CINCINNATI — 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.
The boy told Campbell County, Kentucky, authorities that he is 14-year-old Timmothy Pitzen, and that two kidnappers had been holding him for seven years, according to a Sharonville, Ohio, police report. He told authorities that he escaped and kept running.
Timmothy Pitzen is also the name of an Aurora, Illinois boy who has been missing since 2011. He was 6 at the time and would now be 14.
An FBI spokesperson in Louisville said they're working with Newport police, Cincinnati police, the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office and Aurora, Illinois police on a missing child investigation. The FBI has not confirmed a link to the Pitzen case and said they're conducting a DNA test to identify the child.
Aurora police said the DNA tests will take about 24 hours.
Several neighbors in Newport said they saw the boy and at first thought he was a suspicious person walking around near West Eighth and Columbia Street at about 8 a.m. Wednesday, until they saw bruising hidden by his hoodie and realized he appeared scared. They called the police.
"We were nervous," witness Crekasafra Night said. "We didn't know if somebody had jumped him or they were going to come back, because all he did was pace. He leaned up against the car. He didn't go anywhere until the police came."
Newport Police Chief Tom Collins said officers responded and the boy is currently under medical care.
The child told police he was being held in a Red Roof Inn somewhere in the area, but couldn't say which one. He apparently crossed a bridge into Kentucky after his escape, the police report states. The boy described the kidnappers as two white males with body-builder type builds. One had black curly hair and was wearing a Mountain Dew shirt and jeans and had a spider web tattoo on his neck. The other was short with a snake tattoo on his arms. They were driving a white newer model Ford SUV with yellow transfer paint, Wisconsin plates and a dent on the left back bumper.
Multiple police agencies, including Sharonville, said they'd been told to check Red Roof Inns in the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky area. Workers at several area hotels said authorities had spoken to them and/or requested their guest lists, but they didn't recall anyone who matched the description.
"It's hard to remember people, to be honest, because of so many people coming in and out," Kennedy Slusher of the Red Roof Inn Beechmont said. "But to hear something like that, it's kind of mind-blowing. It's scary."
Aurora police told WCPO's sister station in Milwaukee that they are sending detectives to Cincinnati to investigate a strong tip about Timmothy Pitzen.
Timmothy was last seen with his mother, 43-year-old Amy Fry-Pitzen, on May 11, 2011. She'd checked him out of his kindergarten class and driven him to a zoo and water parks before the boy seemingly disappeared after they checked out of a Wisconsin Dells resort. HIs father reported Timmothy missing on May 12.
Fry-Pitzen was then found dead by apparent suicide in a Rockford, Illinois hotel room. Police told ABC News at the time that she'd left a note stating that she left Timmothy with people who "would care for him and love him," but didn't name them.
The boy, his car booster seat and backpack were gone.
The case drew widespread attention and searchers spread across Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa, but were unable to locate Timmothy. "Crime Watch Daily" covered the case in 2017 and earlier this year the Amazon show "Fireball Run" also drew attention to Timmothy's disappearance.
Angeline Hartmann, the director of digital and broadcast media for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said they are aware of the reports about Timmothy.
"Timmothy Pitzen remains an active NCMEC case and his missing poster is on our website," she said.
Alana Anderson, Timmothy's maternal grandmother, told ABC News that she has been in touch with Aurora police and is expecting them to call her again as soon as they have determined whether the boy is Timmothy. She said that, if the boy really is her grandson, the family still loves him and they've never stopped looking for him. They want to let him know that everything will be OK.
Anderson said she's "cautiously hopeful"
"If it turns out to be him, we'll be thrilled," she said.
https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/police-working-to-id-boy-who-says-he-was-abducted-years-ago