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Linda Ramirez stands in front of her home in Aurora, Illinois, on Thursday, April 4, 2019, where she waits to find out if a 14-year-old who told police that it was Timmothy Pitzen and S & L Had escaped from the kidnappers in the Cincinnati area. really him. Authorities conducted DNA tests to try to determine Thursday whether a teenager found wandering the streets of a Kentucky town was what he claims to be – an Illinois boy who disappeared there Eight years ago when her mother committed suicide. (AP Photo / Carrie Antlfinger)
AURORA, Ill. – Eight years after the disappearance of a boy from Illinois, his family began to think that their nightmare might be finally over.
A young man found wandering the streets of a Kentucky town claimed that he had just escaped from two men from the Cincinnati area who held him prisoner for seven years. And he told the police that he was calling Timmothy Pitzen. It did not seem possible for anyone so far to invent such a story. So for a day and a half, parents waited and hoped for a breakthrough.
On Thursday, the FBI learned devastatingly that DNA testing had revealed that it was not about Timmothy, a boy from Aurora who disappeared at the age of 6 in 2011, at the time of his mother's suicide.
"It's like reliving that day, and Timmothy's father is devastated again, as we are," said the boy's aunt, Kara Jacobs, voice choked by emotion.
Authorities said the 14-year-old claimant, Timmothy, was in fact a 23-year-old former detainee who had recently been released from an Ohio prison after serving his sentence for burglary. and vandalism.
Neither Jacobs nor the boy 's grandmother, Alana Anderson, tried to hide their disappointment as they struggled to calm down during a brief press conference at the same time. outside of Anderson's home, in Antioch, about 90 km north of Aurora.
Anderson said his prayer has always been that, when Timmothy would be old enough, "he would find us if we could not find him." She hoped that he "was in a place where he was communicating with the media or a computer, he would remember enough of us to look for us, and I think he would do it." a very intelligent guy. "
The rest of Aurora seemed to share the disappointment of the family.
"I know the community will not give up its identity," said Nick Baughman, a former school principal at the school where Amy Fry-Pitzen had released her 6-year-old son from her class. Kindergarten on May 11, 2011. Say something about a family emergency.
Wearing his backpack, Timmothy greeted his classmates with "See you tomorrow," recalls Professor Cheryl Broach.
The two men boarded the Fry-Pitzen sport utility vehicle and embarked on an adventure including a visit to Brookfield Zoo, a suburb of Chicago, a seaside resort in Chicago, and another seaside resort in Wisconsin Dells. nicknamed the "Water Park Capital of the World".
The next day, according to video footage later released by the police, the boy and his mother were seen leaving the Kalahari complex in Dells. This was the last time the two were seen together. According to the police, when Fry-Pitzen went to a motel in Rockford, Illinois, about 200 km away, she was alone.
The next afternoon, his body was found but without any sign of his son. A note she left said that the boy was cared for by someone who loved him in a place where he would never be found.
During the first days of the search, the police said they found a significant amount of blood in the back seat of the vehicle, and tests confirmed that it was fine with the boy. This news first terrified Anderson, but the boy's father explained that his son had a history of nosebleeds and had suffered serious, just a few days before his disappearance.
At Greenman Elementary School, classmates, teachers and parents tried to help by tying hundreds of yellow ribbons around trees and signs. A garden was planted in Timmothy's memory.
"I remember there were a lot of prayers," Baughman said Thursday. "It's just one of those times when you want to keep hope and support."
The police tried to reconstruct the route taken by Fry-Pitzen in his SUV, but in the years that followed, the authorities never publicly explained his actions. The reported sightings of the boy did not go anywhere. The investigators became frustrated by what they called hoaxes.
The family members knew that Fry-Pitzen had been disturbed. A woman close to the family whose children were playing with Timmothy said that she noticed something that was wrong the morning of her departure from school.
"I saw it that morning before everything happened," recalls Linda Ramirez. "She looked very sad, I was in a hurry and I did not stop, I just went to work, I thought I could come later and talk to her."
"I'd love to see him again and hold him in my arms and say I'm sorry I can not be stopped," Ramirez added. "Believe it or not, his mother really liked him a lot."
When Fry-Pitzen died, she was on her fourth marriage, Anderson said. Her daughter had struggled with depression for years and was taking medication.
"She and her husband had problems," Anderson said. "We were very worried and told him we would help him in any way we could.
In 2003, according to a story by James Pitzen at CNN, his wife "had taken pills, I suppose, and (was) sitting at the edge of a cliff and reportedly lost consciousness and fallen off a cliff" .
James Pitzen, who could not be contacted for a comment on Thursday, finally returned to Iowa, Anderson said. After a while, the flood of calls between him and his wife's family slowed down to become a net, before stopping completely.
"He continued his life," said Anderson. "I think we see him upset."
If there were problems at home, they were not obvious in the behavior of young Timmothy. He often played with his children and enjoyed their trampoline in the backyard. He loved to learn and talked about learning Spanish.
"It was a very happy boy with a lot of energy," Ramirez said. "It was hard to follow him."
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Babwin brought back from Chicago. Associated Press reporter Corey Williams in Detroit also contributed to the report.
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