MISSZEN BOY
Who is Timmothy Pitzen, when did he disappear and has he been found?
The baffling case remains unsolved after DNA tests showed a young man's claims to be the long-missing boy were a hoax
TIMMOTHY Pitzen, who vanished in 2011, remains missing after the FBI revealed that a "bruised" person claiming to be the Illinois teen is a grown man, 23, with a criminal record.
Here's what we know about the boy's mysterious disappearance.
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Who is Timmothy Pitzen and when did he disappear?
On May 11, 2011, Jim Pitzen dropped off his son, Timmothy Pitzen – then aged six – at his elementary school.
Later that day, the boy's mum, Amy Fry-Pitzen, unexpectedly signed him out of class at his school in the Chicago-area suburb of Aurora, Illinois.
Although she claimed there was a family emergency, it later transpired that she took him on visits to local tourist attractions.
After going to the zoo and a water park, the pair spent the night of May 11 at the Kalahari Resort, another water park at Wisconsin Dells in the neighbouring state.
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CCTV showed them checking out at 10am on May 12 – the last time Timmothy was seen.
Police found Amy dead in a hotel 100 miles away in Rockford, Illinois.
She left a cryptic suicide note, saying her son was fine and in the care of others who "love and will care for him".
Bizarrely, she didn't name them, and added "You’ll never find him", police in Aurora said.
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Cops discovered that Timmothy’s car booster seat and backpack were also gone.
They then found a significant amount of blood in the SUV's back seat, and tests confirmed it was the boy's.
However, his dad explained that Timmothy had a history of nosebleeds and had suffered a serious one days before he disappeared.
A search in three states and numerous TV appeals failed to find any trace of the lad.
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What happened next?
According to , his disappearance attracted widespread attention, and searchers looked for him across Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa – to no avail.
In 2017, Crime Watch Daily covered the missing persons case, and Amazon’s adventure rally series Fireball Run also drew attention to Timmothy’s disappearance.
Each rally team was assigned a missing child, handing out fliers with their information, while their photos were displayed on cars.
One of the competitors told reporters in 2017 that “Timmothy Pitzen was abducted out of a Wisconsin Dells amusement park… hasn’t been seen since.”
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also highlighted the case, saying on a missing poster that “Timmothy may go by the nickname Tim or Timmy”.
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Has he been found?
Unfortunately for his anxious family, the boy remains missing.
Hopes were raised on Wednesday, April 3, 2019, that Timmothy might have been found in Kentucky, almost 500 miles from where he was last seen in May 2011.
Police in Sharonville, Ohio, said that a person told authorities he was aged 14, and had "just escaped from two kidnappers".
He described his alleged abductors as white men with body builder-type physiques.
Witnesses said the "scared and agitated" person with bruises on his face was seen running around for two hours before he flagged down a female motorist and begged for help.
She told a 911 dispatcher: "He walked up to my car and he went, 'Can you help me? I just want to get home. Please help me.'
"I asked him what's going on, and he tells me he's been kidnapped and he's been traded through all these people and he just wanted to go home."
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Police in Aurora sent two detectives to the Cincinnati area to investigate the person's claim, alongside the FBI.
But in a bombshell revelation, the so-called 14-year-old boy was actually a 23-year-old man named Brian Rini.
On April 4, following DNA tests, the FBI told the missing boy's family the devastating news that the results proved the person was not Timmothy.
Authorities said the man claiming to be the teen was actually an ex-con who was recently released from an Ohio prison after serving time for burglary and vandalism.
Rini was released from the Belmont Correctional Institution on March 7, where he had been serving 14 months for burglary and vandalism.
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Authorities have not said whether Rini will face charges over the alleged hoax or what his motive was.
FBI spokesman Timothy Beam said: "Law enforcement has not and will not forget Timmothy, and we hope to one day reunite him with his family. Unfortunately, that day will not be today."
Timmothy's aunt, Karla Jacobs, sent a message to her nephew via a media conference, saying, "we know you are out there somewhere Tim and we will never stop looking for you, praying for you and loving you".
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