Where is Timmothy Pitzen? He was 6 years old back in 2011, when his mother Amy Fry-Pitzen apparently committed suicide in an Illinois motel room and left behind a note saying her son was in safe hands. “You will never find him,” she allegedly wrote. The boy’s whereabouts have remained a mystery ever since. That is still the case after a tumultuous, confusing couple of days.
On Wednesday, FBI officials said they were working with local cops in a missing child investigation after a young boy who said he crossed a bridge from Cincinnati, Ohio into Newport, Kentucky claimed to be Timmothy Pitzen. Witnesses said he had bruises and scuff marks on his face.
According to The New York Times, this person claimed that he was Timmothy Pitzen, and that two kidnappers held him captive for seven years. He described the suspects as two men, the Sharonville Police Department said. One, he said, had curly black hair, a Mountain Dew shirt and jeans, and a spider web tattoo on his neck. The other, he said, was short and had a snake tattoo on his arms. He even described their SUV in detail, saying it had Wisconsin license plates. He also claimed they were staying at a Red Roof Inn, but he didn’t know where.
The FBI now confirms that whoever this boy is, he’s not Pitzen.
Jim Pitzen, Timmothy’s father, told PEOPLE in 2015 that his wife suffered from depression. Despite acknowledging that this caused problems in their marriage, he doubted Fry-Pitzen would’ve gone so far as to hurt their son.
“She loved that little guy so much,” he said. “I can’t see her killing him. I just can’t.”
[Image via National Center for Missing and Exploited Children]