Kid missing since 2012 shows up as 14-YO teen in Kentucky

[C-Man 27417]

What a crazy story. Kid disappears eight years ago with mother, who kills herself after writing note saying the kid is safe and "you'll never find him." Teenager turns up in Kentucky saying he's the missing kid who has escaped and just wants to go home. Waiting on DNA evidence to prove he's who he says he is.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/04/04/teen-says-he-escaped-captors-he-claims-hes-boy-that-vanished-years-ago/?utm_term=.afdeb04413ab

Quote

The teenager seemed agitated, his face buried under the hood of a sweatshirt, his nervous steps shuffling along the sidewalk. It was early Wednesday morning on a street corner in Newport, Ky. The boy paced more, seemingly fixed on no destination, passing red-brick buildings and houses, the Cincinnati skyline stretched across the horizon to the north.

As Crekasafra Night later told WCPO, when she pulled her car up to the stranger around 8 a.m., the local resident realized the hood hid an anxious face marked by bruises. “Can you help me?” the skinny young man said. “I just want to get home. Please help me.”

Night asked the teen what was going on. He replied he had “been kidnapped and he’s been traded through all these people and he just wanted to go home,” Night explained. According to a police report, the boy later said he had escaped his captors — two men — at a nearby motel in Ohio, bolting for safety over a bridge connecting Cincinnati to Kentucky.

When he later told authorities his name, it would kick law enforcement authorities across the country into action. He said he was Timmothy Pitzen.

In May 2011, 6-year-old Timmothy was last seen leaving his elementary school in Aurora, Ill., with his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen. Three days later, she was found dead in a motel room from an apparent suicide. The boy and his Spider-Man backpack were gone. The 43-year-old mother left behind several cryptic notes about her son’s whereabouts and unanswered questions that have haunted family members and authorities with each passing year.

As national attention fixed on the case, police continued their search. Each clue, however, only seemed to sink the disappearance into more confusion.

Now, nearly eight years after Timmothy was last seen, the 14-year-old found Wednesday in Kentucky says he’s the same boy whose family back in Illinois has been waiting for his return. The Chicago Tribune reported thatdetectives from Aurora left for Ohio on Wednesday. DNA testing will reportedly be conducted within the next 24 hours to settle one of the most confounding child disappearances in recent history.

“We have no idea if this is Timmothy Pitzen,” Aurora Police Sgt. Bill Rowley told the Tribune. “We don’t know if it’s a hoax. Obviously, everyone’s hopeful, but we have to be super judicious.”

The Aurora Police Department said it still had not confirmed the teen’s identity as of Thursday afternoon, but federal and local law enforcement agencies were racing to determine whether the teen’s story was true — and to locate the men he described.

The FBI’s Louisville office, which is leading the investigation, said that “there will be no further statement made on this matter until we have additional information.”

[She fled a ‘Jewish Taliban’ sect with her children. Then kidnappers tracked them down.]

Timmothy’s grandmother, Alana Anderson, said she was “cautiously optimistic” after hearing the unexpected news.

“We never stopped looking for him. We are thinking about him, and we love him,” she told Chicago’s ABC affiliate on Wednesday. “We will do everything to get him back to a good life.”

Timmothy’s aunt, Kara Jacobs, echoed the message, telling NBC Chicago: “We’ve always felt strongly this day would come.”

The Washington Post was unable to reach Anderson and Jacobs for comment Thursday.

Timmothy Pitzen went #MISSING from Aurora, IL on May 12, 2011.

Timmothy's aunt Kara still has #Hope that he'll return home one day. Watch & Share 💛 pic.twitter.com/MFMSpwBIaF

— NCMEC (@MissingKids) September 5, 2018

Alarm bells went off for Jim Pitzen on May 11, 2011, when he went to pick up his giddy, gregarious 6-year-old son from Greenman Elementary School in Aurora, a suburb about 40 miles west of Chicago.

“Well, he’s not here,” Timmothy’s teacher told Jim when he arrived at the school that afternoon, the father later recounted for MyStateline in 2017.

“What do you mean he’s not here?” the father replied.

“Well, he got picked up around 8:10 or 8:15 in the morning,” the teacher responded. Timmothy’s mother, Amy, had taken her son from the school for a family emergency, Jim learned.

The couple was going through a trouble spot in their relationship. Amy had struggled with depression for a number of years, and she had survived at least one previous suicide attempt, according to “Crime Watch Daily,” an investigative national television show. When Jim’s calls kicked over to his wife’s voice mail, he tried to put the situation in the best light.

“I’m like, ‘Okay, she’s upset with me for some reason, she needs some time to calm down,’” Jim told “Crime Watch Daily.” “I figured everything would be fine and we’d be one big happy family again.”

When Amy didn’t make contact with her husband the next day, Jim called police.

[A dad was awakened by his toddler’s crying. He found a stranger holding her in the living room.]

As “Crime Watch Daily” reported, security footage recovered by police would lay out Amy and Timmothy’s wandering movements over the next days in snapshots: footage of the mother leading her son out of school by his hand on the day they disappeared; footage of the two at the nearby Brookfield Zoo, then 40 miles north at the KeyLime Cove resort in Gurnee, Ill.; footage of Amy and Timmothy 160 miles northwest checking into a Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells, Wis.; footage of Amy 120 miles south in Rockford, Ill., walking into a grocery store — alone.

On May 14, Amy was discovered dead in her room at a Rockford motel. She had slashed her wrists and also swallowed a fatal amount of antihistamines. Timmothy, however, was gone.

Amy left behind suicide notes: one in the room where she died, two others mailed to family and a friend. The notes said she had given her son away and that he would never be found, CBS Chicago reported.

“I’ve taken him somewhere safe,” a portion of one of the notes read, according to “Crime Watch Daily.” “He will be well cared for and he says that he loves you. Please know that there is nothing you could have said or done that would have changed my mind.”

Amy’s cellphone was also missing.

In the early days of the investigation, authorities learned Amy had taken two trips before her death to the area where she later killed herself. Police said the excursions may have indicated she had planned her son’s disappearance in advance.

An inspection of her car also revealed the vehicle had recently been on unpaved roads. Searches, however, turned up nothing.

In 2013, Amy’s phone was discovered on the side of a northern Illinois road. But data from the device did not point in any new directions.

“I always wonder what she told Timmothy,” Jim told People in 2015. “Why hasn’t he tried to call? We taught him how to dial 911. 'This is your number, this is your mom’s number, you know where you live, your address,’ all the stuff you do.”

The father continued: “He’s not with his mom. He’s not with his dad. Who are these people he’s with? And how do they know him?”

Some of the information made public since Timmothy’s possible reappearance Wednesday may begin to fill in those answers.

According to a police report released Wednesday by authorities in Sharonville, Ohio, one of the departments that helped search for the alleged kidnappers, the 14-year-old said he had been held by two men for seven years.

He described the men as white, with “body-builder type” physiques, according to the report. One man was described as having black curly hair, a Mountain Dew T-shirt and a spider-web tattoo across his neck. The second man is short, with a snake tattoo on his arm, the report said.

[She was abducted from a hospital as a newborn. 18 years later, she met her birth parents.]

The 14-year-old also told authorities he had been held captive by the men in a Red Roof Inn before escaping on foot. He told police the men were driving a white Ford SUV with Wisconsin plates.

According to WCPO, authorities have searched multiple locations of the motel chain in the Cincinnati and northern Kentucky region.

The FBI continues to work with local law enforcement. So far, at least one additional detail seems to link the 14-year-old discovered in Kentucky with the 6-year-old who went missing in Illinois.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reported that the teenager told authorities he was born Oct. 18, 2004 — the same birthday as Timmothy’s.

 

[Sbbruin 21943]

Yeah, what a crazy fucking story. What a fucked up mom.  I shudder to think what this kid has been through.

[Dennis Taylor 19107]

Horrible freaking story. If that's the kid hopefully family can get him back and try to get some sort of normal life back for him. 

[Pato del Muerto 52995]

Why tell the press about this before confirming the identity?

also it lets the guys know they are being hunted instead of wondering. 

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

My BS detector is going off on his description of his 7 year captors.  Sounds like comic book bad guys a young teen would make up.  And after 7 years, I feel like he'd have overheard a name at some point.

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

Why was the mom not content to leave him with the family? Crazy or not, she had a reason. What was it?

[Pato del Muerto 52995]

maybe franz grew his hair out

[C-Man 27417]

17 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Why tell the press about this before confirming the identity?

also it lets the guys know they are being hunted instead of wondering. 

I would assume the minute they realize the kid's gone they better get the fuck outta Dodge.

10 minutes ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

My BS detector is going off on his description of his 7 year captors.  Sounds like comic book bad guys a young teen would make up.  And after 7 years, I feel like he'd have overheard a name at some point.

I really hope this isn't some twisted teenager's idea of a joke -- and he's legitimately the kid that went missing. (Teens have done worse.)

8 minutes ago, Walden Ponderer said:

Why was the mom not content to leave him with the family? Crazy or not, she had a reason. What was it?

Will never understand this. You want to check out? OK. Don't take anybody with you and don't do this to an innocent child.

[Gene Parmesan 4030]

15 minutes ago, Walden Ponderer said:

Why was the mom not content to leave him with the family? Crazy or not, she had a reason. What was it?

Same reason that leads to murder suicide scenarios I presume. 

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

6 minutes ago, C-Man said:

I really hope this isn't some twisted teenager's idea of a joke -- and he's legitimately the kid that went missing. (Teens have done worse.)

I can see it being both.  He is really that kid, but because of a Stockholm syndrome or something, he's lying about who were his captors.

 

[El Diablo 4232]

19 minutes ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

My BS detector is going off on his description of his 7 year captors.  Sounds like comic book bad guys a young teen would make up.  And after 7 years, I feel like he'd have overheard a name at some point.

Do we really know if that was the kids description or was it something someone reported as being the kids description? Because yeah, that sounds goofy as shit.

[Skipper 6340]

There was some terrible network TV show a few years back my wife made me watch with this premise.  It was only 1 season but the premise was a kid was kidnapped about that age then ran away and was "found" 8 or so years later but it actually wasn't the same kid.   

[Pato del Muerto 52995]

[Hank Scorpio 17855]

2 minutes ago, Skipper said:

There was some terrible network TV show a few years back my wife made me watch with this premise.  It was only 1 season but the premise was a kid was kidnapped about that age then ran away and was "found" 8 or so years later but it actually wasn't the same kid.   

That show is being rebooted and this whole thing is just viral marketing. 

[Helobious 9516]

43 minutes ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

My BS detector is going off on his description of his 7 year captors.  Sounds like comic book bad guys a young teen would make up.  And after 7 years, I feel like he'd have overheard a name at some point.

He said he’s been traded through a bunch of people over the years, these two were allegedly just his most recent captors.

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

1 hour ago, C-Man said:

the 14-year-old said he had been held by two men for seven years.

 

[hayden_horn 11374]

52 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Why tell the press about this before confirming the identity?

also it lets the guys know they are being hunted instead of wondering. 

well, i think it has to do with the citizens involved that found the kid, and trying to get ahead of the story a bit.

[Al_4_ISU 12551]

Why do you just hold a kid in captivity for the better part of a decade?  I always assume that people who engage in this stuff are pieces of shit who are making an insane amount of money, because I can't fathom someone so fucked up that they do it for the hell of it.  There has to be some level of financial desperation (and subsequent incentive) driving this.  Right?

[Brisketexan 105789]

8 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Why do you just hold a kid in captivity for the better part of a decade?  I always assume that people who engage in this stuff are pieces of shit who are making an insane amount of money, because I can't fathom someone so fucked up that they do it for the hell of it.  There has to be some level of financial desperation (and subsequent incentive) driving this.  Right?

Dude.

Seriously.  Dude.

Imagine the sickest shit you can.  There, now you have the reason.

[gsoda3 3317]

what a crazy story if true.

[hayden_horn 11374]

10 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Why do you just hold a kid in captivity for the better part of a decade?  I always assume that people who engage in this stuff are pieces of shit who are making an insane amount of money, because I can't fathom someone so fucked up that they do it for the hell of it.  There has to be some level of financial desperation (and subsequent incentive) driving this.  Right?

 

Just now, Brisketexan said:

Dude.

Seriously.  Dude.

Imagine the sickest shit you can.  There, now you have the reason.

yeah, i started to write a post but tapped out. how do you think these guys make their money? there's your answer.

<vomit>

[Al_4_ISU 12551]

5 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Dude.

Seriously.  Dude.

Imagine the sickest shit you can.  There, now you have the reason.

I know, I know.  It's just that the story hadn't alleged anything on those lines.  I just sort of assumed that would be the first thing the escaped captive would say, and there wasn't any direct allusion to it.

Something about this story almost gives you the vibe that the mom had set the kid up to be held by someone, but not necessarily for the reasons people tend to do that.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Al_4_ISU

[clapclapclap 9000]

1 hour ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

My BS detector is going off on his description of his 7 year captors.  Sounds like comic book bad guys a young teen would make up.  And after 7 years, I feel like he'd have overheard a name at some point.

That's a curious position to take, especially since your avatar keeps blinking "SOS" in morse code.

[MrPhlegm 3413]

Dude.
Seriously.  Dude.
Imagine the sickest shit you can.  There, now you have the reason.

They were growing him up to be aggy?

EEEEEEWWWWWWWWW

[Augustus 3061]

Every.  Thread.   😂

[jimmyjazz 46535]

The fact that his face was all bruised up doesn't scream "suburban loner teen fakes kidnapping story".  Sure, he COULD have had a friend beat the hell out of him.  I'm inclined to believe this is actual kid, though.

It's also hard to believe the Mom was in on the ruse, beyond being suicidal and naive.  You don't traffic your own kid and kill yourself before making any money.

 . . . and yeah, this story is beyond sick.

[Al_4_ISU 12551]

5 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

I didn’t get that. I got the vibe that his mother became pure evil, and is the worst player in all of this. Again, she should’ve killed herself no less than 15 years ago. 

That people exist in this world to do whatever with kids is about the sickest thing out there. It makes my blood boil. 

There's no doubt that the mother is evil (sick/whatever).  I took it less as the mom selling him into sex slavery, and more being so fucking crazy that she had planned to off herself, didn't want him with the dad (and extended family) and tried to line up some other arrangement.

Regardless of intent, to do something so reckless with a child is unforgivable.

Occam's Razor would say he's been in a trafficking ring, but the story didn't full go there yet.

[Wally Fairway 5610]

Here's to hoping that it is the kid that he claims to be.

And unbelievable stories like this also continue to give hope (likely false hope) to other families who have had children disappear.
There was a story like that near here - 3 sons disappeared while with their father November 2010

Here is a story when he was sentence (in 2011)
https://www.mlive.com/news/2011/09/john_skelton_father_of_3_missi.html

And a prison interview from 2018)
https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/michigan/father-of-missing-michigan-skelton-brothers-stands-by-claims-he-sent-boys-to-new-family

[Chad Fuck 17915]

3 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

There's no doubt that the mother is evil (sick/whatever).  I took it less as the mom selling him into sex slavery, and more being so fucking crazy that she had planned to off herself, didn't want him with the dad (and extended family) and tried to line up some other arrangement.

Regardless of intent, to do something so reckless with a child is unforgivable.

Occam's Razor would say he's been in a trafficking ring, but the story didn't full go there yet.

Mentally ill person decides to off herself, and make sure the kid is "safely set up."  How many straight people do you think a mentally ill person is going to have around to make such an arrangement?  She gives kid to someone who sees an opportunity, offs herself, opportunist takes advantage.  Simple and infinitely sad.

[South Austin 52772]

1 hour ago, Dr. Beeper said:

That kid will never be normal. Never. 

So he’d make a great Surly poster.

[Al_4_ISU 12551]

10 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

Mentally ill person decides to off herself, and make sure the kid is "safely set up."  How many straight people do you think a mentally ill person is going to have around to make such an arrangement?  She gives kid to someone who sees an opportunity, offs herself, opportunist takes advantage.  Simple and infinitely sad.

Obviously none.

I assume a kidnapper is either a trafficker, or someone holding for ransom and the story didn't really allege either.  It's probably a trafficking situation unfortunately.

[Chad Fuck 17915]

2 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

Obviously none.

I assume a kidnapper is either a trafficker, or someone holding for ransom and the story didn't really allege either.  It's probably a trafficking situation unfortunately.

My guess is they're saying nothing like that because they don't want to publicly broadcast the damage to a minor.

[ztejas 43787]

When does the Netflix miniseries come out?

[Al_4_ISU 12551]

19 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

That would make for a terrible series. Nobody wants to watch this. I have 3 kids around his age when first kidnapped.  Anyone involved in this trade should be killed. It defies logic why anyone is involved in this. 

I'm not sure who disgusts me more:  the sick fucks that fuck kids, or the sick fucks who provide them the cannon fodder.  Fuck them all.

Edited April 4, 2019 by Al_4_ISU

[Seasick Sailor 3747]

 

[Al_4_ISU 12551]

19 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

They should all die. 

I'm generally anti-death penalty, but I'm good with it here.  Slow torture would be the best bet.

[CDAK 216]

So why is this kid claiming to be the missing kid?  Super weird all around.

[SimonBolivar 10963]

3 minutes ago, Seasick Sailor said:

 

In the least shocking news of the day...

[Parliament 14416]

April Fools joke gone awry?

[C-Man 27417]

5 minutes ago, CDAK said:

So why is this kid claiming to be the missing kid?  Super weird all around.

Some fucking asshole teenager taking a piss

[Cheeseweasel 26438]

Just now, C-Man said:

Some fucking asshole teenager taking a piss

He's going to get the shit kicked out of him by the local cops. 

Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But his day will come.

[bschoolprof 6281]

sounded hoaxy from the jump.  

[ztejas 43787]

1 hour ago, Dr. Beeper said:

That would make for a terrible series. Nobody wants to watch this. I have 3 kids around his age when first kidnapped.  Anyone involved in this trade should be killed. It defies logic why anyone is involved in this. 

They have a series where they interview death row murderers. 

I think you're underestimating the awful shit people will sit down and watch. 

[El Diablo 4232]

Reminds me of the time a buddy of mine got caught by the cops burglarizing a rural high school. They chased him thru a field and finally tackled him. They asked his name and his answer? "Todd. Todd Rundgren". He said they called him Todd for quite a while until someone showed up who knew something about music at the time.

[ztejas 43787]

2 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

Death row inmates is markedly different than getting a child actor to portray the abuses faced whilst being trafficked. 

Some series that are “grittier” will show trafficking as a sidebar, and when kids are involved, even those minor arcs are difficult to watch. Usually it’s a sex traffic ring depicted with adult women. This would never fly. 

First of all I was kidding. 

But yeah, you're right. It would never fly. 

 

(except it totally would)

 

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

Duck this kid.  Jesus Christ.  

[C-Man 27417]

Quote

(CNN)The person who was found wandering in a Kentucky neighborhood is not Timmothy Pitzen, who disappeared nearly eight years ago, the FBI said Thursday.

That individual told authorities he was the missing child from Aurora, Illinois, and described how he fled from his alleged kidnappers and ran across a bridge into Kentucky, according to a police report.

But DNA results proved he is not the missing child, the FBI's Louisville office said. The male who claimed to be Timmothy actually is 23-year-old Brian Michael Rini of Medina, Ohio, said the police chief of Newport, Kentucky.

"I just got a text from a family member that it's not him. I'm floored!" Timmothy's uncle Michael Jacobs said in an interview with CNN.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/04/us/missing-teen-timmothy-pitzen-investigation/index.html

[Paco 1934]

Crekasafra Night is obviously in on it.

[El Diablo 4232]

21 minutes ago, Paco said:

Crekasafra Night is obviously in on it.

I'm not even sure that's their real name.

[Trey3216 15382]

Maybe the dad wasn’t the ‘real dad’ unbeknownst to him