Police release new image of Aurora boy missing since 2011
Ten years ago, 6-year-old Timmothy Pitzen was unexpectedly pulled out of elementary school by his mother.
The Aurora boy has been missing ever since.
Aurora police on Tuesday marked the 10-year anniversary of Timmothy's disappearance by releasing an image of what he might look like today. The new age-progression photo, created by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, depicts Timmothy as a 16-year-old.
"We released this photo in hopes that someone might recognize Timmothy and call us," Aurora police Lt. Greg Spayth said during a brief news conference. "We are looking for solid leads and solid tips - not someone's investigative theory as to what happened to Timmothy."
Spayth acknowledged that authorities haven't had a solid tip or lead in a long time.
Timmothy was a kindergartner when his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, removed him on the morning of May 11, 2011, from Greenman Elementary School in Aurora.
She took him to Brookfield Zoo and then the former Key Lime Cove water park in Gurnee, according to police.
The next day she drove to Kalahari Resort water park in the Wisconsin Dells. She also stopped at a store in Racine, Wisconsin, to buy children's clothes and toys. They were seen on surveillance video at the resort.
That day, Timmothy's father reported the two missing.
On May 13, Fry-Pitzen called friends and relatives while in northwestern Illinois. The recipients of the calls said they heard Timmothy in the background, saying he was hungry.
That night, Fry-Pitzen checked into a motel in Rockford. She was found dead the next day. Authorities said she had killed herself.
She left a note that said: "Tim is somewhere safe with people who love him and will take care of him. You will never find him."
Her prediction that Timmothy would "never" be found continues to haunt investigators.
"It haunts everybody who works on this case because it's the unknown," Spayth said. "We don't know. Is Timmothy out there alive somewhere?"
Police determined that Timmothy's Spider-Man backpack was missing from Fry-Pitzen's car, as well as an aquatic-rig toy truck, a blue Hot Wheels toy car starter kit, a tube of children's Crest toothpaste and Fry-Pitzen's tollway I-PASS transponder and cellphone.
Police have followed up on hundreds of leads over the years. In 2019, a man in Newport, Kentucky, falsely claimed to be Pitzen after he was picked up by police. The FBI announced that DNA evidence showed it to be a 23-year-old man with a criminal record.
When asked if he believed Timmothy was still alive, Spayth said: "I believe we're going to keep going until we find him, regardless of what that means - if he's alive or if he's been deceased. We owe that to the family to continue to investigate that until we find him."
If you have information, call the center at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) or the Aurora Police Department's Timmothy Pitzen tip line at (630) 256-5516.