TIMMOTHY Pitzen’s family members continue to be haunted by the cryptic words shared in his mom’s suicide note, warning the missing boy would never be found, thirteen years on from his puzzling disappearance.
Six-year-old Timmothy was last seen clutching the hand of his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, as the pair checked out of a waterpark hotel resort in the Wisconsin Dells, on May 13, 2011.
Amy Fry-Pitzen took her own life and left behind a suicide note warning that her son Timmothy would never be foundCredit: Facebook
Timmothy would be 19 today if he’s still alive. Seen above is a new age progression photo generated by the National Center for Missing & Exploited ChildrenCredit: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
The mother and son had spent the last 48 hours embarking on a spontaneous road trip across state lines that began with Amy taking Timmothy out of school on the morning of May 11 in Aurora, Illinois, under the guise of a family emergency.
Timmothy’s father, Jim, was none the wiser to Amy’s plans. He arrived at the school to pick him up at the end of the day to find the boy had already been collected hours prior.
Jim Pitzen would be forced to report his son missing the following day when all of his calls and texts to Amy went unanswered for almost 24 hours.
Amy, 42, was eventually found dead inside a motel in Rockford, Illinois, on May 14, having taken her own life with an overdose of antihistamines and deep razor cuts to her wrists.
However, there was no sign of little Timmothy, and other items of his, including his favorite Spider-Man backpack, were missing from the room.
Amy left behind a suicide note assuring loved ones that Timmothy was safe and had been placed in the care of others who “love” him.
Chillingly, she warned he would “never be found.”
As Amy promised, almost no traces of Timmothy have been yielded in the 13 years since.
But the boy’s devastated family members still cling to hope he’s alive and they remain determined to prove Amy wrong by finally bringing him home.
“She has followed through on that, on him not being found, which unfortunately hasn’t changed – yet,” Jen West, Timmothy’s paternal aunt, defiantly told The U.S. Sun.
“I’m a very positive person, so I always take to positive approach of someday, he’ll be here when the time’s right.
“I think Amy was very smart and she was planning this for a long time […] so she did a good job of keeping him from us, unfortunately.
“[But] I don’t believe she could hurt him.
“I think he’s alive and out there still, somewhere.”
‘HE’S STILL OUT THERE’
Steadfast in her belief that her nephew is alive, Jen has developed a theory of what she believes happened to Timmothy to explain his prolonged absence.
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 & 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.”
Timmothy’s aunt, Jen West, told The U.S. Sun that she believes her nephew is still alive as Amy would’ve never hurt himCredit: Handout
Timmothy Pitzen was six when he vanished in May 2011Credit: Facebook
Timmothy was taken out of school by his mom on May 11, 2011, 45 minutes have his father dropped him offCredit: True Crime Daily
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.”
WITHOUT A TRACE
The Pitzen mystery began on May 11, 2011, when Amy arrived at Greenman Elementary School at 8:15am – 45 minutes after his dad dropped him off – and told school administrators she needed to take him out of class because of a family emergency.
In truth there was no family emergency, none at least that Jim Pitzen was made aware of, and surveillance footage from inside the school showed Amy leading her son outside by his hand.
What, don’t you trust me? I’m not going to hurt myself. I’m not going to hurt Tim.
Amy Fry-Pitzen
Jim Pitzen was confused when he arrived at the school gates later that afternoon to be told that Timmothy had been collected by Amy hours ago.
The couple had been enduring a turbulent time in their marriage, and Jim had recently stated his intention to divorce Amy and take full custody of Timmothy.
Calls and messages to her cell phone went unanswered.
Amy and Timmothy, meanwhile, were spending the day at Brookfield Zoo, around 30 miles from Aurora.
Later that same day, the mother and son headed northbound for an hour to Key Lime Resort, a hotel and waterpark in Gurnee.
Then, on the morning of May 12, Amy took Timmothy to the Wisconsin Dells, where they checked into Kalahari Resort.
En route to the resort, they made a series of stops to buy clothes, toys, gas, and a small arts and crafts kit.
Jim Pitzen reported his son missing in Aurora the same day.
Police did not issue an Amber Alert because Amy hadn’t yet committed a crime and Timmothy wasn’t suspected of being in any danger.
On May 13, surveillance video captured the last known images of Timmothy and his mother together as they checked out of the Kalahari Resort.
The young boy is seen holding Amy’s hand as they wait in line, still wearing the same Spider-Man backpack he’d worn to school two days before. (The backpack has never been recovered)
Where the mother and son headed next is a question that continues to perplex investigators.
Timmothy’s family believes he was illegally adopted and is living under an aliasCredit: Aurora Police Department
This is the last known footage of Timmothy alive, showing him checking out of a hotel with AmyCredit: Aurora PD
Jim Pitzen was planning to divorce Amy and was seeking full custody of TimmothyCredit: YouTube/HLN
Data from Amy’s cellphone revealed she’d driven for around 170 miles along the Rock River toward Sterling, a small rural town about 80 miles west of Aurora, before switching off the device for good.
During that drive, Amy broke her silence for the first time – but it wasn’t Jim she contacted.
Instead, she called his brother Chuck, whom she assured Timmothy was fine, adding: “Tim is my son, I can do what I want.”
“What, don’t you trust me?,” Chuck later recounted Amy telling him. “I’m not going to hurt myself. I’m not going to hurt Tim.”
Amy also called her mother, telling her “everything’s fine” and that she just needed to spend some time alone with her son.
She promised to return home in a day or two but failed to uphold her end of the bargain.
QUESTIONS AND CONCERNS
Data from Amy’s I-pass would later reveal that she made two prior trips to Sterling in February and March of 2011, puzzling family members who were never informed of the trips.
Amy had no known connections to the area.
Investigators believe Amy may have been scouting out a discreet location to hand Timmothy over to someone else or perhaps be looking for a secluded spot to bury a body.
Where Amy spent the next several hours is still unknown.
She finally resurfaced at a supermarket in Winnebago at 8pm, near Rockford, where she purchased a pen, paper, and envelopes – materials that would later be used to craft her cryptic suicide note.
At 11:15 pm she checked into the Rockford Inn and was found dead in her room by a hotel maid the following afternoon, taking the secrets of Timmothy’s whereabouts with her to the grave.
Between her cellphone data and the known movements of her vehicle, police were left with very little other evidence to go off, and quickly their investigative trail went cold.
There are thousands of miles of open land between the motel where Amy took her life and the furthest location she was known to have traveled to.
One potentially crucial piece of evidence was collected from beneath Amy’s blue Ford Expedition SUV: pieces of long weeds, tall grass, and dirt that were lodged beneath the rear bumper.
The sediments and plant material collected led investigators to conclude that Amy had likely stopped her car somewhere in northwest Illinois but a specific location has never been identified.
Police also found traces of Timmothy’s blood in the vehicle but couldn’t rule out the sample being the result of something incidental, such as a nosebleed.
Jen said her confidence that Timmothy is alive far outweighs her optimism that he will be found.
That, Jen said, she remains unsure of.
Considering what she would say to anyone harboring her nephew, Jen said, “I could go a lot of ways with that and it depends 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, “I was pretty angry for a long time, about how somebody could do something like that, but I don’t know what [Amy] told them, so there’s a lot of factors there.
“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.
“I’ve not thought much about the specific people he’s with, or the group of people he’s with. I’ve never put a face to those people.”
‘BRING HIM BACK’
With thirteen years having passed now passed, with no immediate answers seemingly in sight, Jen said she is still heavy with grief in her nephew’s absence.
For several years after Timmothy vanished, the grief materialized in the form of anger, specifically toward Amy for the lives she wrecked.
And while she will never not be angry at Amy, it’s sadness she tends to feel now more than anything.
“I’m still mad and I don’t think that will ever go away,” admitted Jen.
“I don’t think Amy was a bad person, I think she was very misguided and angry and unstable.
“Even if we find him and we can finally be a full family again, still I will never not be angry.
“She doesn’t have to deal with the consequences of her actions, she took the easier way out, I suppose […] and what she did she 100% did to be hurtful.”
Jen believes the smallest new detail could break her nephew’s case wide open.
“I drive 600 miles a week and I listen to the radio and these true crime things, and sometimes these cases are solved by the smallest details being uncovered,” she said.
“This is why I will talk to anyone because I don’t know what person is going to read an article or see something that sparks a memory.
“Any small thing could bring back the memory, and any small memory could bring Timmothy back.”
The Aurora Police Department has been contacted for comment.
Anyone with information about the case is urged to call Aurora PD on 1-630-256-5516.
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.
Timmothy’s relatives believe Amy had been planning her scheme for some timeCredit: True Crime Daily
Clues as to where Timmothy ended up may lie in the dirt recovered beneath Amy’s carCredit: YouTube/HLN
Police have very limited evidence in their hunt for TimmothyCredit: AFP or licensors