Teen found in Kentucky claims he is boy missing since 2011, DNA test results awaited
(Reuters) - The identity of a 14-year-old boy who told Kentucky police he is Timmothy Pitzen, who disappeared in 2011 just before his mother committed suicide, was expected to become clear on Thursday following a DNA test, according to local media reports.
Pitzen went missing eight years ago at the age of six, after his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, pulled him out of his suburban Chicago school and took him on a trip to a zoo and a water park. She committed suicide soon afterwards in a motel room, leaving a note that local media said made his whereabouts a mystery.
“Tim is somewhere safe with people who love him and will care for him,” she wrote in the note, according to reports by ABC7 Chicago. “You will never find him.”
Her words rang true until Wednesday, when a woman in Newport, Kentucky, found a teenager wandering lost and scared. The boy said he had been held captive for seven years by two white men he descried as “body-builder types,” until he escaped and ran across a bridge from Ohio into Kentucky. He said his name was Timmothy.
That kicked off a review in Aurora, Illinois, where police still had an open missing-persons file on the boy. On Thursday, Aurora police were awaiting results of a DNA test to confirm if the 14-year-old was the missing boy, CBS Chicago reported, citing police officials.
“Our primary focus here is in assisting the FBI in their investigation, and provide information from our missing person case involving Timmothy Pitzen, should this prove to be him,” Aurora Police said in a statement on Facebook.
The statement did not confirm that a DNA test was underway, and police officials did not return calls seeking comment.
The FBI’s Louisville, Kentucky, office confirmed only that it was working with local officials on a missing child investigation.
After discovering the boy on Wednesday, authorities in Newport, Kentucky, sent numerous requests to local police agencies to search motels for the alleged kidnappers.
Police chief, Steve Vanover, in Sharonville, Ohio, told Reuters on Wednesday that Kentucky officials had described the teen’s harrowing account of how he escaped his kidnappers.
The boy said the men were “body-builder types” who drove a Ford SUV and were staying at a Red Roof Inn, Kentucky detectives said in their request.
Reporting by Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Scott Malone and Bernadette Baum
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