I told him I loved him and to be good. But when they tracked down the car the boy had left in, it turned out he was the son of the driver. REVEALED: Parents of missing Timmothy Pitzen who vanished in 2011 without a trace had discussed divorce before his mom was found dead by suicide with a note saying the six-year-old was 'safe' We dont know, one said. The following Friday, the wake for Amy was held at her place of worship: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Sugar Grove, Illinois. On May 14, 2011, a housekeeper at the Rockford Inn in Rockford, Illinois, entered the Pitzens' room and found her body with a note. She'd been married once before, per the network,. When James returned to the school to pick Timmothy up he was told Amy withdrew him from class hours earlier. He is 24 years old. Read More:Did Deanna Burditt Marry Rick Harrison Because Of His Money? Timmothy is safe.'. Amy Fry-Pitzen made a stop at a Family Dollar store in Winnebago, Illinois, in the hours leading up to her passing, according to information obtained from the relevant authorities. They said, OK, well just take the missing persons report. Amy was dead. The unanswered question of what Amy Fry-Pitzen did with Tim has left a trail of shattered lives and baffled detectives who continue to work the case to this day. Jim remained standing there as he watched his active son race toward his kindergarten teacher while swinging his Spider-Man backpack around. If I asked whether she was taking her pills, shed yell at me: Dont ask me about that! He soon began to avoid the subject. A concerning amount of blood was discovered by police evidence technicians in the backseat of Timmothys vehicle. Among other missing items are the clothes Amy was wearing when she left the Wisconsin resort, and Timmothys Spider-Man backpack. Under the bed, police officers found the box cutter shed used to slash her wrist and neck. I-Pass records were also reviewed by the police, which revealed that Fry-Pitzen made two trips to the Dixon/Rock Falls/Sterling area during the winter months, both of which her family members cannot explain. The first trip was on February 18, 2011, and the second was on March 20. The magazine reports that Pitzens IDenticard was found in the motel room where Fry-Pitzen killed herself. he asked. She explained that all she required was a little bit of breathing room. Disappearance of an American child in 2011, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, "Woman Reports Possible Sighting of Missing Boy", "Timmothy James Pitzen The Charley Project", "Woman Found Dead In Motel, 6-Year-Old Son Missing", "Timmothy Pitzen, 6, missing after mother found dead by suicide", "Three years pass without any sign of Illinois boy", "Aurora boy Timmothy Pitzen's case haunting -- but hope persists", "Father of Timmothy Pitzen Desperate To Find His Son After 6 Years", "Timmothy Pitzen's family recalls his disappearance on 'Real Life Nightmare' TV series", "Teen tells police he is missing Illinois boy Timmothy Pitzen", "Aurora Police Travel to Cincinnati for Missing Child Case", "Teen in Cincinnati is not missing Aurora boy Timmothy Pitzen, FBI says", "Man claiming to be missing boy is actually 23 years old and from Medina, police say", "FBI says man claiming to be missing boy Timmothy Pitzen actually 23, from Medina", "What we know about Brian Rini, who claimed he was a long-missing boy", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Disappearance_of_Timmothy_Pitzen&oldid=1140859721, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 22 February 2023, at 03:32. She had cut her wrists and neck and taken an overdose of antihistamines. Over the years, he and other family members were outspoken in their hope that Timmothy would one day come home. Soon they were seeing each other regularly. In spite of the fact that Amy did not pick up the phone when Jim called, she did, however, call her mother. No answer. She would become real emotional. Who are these people hes with? But what went wrong, and why didnt Amy answer Jims calls when they were placed? I said I just want to make sure everybody gets there safe. Amy Pitzen's Suicide And The Disturbing Surveillance Footage That Surfaced Afterward On Saturday, May 14, staff at a Rockford, Illinois motel 80 miles away from Timmothy's home found Amy's lifeless body. No response. It's now been 10 years since Timmothy Pitzen vanished from Aurora, Illinois at just six years old. Amy grew up in Libertyville and graduated from Libertyville High School and Iowa State University. Timmothy Pitzen. The argument with Jim was still bugging Amy. Only a couple hours later, their wife and mother Amy Fry-Pitzen picked Timmothy up from school, saying there was a "family emergency," but that was a lie. The father had just started building the boy a treehouse out back. Jim made arrangements to arrive late to work the next day so he could drive Tim to kindergarten, then drop off Amy at work. One of the ways Amy sought to fill this hole was through motherhoodthough not initially. Long before Timmothy Pitzens disappearance, it was well known to his family that his mother suffered from bouts of deep depression and instability. After the hoax was uncovered, Pitzens family said in a statement, Unfortunately, this child is not our beloved TImmothy. She must still be angry about his objection to the trip, he thought. The mother and son checked out of the resort the next morning. Driving home from an interview for a job she would eventually land, Amy was overcome with anxiety and a sense of hopelessness. They were inseparable. Adds Kara: They almost spoke their own language., The father was equally thrilled to have a son, and as soon as the boy was old enough, he took him on go-kart rides and delighted in catering to Tims obsession with Matchbox cars. He grabs her shoulders and shakes. Kara added: 'That was definitely a worry and a concern of hers. The longer this goes, the worse it gets for everybody." Jim Pitzen isn't giving up his dream of a reunion with the son who disappeared at age 6 in 2011. We have a lot of catching up to do. The National Center of. When Fry-Pitzen died, she was on her fourth marriage, Anderson said. Amy had taken a handful of sleeping pills and tumbled 30 feet down the embankment. This was not 14-year-old Tim but an impostor: Brian Rini, a 23-year-old man with a history of psychiatric issues. Teen found wandering streets of Cincinnati. Despite this, James Pitzen vowed to support Amy despite her battles, and the two were quickly married. Both of them were captured on camera the following morning at ten oclock by a surveillance camera while they were waiting in line at the checkout counter. At the time of her death, she was working for a property management company in the Chicago area, he said. She reassured her mother that her brother and sister were safe and that they would return in a couple of days. Even after Amy landed a job with a property management company near their house, the fighting continued to escalate. [4] Fry-Pitzen failed to contact her husband, however, who had been attempting to locate the pair after being notified by his son's school that he was not present when he arrived to pick him up at the end of the school day on May 11. Jim was stunned and frightened when Amy finally called. James contacted her nearby family members, but nobody had seen or heard from her or Timmothy. He was born in Aurora on October 18th, 2004, and was an only child. Three days later, she was found dead in a hotel in Rockford and Timmothy had disappeared. The Timmothy Pitzen episode re-airs on HLN, this Sunday, December 13 at 11pm ET/PT. He learned some unsettling things about his new girlfriend. The problem was that she didnt always take them, and when she didnt, she was a different person. when he will be showing up., Amys mother, Alana Anderson, told CNN in 2015 that her son daughter gave Timmothy the extra M because she wanted his name to be a little different from Timothy. Alana added, She just adored that little boy, and he just adored her. That same year, Alana told People Magazine, You dont leave your children. Jim fathered Timmothy after he successfully battled Hodgkins lymphoma. Between that note, business surveillance cameras, receipts from the motel room, and witness accounts, detectives were able to map the twos movements from the day of their disappearance as best they could and that revealed a chilling road trip. The following week, however, Amy came home early from her job, saying she didnt feel well. Its only going to take one person to figure out that thats Tim, he says. Peter lived in month 1930, at address, Indiana. When he escaped, he ran across a bridge to Kentucky, per the network. [4] Cell phone records indicated the calls were made from an area northwest of Sterling, Illinois, near Route 40. Timmothy, who would now be 15-years-old, then disappeared without a trace after his mom appeared at the school telling educators that she needed to remove her son from class because of a 'family emergency'. You know, This job will make me happy, living here will make me happy. When her first husband introduced her to the Mormon faith, to which she would remain an adherent for the rest of her life, she thought it might be the answer. It just didnt occur to me that it could not be him. Police said the missing items may support a theory that Fry-Pitzen left Timothy with a friend or acquaintance. His mother had told her that he was shattered, holed up in his bedroom with the shades drawn to avoid the media clamor outside. The teenager told police that he was Timmothy and that he had escaped two kidnappers. Tuesday marked Timmothy Pitzen's 18th birthday, and after 11 years, his family still holds out hope that he's alive. May 18, 2011 at 9:34 pm. I went home and found a dot matrix photo of them at a Chuck E. Cheese and said, This is the best I can do off the top of my head. They said, OK, well file this, and if something else happens, well get back to you., Friday afternoon, Amy finally reached out. When Mr. Pitzen went to pick up his son from school, later on, he was taken aback by the fact that he was unaware of his wifes behavior and was surprised by it. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The arguments could be over anything. [4][5] At 11:15p.m., she checked into the Rockford Inn at Rockford, Illinois, where sometime that night or the next morning, she took her own life by slashing her wrists and neck and overdosing on antihistamines. Natonski said that he divorced Amy in 1991. I was thinking things like, Whos going to pick him up? According to the sources, Amy and her son Timothy checked into their room at the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin on May 12, 2011. People Magazine feature from October 2015, Michigan School Teachers Admit to Making Adult Movies on the Side. According to authorities, Rini, who knew the boy's full name and date of birth, described to officers how he had just escaped from two captors at a nearby motel who had been sexually assaulting him and trafficking him for nearly eight years. Timmothy lived in Aurora with his parents, James Pitzen and Amy Fry-Pitzen. Can we come in? they said. That evening, he contacted the Aurora Police Department. . ', Speaking to his son, James added: 'Timmothy, I love you. They shared a home in the state of Illinois, which is one of the states that make up the United States of America. Shed act real funny, Jim says. #CNN #News, Timmothy Pitzen case: Boy tells woman on Newport street he escaped from kidnappers, The FBI and local authorities are working to verify a boy's claim that he's a child who went missing in 2011 and he'd just escaped from a pair of kidnappers when he encountered police Wednesday morning. Big highs and lows. Love you, too, the father responded. For Kara, the news was devastating. Jim stared at him for a moment. Who is Succession star Jeremy Strong's wife? The circus atmosphere made Kara realize how sensational the story had become. Jim calmed himself and left Amy another message: Hey, Im not mad anymore. I started drinking too much. She was told the repairs would take a few hours. Thank God, he thought as he let them in; they must have found Amy and Tim. Family, friend, or fan, this family history biography is for you to remember James F Pitzen. According to the agency, Timmothys mother, Amy Pitzen, picked up the six-year-old unexpectedly from his Aurora, Illinois, school on May 11, 2011. Even so, soon enough, says Kara, the old depression kicked back in.. Timmothy Pitzen was born on October 18, 2004 in Aurora, Illinois. These images, though, are the last known sighting of Timmothy Pitzen. The podcast I listened to said Amy Pitzen was off her meds and had a history of being abused by her father, iirc, so she could have been delusional thinking her husband, Timmothy's father was going to do the same to him and she was 'saving' him, putting him 'somewhere safe' beyond their reach, by killing him. The mother had claimed there was an emergency, he was told. She pulled to the side of the road and sat on the edge of a steep embankment. He was taken on May 11, 2011. On the surface, it appeared to be the first evidence that Amy may have harmed her son. When Amy did get pregnant, a little more than a year after theyd started dating, they both kind of looked at it as a miracle, a sign that this was something meant to happen, says Kara. Except she didnt use it to call James instead, she called his brother. The police discovered Amys SUV close to the highway where it had been abandoned. Her body was discovered by a maid at 12:30 p.m. the next day. Still, authorities were certainly taking this claim seriously. I just had to get out of there.. Timmothy Pitzen's parents had been discussing divorce in the weeks before his mother was found dead by suicide with a note saying her son was 'safe'. He was pleasantly surprised, however, when she climbed into the car and acted as if the argument about it had never happened. This is your number, this is your moms number, you know where you live, your address, all the stuff you do. The last time James Pitzen saw his son Timmothy Pitzen was when he dropped him off at Greenman Elementary School in Aurora, Illinois on May 11, 2011. Jim said that in 2003, he got a call saying that his wife had been sitting on the edge of a cliff while taken some pills. Yet there is also nothing to indicate that hes not, other than the echoing silence. Investigators determined Amy had died by suicide and left a note indicating Timmothy would be well taken care of, the Center recounted. "I'm waiting by the phone for them to call and say, 'We found him. When Jim asked why the police didnt run the persons fingerprints to see if they matched Tims, police said he had refused to cooperate. Amy's marriage to . Investigators papered Amys route with fliers bearing Tims picture. Despite the heartbreaking turn of events two years ago, he remains convinced Tim is still alive and will be found. Oh, Im better, she told him. Pitzen said he noticed nothing out of the ordinary with his wife when he dropped her off at work Wednesday. Aurora police spokesman Dan Ferrelli confirmed that Fry-Pitzen had suffered bouts of mental illness, had previously attempted suicide and had been on medication for depression. They then went to Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, to Key Lime Cove water resort in Gurnee, Illinois, and then drove a whopping 160 miles northwest to Kalahari Resorts in Wisconsin. I just can't wait 'til you come home'. On that same day, Amy also called her mother. Dead Mom, Missing Boy, Remains a Mystery, read a headline in the Chicago Sun-Times. Timmothy's identification card was found inside the room, but workers at the motel said Amy had checked-in alone. Then Jim saw a photo on TVa grainy picture of the young man in a faded red hoodie, his hands buried in an army surplus jacket. The door had been locked with the security chain, but the maid was able to open it enough to see Amys body. Aurora Illinois Police Department/Facebook. On the way to the living room, I caught a glimpse of his bedroom, the door to which stood unapologetically open. Within days, shed turn up dead but Timmothy Pitzen has been missing ever since. Nothing seems out of the ordinary. He was wearing green shorts and had a Spiderman backpack on. Hes not with his dad. To NBC News on Wednesday, April 3, following the announcement that a boy claimed to be Timmothy, Timmothys grandmother Alana Anderson, shed further light on the suicide note. Amy had said, Timmothy is fine. 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