TIMMOTHY Pitzen's aunt says the failure to establish a concrete location to start searching for her missing nephew remains the biggest hurdle in the hunt to find him 13 years on.
The last known sighting of Timmothy Pitzen came on May 13, 2011, when the six-year-old was seen on surveillance camera checking out of a hotel in the Wisconsin Dells with his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen.
For two days, the mother and son had embarked on a spontaneous road trip in and around Illinois, touring zoos and water parks, as Amy fielded calls from concerned relatives trying desperately to find them.
The trip had been planned and executed without the knowledge or permission of Timmothy's dad, Jim Pitzen, with whom Amy was enduring marital troubles.
Jim immediately became concerned when he arrived to pick his son up from school in Aurora, Illinois on May 11, only to be told by administrators his mom had collected him earlier that morning, citing an unspecified family emergency.
Within 24 hours of the last sighting of Timmothy in Wisconsin, Amy would be found dead in a motel room in Rockford having taken her own life with an overdose of prescription pills and razor cuts to her wrists.
Left behind in her threadbare, $40 per-night motel room, was a five-line suicide note, warning she'd given Timmothy away to someone who loves him, that he was safe, but crucially he'd never be found.
A desperate search was launched for the boy, but the investigative trail grew cold quickly with authorities left with very little evidence to go off.
Up until checking out of the hotel in the Wisconsin Dells, Amy's trip seemed to have been plotted with purpose.
Through cell phone and iPass records, detectives determined that on May 11 and May 12, Amy mostly took main roads, chose logical point-to-point routes, and made good time in the process.
But on May 13, after leaving the hotel and contacting family members for the first and last time since leaving, Amy's trip seemed to veer from logic.
She called home while driving south on Interstate 39 and west on Interstate 88 along the Rock River toward Sterling, a small rural town, around 80 miles west of Aurora.
Timmothy was heard in the background of the calls and at one point spoke on the line himself.
Amy drove along the route for 170 miles before switching off her phone for good at roughly 1:30pm, just north of Sterling.
The 42-year-old had no known connections to the area but had twice visited Sterling earlier that year – without her family knowing.
Amy would re-emerge more than seven hours later, 50 miles away from where she switched her phone off, at a supermarket in Winnebago. Crucially, there was no sign of Timmothy.
Police believe she handed Timmothy off – or worse – during the time between her last phone call and her appearance at the supermarket, leaving several hours and hundreds of miles unaccounted for.
Timmothy's aunt, Jen West, told The U.S. Sun that she'd love to be out organizing searches for Timmothy, but her family has never really known where to begin looking.
"You have to have a place to start and I don't think we have that," she said. "I don't think we ever have."
Hundreds of officers, a canine team, and a search plane had descended on Sterling in the aftermath of his disappearance but came up empty-handed.
Law enforcement admitted at the time that the search was a drop in the ocean and investigators lacked concrete evidence to help narrow the scale of their hunt.
Forensic analysis of plants and sediment recovered from beneath Amy's car would later determine she had stopped somewhere in northwest Illinois, likely near a body of water, before driving back to Rockford alone.
I think [Amy] was very smart with what she planned, and planned it for a long time.
Jen West
But, still, nothing came of the lead.
In more recent years, the case has been taken over by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who help the Aurora Police Department sift through leads and investigate any potential sightings.
"They do a very good job following up on things, doing age progression pictures, and putting out posters," said Jen of the organization.
"But again, it all comes back to having someplace to start, having somewhere to go where you can start talking to people – literally anything.
"It's a hard situation for them and us because I could send 500,000 flyers out across the US but if they don't hit the right person, or the one person was out of town, then it's never going to lead anywhere."
Like all of Timmothy's relatives on both sides of the family, Jen said she remains optimistic he's still alive somewhere, and one day the family will have the answers they've spent the last 13 years seeking.
And contrary to Amy's pledge that Timmothy will never be found, Jen and her family are determined to prove her wrong.
She believes even the smallest shred of new evidence being uncovered could finally blow the case wide open.
"I'm a very positive person, and so I always take to positive approach of someday, he'll be here when the time's right," Jen said.
"I think [Amy] was very smart with what she planned, and planned it for a long time [...] we haven't had any super solid leads of any sort in the 13 years, so she did a good job with what she planned out, unfortunately."
There have been a handful of reported sightings of Timmothy over the last decade but none have proved fruitful.
The first promising lead came in December 2011, when a boy matching Timmothy's description was spotted in a Denny' s in North Aurora.
However, when police tracked down the car in which the boy was seen, it turned out the boy in question was the son of the car owner and not Timmothy.
Around the same time, someone also filed a report claiming to have seen Timmothy in Massachusetts – but again the lead was a dead-end.
One of the most promising tips came in 2014 when a woman in Rockton, Illinois, contacted police to say a boy resembling Timmothy had been at her garage sale.
She made the connection after the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children released an age-progression image showing what Timmothy would have looked like at the age of 9.
The boy at the center of that claim was never tracked down and it remains unclear if he was Timmothy.
Jen said she can remember another promising sighting that was made at a local fast-food restaurant when Timmothy would've been 9 or 10.
Someone was sitting next to a table of children and believed they had spotted Timmothy among the group.
However, the reporter of the tip waited two days before calling authorities.
"We are in a society of 'you didn't see anything, just keep it moving and worry about yourself', and sometimes that's great, but, when it comes to something like this, you can't wait to report it," said Jen.
"It could be the difference to be finding him and not. And two days later, he could be anywhere.
"So I always tell people, even if you're not sure, just call it in right away. You always have the opportunity to say I'm sorry after, that you thought it was a missing child and you were doing the right thing.
"Because those two days could make all the difference."
To her understanding, Jen said her brother Jim is in regular contact with the National Center for Missing Children, who will periodically send him images of potential sightings of Timmothy for him to investigate.
Besides that, Jen is unaware of any new concrete leads in the case.
I really hope Timmothy is happy wherever he is, and I'd love for him to be a part of our family again, whoever he is.
Jen West
The Aurora Police Department has not yet returned a request for comment seeking an update on the status of their investigation.
In the meantime, Jen has developed her own theories about what she believes happened to her beloved, intelligent, and larger-than-life nephew.
She and all other family members of Timmothy have said repeatedly and unanimously over the years that Amy was a doting mother who would simply be incapable of hurting the boy.
With that in mind, Jen takes Amy's parting letter at face value and believes she handed the boy over to another family in an illegal adoption she'd spent months planning.
In part, Amy's suicide note read, "Some people leave notes and some don't. I couldn't decide, so this is my version.
"Tim is somewhere safe with people who love him and will take care of him. You will never find him.
"To whoever finds me, sorry about the mess."
May 11, 2011: Timmothy's mom, Amy Fry-Pitzen, picked him up from school at Greenman Elementary in Aurora, Illinois, at around 8:15 pm citing an unspecified family emergency.
The boy's dad, Jim Pitzen, appeared at the school to pick him up at the end of the day and was confused when he was told by administrators Timmothy had been collected by Amy that morning.
Calls and texts to Amy's phone went unanswered and Jim began to panic.
In the meantime, Timmothy and his mom went to Brookfield Zoo and later headed to Key Lime Resort in Gurnee, a hotel and waterpark.
May 12, 2011: Amy and Timmothy went to the Wisconsin Dells and the pair checked into the Kalahari Resort, stopping to buy clothes and other items along the way.
Jim reported Timmothy missing to police in Aurora after failing to make contact with Amy for almost 24 hours.
Police did not issue an Amber Alert because Amy hadn't yet committed a crime and Timmothy wasn't suspected of being in danger.
May 13, 2011: Amy and Timmothy are captured together on surveillance video for the last time, checking out of the Kalahari resort.
While driving towards Sterling, Amy contacted various family members but not her husband. She assured them Timmothy was fine and nothing appeared odd in her behavior, those contacted would later tell police. The boy was heard in the background of the call and on at least one occasion spoke on the line.
Amy then turned her cellphone off after driving 170 miles along the Rock River and her movements for the next several hours remain a total mystery 13 years on.
She finally re-emerged several hours later, alone, at a grocery store in Winnebago near Rockford at 8 pm, where she stopped to buy supplies that would be used to craft her cryptic suicide note.
May 14, 2011: Amy is found dead in a hotel room at the Rockford Inn by a maid just after 12:30 pm. She left behind a suicide note apologizing for the mess and warning that Timmothy was safe but would never be found.
The boy's beloved Spider-Man backpack was missing from the room, along with a handful of his belongings.
May 19, 2011: More than 70 volunteers begin searching for Timmothy in the Sterling and Rock Falls area but come up empty-handed.
June 14, 2011: Police conceded they have very little evidence to go on in their search for Timmothy and began examining dirt found beneath Amy's car.
August 11, 2011: Police confirm a small amount of Timmothy's blood was found in Amy's SUV but state it could've been the result of a bloody nose.
December 28, 2011: A sighting of Timmothy in a car was reported at a Denny's in North Aurora but the report turned out to be false.
Another tip earlier in the month also falsely claimed the boy had been spotted in Massachusetts.
Aurora police said they fielded dozens of possible sightings, all of which were false and most were easily dismissed.
April 3, 2019: A boy wandering the streets alone in Newport, Kentucky, claimed to a passerby he'd just escaped his two captors and he was Timmothy Pitzen who vanished from Illinois eight years earlier.
Police were called but the boy turned out to be a mentally ill hoaxer named Brian Rini who had recently watched a documentary about the case and decided to impersonate him.
Jen believes Timmothy may be being held in a remote location with limited access to the internet, on a commune, or something of the like.
Alternatively, she believes her nephew may have been fed so many lies over the years that he no longer remembers who he really is, and he may be leading a completely normal life under a new alias.
Detailing her theory, she shared, "I really think she told a story to a group of people that was very believable, either that she was dying or that her husband was abusive, or just some other wackadoodle thing that sounded very real.
"And then she gave him to somebody who thinks they were protecting him from us for some reason [...] and he was just six years old, and when you're told something enough times at that age you're going to start believing it.
"But he'll still have repressed memories [...] and I've always thought that maybe something would happen, maybe a memory would pop up and start a chain reaction in his mind to help him realize who he is.
"And that could still happen."
Jen said her confidence that Timmothy is alive far outweighs her optimism that he will be found.
That, Jen remains unsure of.
But weighing what she would say to anyone holding her nephew captive, Jen shared, "I could go a lot of ways with that and it depends on what happened.
"Best case scenario, they didn't know who they were dealing with and they believed they were helping him. I don't know if I'd be angry or not at that, I'm not sure.
"There's a lot of possibilities that I can't even fathom, and I would love to believe they've taken good care of him and raised him very wonderfully and loved him, but I'm not sure what's happening."
Jen added, "There's a million things that could've happened, someone could've taken him and handed him to someone else who handed him to someone else, and that person just thinks they just adopted a six-year-old whose parents passed away.
"Or it could be someone who believes he was better off without us and that makes me mad."
Above all else, Jen just hopes her nephew is safe and happy.
"I'd love for him to be a part of our family again, whoever he is [now]," Jen said.
If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised in this story, call or text the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text Crisis Text Line at 741741.
