NEWPORT, KY — Nearly a decade ago, Timmothy Pitzen and his mother went on a road trip that included stops at a zoo and a water park. Their adventure started after Amy Fry-Pitzen checked her 6-year-old son out of an Illinois elementary school on May 11, 2011.
Three days later, the mother’s body was found in a hotel room in Rockford, Illinois. She had died by suicide, leaving behind a note that said her son was with people who love him.
“You’ll never find him,” the note said.
‘Fidgety’ boy identifies himself as Timmothy
Police and the FBI are investigating whether a teen found wandering in Kentucky on Wednesday is Timmothy.
Sharon Hall, who lives in the Newport neighborhood where he was found, told CNN she noticed a “fidgety” boy near a car. The neighbor’s daughter called the police after the boy told them he’d ran for two hours and his stomach hurt.
The boy identified himself to police as Timmothy Pitzen,14. He said he’d ran away from two men who kept him captive for seven years, most recently at a nearby Red Roof Inn, according to a police report.
While he was unsure of the hotel’s location, authorities said, it appears the boy escaped and “kept running until he ran across a bridge into” Kentucky, according to a police report obtained by CNN affiliate WCPO.
It did not say what city he’d escaped from.
He was last seen in Wisconsin
Police in the area checked all nearby Red Roof Inn hotels and did not find anything, according to the report .
The teen described his kidnappers as two men of “bodybuilder type build.” One had a spiderweb tattoo on his neck and the other had a snake tattoo on his arms, the report said.
The men drove a Ford SUV with Wisconsin plates, according to the police. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has said that the boy was last seen at a water park in Wisconsin.
The FBI and local police are investigating to determine whether the boy is Timmothy.
In a Facebook post, the Sharonville Police Department near Cincinnati said it helped check local hotels for the suspects, but reiterated that its officers had no contact with Timmothy, and the information it cited was from a dispatch log.
“All information that we obtained is from Campbell County, Kentucky.” it said.
Sharonville, Ohio, is about 20 miles from Newport, Kentucky.
The family desperately searched for years
For years, Timmothy’s family has searched for him in several states.
“I have one image. It’s the day I dropped him off at school and he’s off — running off to class — and that’s pretty much the last image I have in my mind of him,” Timmothy’s father, Jim Pitzen, told CNN in 2015.
The day before his mother killed herself, she made several calls from an unknown location to family members, including one to her mother. She assured them that Timmothy was safe.
Over the years, family members have said that the mother had a history of depression, and her marriage was failing. Her biggest fear was that a judge would take her son away because of her mental health issues, according to relatives.
Security video footage from their stops showed a relaxed and beaming mother and son on what appeared to be a fun-filled adventure.
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