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HOLDING OUT HOPE
Timmothy Pitzen’s grandmother believes he’s alive and living in a Mormon commune after mom’s suicide note left ‘clue’
Amy Pitzen wanted her son to be raised Mormon, something his dad wanted nothing to do with, family say
TIMMOTHY Pitzen's grandmother is convinced the missing boy is alive and possibly living in a remote Mormon commune – with his mom's parting words giving her cause to believe he's still out there somewhere.
Six-year-old Timmothy was last seen alive holding the hand of his mom, Amy Fry-Pitzen, as the pair checked out of a waterpark hotel resort in the Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin, on May 13, 2011.
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Two days earlier, Amy had taken Timmothy out of school early in Aurora, Illinois, telling administrators there had been a family emergency before embarking on a spontaneous road trip, visiting zoos and waterparks across state lines.
Though it appeared that Amy, 43, had been plotting the trip for some time, it came as a surprise to Timmothy's dad, Jim Pitzen, who arrived to collect his son from school on the afternoon of May 11, 2011, only to be told Amy had collected him hours ago.
Jim Pitzen would never see or speak to his wife and son again.
Forty-eight hours of silence from Amy was finally broken on the afternoon of May 13 when she called her mom, and Jim's brother, informing them both she'd be home soon.
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Timmothy was heard chattering in the background of the calls and spoke over the receiver at one stage.
"What, don't you trust me?" Amy told Jim's brother during their call. "Timmothy belongs to me [...] I'm not going to hurt myself. I'm not going to hurt Tim."
Moments later, Amy's phone would be turned off for the last time.
She would be found dead in a motel room in Rockford the following day having killed herself with an overdose of prescription medication and deep razor cuts to her wrists.
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There was no sign of Timmothy.
In a brief suicide note, Amy claimed to have given him away to somebody who loves him and would look after him – but crucially warned he'd never be found.
Mystery of missing Timmothy Pitzen deepens as family reveals why they think he's alive after boy vanished in 2011 aged 6
Thirteen years on, virtually no traces of Timmothy have been recovered.
The boy's paternal grandmother, Linda Pitzen, told The U.S. Sun she has tortured herself trying to decipher Amy's cryptic parting words and understand what she may have been thinking during her final moments of life.
Like the rest of her family, Linda is certain Amy never would have hurt Timmothy, and she believes Amy was telling the truth when she said she'd given the boy away.
Why she decided to give the boy away, Linda can't be sure, but she believes it may have had something to do with her Mormon beliefs.
"I think she wanted Timm to be raised Mormon," said Linda.
"The rest of us aren't Mormon and I think this was her way of making sure he was after she'd gone.
"She never pushed it on anyone apart from Jim. But he was reluctant and I think her church may have been pushing her a little, I don't know.
"But she went to a Mormon church. She wasn't raised that way, she was a convert – and that was before Jim had met her."
MORMON INFLUENCE?
Earlier this month, The U.S. Sun published an exclusive interview with one of Timmothy's classmates, Hannah Soukup, who has conducted her own investigation into the boy's whereabouts.
Soukup said she believes Timmothy is being held in a remote religious commune with limited access to the internet and the outside world.
"I still think about Timmothy a lot and what happened to him, and with Amy, there were a lot of unexplained visits to certain places," Soukup said.
"I believe she dropped him off somewhere – I don't know if it was in a religious area, or something like that – but I think she dropped him off and gave him to people she knew would keep him safe and hidden.
"And I think she made it clear that either his identity had to be changed or that he had to stay away from the internet so he'd never know he was missing."
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The last cellphone ping from Amy's phone registered in Sterling, a small rural town about 80 miles west of Aurora, before she switched off her phone for good on May 13.
Records from Amy's I-Pass would later reveal that she made two prior trips to Sterling in February and March 2011, puzzling family members who were none the wiser about the trips and unaware of any connections she had to the area.
Where she headed after Sterling remains a mystery.
Forensic analysis of plants and sediment found beneath Amy's car revealed she had stopped somewhere in northwest Illinois, likely near a body of water, before driving back to Rockford alone. A specific location has still not been determined.
Linda Pitzen said she has long shared the same theory espoused by Soukup.
"It's entirely possible. And it would explain a lot," said Linda of the idea Amy left her son at a Mormon commune.
"I’ve agreed with that theory from the beginning. I read that suicide note, and if you read that note and you know her, I would guess she probably gave somebody to live in a compound.
"I have to hope that's true because it'd be a lot better option for me to deal with, as opposed to what the other options are."
SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS
Questions and conspiracy have continued to swirl around the meaning of Amy's suicide note and mysterious visits to Sterling for years.
Had Amy found someone to illegally adopt Timmothy? Or was she lying and had she done something to the boy she never wanted anyone to find out about?
Police have explored both theories extensively, but are no closer to proving either hypothesis.
I think she wanted Timm to be raised Mormon. The rest of us aren't Mormon and I think this was her way of making sure he was after she'd gone
Linda Pitzen
Amy had survived two prior suicide attempts and was taking medication for depression before Timmothy disappeared.
She and Jim were also enduring a turbulent time in their marriage.
Jim stated his intention to divorce Amy, who had been married three times before.
Friends and family have previously speculated that Amy's behavior was rooted in fear that her history of mental illness could prevent her from getting custody of Timmothy if she and Jim divorced.
With the power of hindsight, Linda said she believes Amy was in need of serious psychiatric intervention, but she was so adept at making people think she was fine that it was almost impossible to know just how desperately she was struggling.
"I fight myself on the question of 'what was going through her mind' all the time," shared Linda.
"But I can honestly say she was very nice to me. I loved her like a daughter. It's been very hard to deal with all that stuff and see the hurt that everybody has now.
"I think with the multiple marriages she was trying to find something happy and I think Tim did that for her until he started growing up and becoming more independent, and then the depression came back.
"Maybe if she’d got the right treatment this might not have happened. But at the same time, treatment doesn’t always work. It’s one of those things."
Linda added, "But she always put Timm first. I think she was searching for answers in herself and wasn’t able to find what she was looking for."
Timmothy's Disapperance: A Timeline
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.
'I WANT TO HUG HIM'
The Aurora Police Department has previously admitted it had very few leads to go on in their initial search for Timmothy, causing the trail of their investigation to go cold within a few short months.
Timmothy's aunt, Jen West, previously told The U.S. Sun the failure to establish a concrete location to begin looking for the boy remains the biggest hindrance in the case 13 years on.
Jen said she'd love to be out organizing searches for Timmothy but her family has never known where to start.
"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.
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In a statement to The U.S. Sun last week, Aurora PD said its officers remain committed to solving the case.
"The 13-year investigation into the disappearance of Timmothy Pitzen remains an active investigation," wrote Lieutenant Joseph Howe.
"Over the years, the department has received and investigated several tips and theories from the community. Unfortunately, none of those have resulted in Timmothy being located.
"The case is assigned to an APD investigator who continues to review the case to ensure all leads have been pursued and all evidence has been properly evaluated."
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also helps the Aurora Police Department sift through leads and investigate any potential sightings.
This year, the organization released a new computer-generated image showing what Timmothy might look like today at 19.
Seeing the image stirred deep emotions for Linda.
"I like the fact that he's got reddish brown hair because he had reddish brown hair and he had like he had light freckles. So I like that a lot," she said.
"He's handsome. Very handsome.
"I would love to hug him but I don’t know if that’ll ever happen.
"There’s 13 years that have passed, and those would’ve been very formative years," added Linda.
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"But there’s a lot left if we could just find him.
"Or if he can find us."