his son is alive and will one day return home to him.
‘I always wonder what she told Timmothy, Why hasn’t he tried to call? We taught him how to dial 911. ‘This is your number, this is your mom’s number, you know where you live, your address,’ all the stuff you do,’ he told People in 2015.
‘Maybe I’ll see Tim in the morning,’ James said he often tells himself. ‘Maybe tomorrow they’ll find him.’
The last breakthrough in the disappearance of Pitzen came in 2014, when a woman hosting a garage sale in northern Illinois dialed 911 to tell police a boy matching his description had been standing in the front-yard of her home.
The call came shortly after police released an aged processing image, speculating what Pitzen may have looked like aged 9.
In an interview with Crime Watch Daily in 2017, James Pitzen described the fateful day he dropped his son off at school and never saw him again.
‘I dropped Timmothy off at school and he hopped out of the back seat and ran off to school,’ he recalled. ‘And I said ‘I love you buddy,’ and he said ‘I love you too, dad, and I’ll see you later,’ and I’m like ‘OK.’ And I watched him run off to class.’
James says both he and Timmothy’s mother were struggling in their marriage at the time, but insists he was stunned when he was told of Amy’s suicide.
‘I was in total shock at the time,’ said James. ‘They told me where she was found, in a cheap little motel. She had a razorblade knife and she cut herself.
Timmothy, originally from Aurora, Illinois, was last seen at a water park in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin in 2011. The teen told police he had been held by captors ever since and was most recently being held at a Red Roof Inn, thought to be in Cincinnati, Ohio, until he escaped and kept running until he crossed a bridge over the river which acts as a state line and passed into Newport, Kentucky.
He said just hours before she committed suicide he received a call from Amy, telling him: ‘Timmothy is fine. Timmothy belongs to me. Timmothy and I will be fine. Timmothy is safe.’
‘She was definitely wrestling with the demons,’ James said. ‘And the demons were winning, and they eventually won.’
He added that he knew Timmothy was alive somewhere, as his wife would never do anything to harm their son.
‘Every day I get up and check my phone and wait for the detectives to say ‘Hey, we found Timmothy here,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be a glorious day when he comes home. Just can’t wait. It’s going to be happy. I’m going to cry a lot. I’m going to cry a lot when he comes home.’
Anyone with information is asked to call the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) or Aurora Police at 630-256-5500.