TIMMOTHY J PITZEN - 6 yo (2011) - Rockford IL

No updates. Maybe Rockford LE could ask Texas Equusearch for help.

Kiwi, what do you think happened? I think she killed him.

twinkletoes wrote:Kiwi, what do you think happened? I think she killed him.

I don't know Twink. I spent ages looking at the whole case and at maps etc yesterday and i'll keep on it. It's such a mystery. On the one hand, you'd think she must have killed him too, but surely she would have wanted to be with him and they would have both been found together. And the 6 hour gap when she turned her phone off in Sterling until she was seen in Rockford without Timmothy suggests she was trying to prevent anyone from finding out where she had been, and that suggests she did take him to someone else IMO. Also, there is a private airfield just near where she turned her phone off and in the note she left, she said he would never be found, and for her to be sure of that sounds like maybe he was taken out of the country. But I haven't seen anything about a bad situation between her and her husband. There's been no suggestion she and her husband had major problems, so why would she do this to him and the rest of the family? Why would she not want anyone to find Timmothy? This is an incredibly cruel thing she has done to Timmothy's father and to her own mother etc, and of course, to Timmothy. Why would she have killed Timmothy, but pretend he is still alive and torture everyone? But, I'm leaning towards him still being alive somewhere, with someone, but I would have thought there was no way she could have had any contact with anyone to arrange it all without LE finding it on her phone records and computers, although if she was really clever she may have used an internet cafe. I'd go round all the internet cafes and libraries in a 10k radiuus of where she lived with a photo of her to see if anyone had seen her. I'd also go around with fliers of her and Timmothy everywhere within a 3 hour drive of Sterling, and I'd check out all the airfields in that area, both public and private.

August 5th, 2011
The mother of a 6-year-old boy missing from Aurora predicted the
child would “never” be found before taking her own life several months
ago in a Rockford hotel room, authorities say.

Timmothy Pitzen last was seen May 13 — one day before his
mother Amy Fry-Pitzen was found dead with a box cutter under her body.
Winnebago County authorities said Friday that Fry-Pitzen left a note
that reads: “Tim was somewhere safe with people who love him and will
take care of him. You will never find him.”

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A coroner’s jury on Friday ruled Fry-Pitzen’s death a suicide,
caused by loss of blood from sharp force trauma, Winnebago County
Coroner Sue Fiduccia said. The 43-year-old woman had a large cut to the
right side of her neck and cuts to her left forearm, Fiduccia said.


While Fry-Pitzen had a high level of an antihistamine in her
system when she died, there were no signs of alcohol or illegal drug
use, according to the coroner.

Along with the note, which also listed phone numbers for
Fry-Pitzen’s father and husband and a description of her vehicle,
investigators found in the motel room a purse, a green cloth bag, a
photo of Timmothy and a children’s identification card for the boy.

In the meantime, Aurora police continue ongoing efforts to find Timmothy, Chief Greg Thomas said Friday.

Previous efforts including searches near Dixon, Rock Falls,
Rockford and Sterling; an investigation of files on Fry-Pitzen’s
computers; and an analysis of plant material on her vehicle have been
unsuccessful in finding the boy.

Thomas said police received a report that Timmothy was in a
Rockford-area restaurant earlier this week. But when officers provided
photos and a video of Timmothy, it was determined the report was a false
sighting.

Read more: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20110805/news/708059737/#ixzz1UCX9GCyp

Posted: 5:36 PM Aug 5, 2011 Mother's Death Officially Ruled Suicide in Missing Child Case We have new information tonight about the Aurora mom that killed herself in a Rockford motel room who left her six-year-old son no where to be found.

ROCKFORD (WIFR) -- We have new information tonight about
the Aurora mom that killed herself in a Rockford motel room who left her
six-year-old son no where to be found.

Winnebago County Coroner Sue Fiduccia says toxicology
results for 43-year old Amy Pitzen show she had three times the normal
amount of antihistamine in her system.

Her death has been ruled a suicide. Fiduccia says she bled out from self-inflicted knife wounds to her neck and arm.

Her son, Timmothy Pitzen has been missing since May. Investigators hope to release more information sometime next week.
http://www.wifr.com/news/headlines/Mothers_Death_Officially_Ruled_Suicide_in_Missing_Child_Case_126863788.html?ref=788

Kiwi, thanks for your input. I have a lot of respect for your opinions.

After reading more about this I'm inclined to agree with you that he is still alive.

Why would she not want him found by his family.

All I can come up with is that maybe the father sexually abused him and when she found about it she lost all sense of reason. Maybe she thought no one would believe her and she did what she thought was necessary to keep him safe.

I pray he is safe.

Twink, I had the same thoughts. She may have explained herself in the letter she left, but the whole letter hasn't been made public at this stage.
I'm looking forward to the information they are going to release next week to see if that sheds any light on what was going on in the family.

Annabeth, I agree, there has been nothing about Timmothy for so long until today. I guess they are stuck until either someone finds Timmothy's remains or whoever has him is found. This is one of the most unusual cases we have at the moment.

Mary Winkler (she killed her preacher-husband) said she knew she would go to jail so she took the kids to the beach. She wanted them to have a "good" memory. I wonder if this woman did the same? She gave him a wonderful trip, and then killed herself. Seems planned to me and I think something must have been up with her husband if he didn't even know they were going.

just_a_mom wrote:Mary Winkler (she killed her preacher-husband) said she knew she would go to jail so she took the kids to the beach. She wanted them to have a "good" memory. I wonder if this woman did the same? She gave him a wonderful trip, and then killed herself. Seems planned to me and I think something must have been up with her husband if he didn't even know they were going.

That's what it sounds like she did. How sad for a mother to leave a child in such a way.

At first I thought a murder might have been staged as a suicide but I'm sure they ruled that out.

I pray he is alive and safe somewhere.

Three months after a 6-year-old Aurora boy disappeared, police have released new information about the case, including the discovery of a "concerning amount" of the child's blood in the backseat of his mother's SUV.

But police cautioned that they don't know how long the blood had been there, and that it could have come from anosebleed he suffered in the last year or so.

Timmothy Pitzen hasn't been seen since his mother pulled him out of school and took him to the Wisconsin Dells. The mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, was later found dead from a suicide in a Rockford motel room. No trace of the boy has been found.

Hoping to spur interest in the case, police disclosed today that a large amount of the boy's blood was found in the backseat of the Ford SUV driven by the boy's mother when she disappeared with him on May 11.

Investigators also released surveillance video showing Timmothy's mother taking him out of school on May 11, plus two home video clips

In the home clips, Timmothy is seen dressed in Spiderman pajamas and piecing a guitar from Tinker Toys and playing it as he hums a song. In the surveillance video, Fry-Pitzen is seen waiting in the school until the boy, with a backpack, approaches and they walk off together.

Police say they are still holding out hope Timmothy will be found safe. Before mother and son disappeared, Fry-Pitzen left a note saying Timmothy was fine and that she left him in the care of unnamed individuals.

The pair stayed at the Key Lime Cove Resort in Gurnee the first night before heading to the Kalahari Resort in the Wisconsin Dells the following night. Fry-Pitzen was also seen at Sullivan’s Foods in the 700 block of Elida Street in Winnebago around 8 p.m. the night after that.

Her body was found May 14 in Rockford. She apparently had slit her wrists.

Police said Fry-Pitzen's SUV is still being processed at a private forensic lab in the hope it will yield evidence about boy's whereabouts.

When it was found in the parking lot of the Rockford hotel, it was "visibly dirty and had growth that was similar to tall grass or weeds underneath the body." If the grass is determined to be indigenous to a specific area, police hope it can be used to pinpoint where Timmothy and his mother went in the days they were missing.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-police-disclose-new-details-in-case-of-missing-aurora-boy-6-20110811,0,4021359.story

Thursday, August 11 2011

See video at link


Saturday marks the third month in the search for a missing Aurora boy.

Six year old Timmothy Pitzen was taken out of school by his mother Amy on May 11th.

She was found dead in a Rockford motel room three days later... and Timmothy was nowhere to be found.

A previously unreleased surveillance tape shows Amy Pitzen taking her son Timmothy from his elementary school.

"Anyone who looks at the video will most likely feel that eeriness to
it, and you know many of our officers have children that are Timmothy's
age."

Aurora Police spokesman Dan Ferelli says investigators are stumped.
Detectives uncovered two previous trips to the Sterling Rock Falls area
that Amy took. The forensics lab also found a worrisome amount of
Timmothy's blood in the backseat of Amy's S.U.V. But his relatives say
Timmothy had a recent bloody nose. With no good leads... the police
can't rule anything out.

"It's a very frustrating case, we've put in just an untold amount of
resources, in trying to locate Timmothy, and right now we still ahve
sevearl theories on the table."

The department hopes the surveillance video, two home movie clips,
and a recent picture of Timothy will generate some new leads. Aurora
Crimestoppers is offering a five thousand dollar reward.

"We certainly want to put Timmothy back into the news, we certaintly
want people to assist us, to come forward with any information that they
have and certainly if they spot him to immediatlly call the local
authorities."

A private forensics lab is going over Amy Pitzen's S.U.V. with a fine
tooth comb. They hope grass and weeds stuck to it will reveal where Amy
drove. But it could take a few weeks to finish that examination.
Ferrelli says the department is very concerned, but stopped short of
saying they'd given up hope.

"It certainly is common that when these types of case take place,
usually the mother and the child will be in the same location."


http://mystateline.com/fulltext-news?nxd_id=270567

Timmothy Pitzen Missing: Mother Amy Fry-Pitzen's Suicide Leaves Questions About Boy




First Posted: 8/11/11 03:47 PM ET Updated: 8/12/11 11:12 AM ET

Authorities have released new details in the disappearance of young
Timmothy Pitzen, who has been missing for three months in a case that
only gets stranger and more disturbing as time goes by.


On May 11, Amy Fry-Pitzen, Timmothy's mother, checked her
six-year-old son out of the Greenman Elementary School in suburban
Aurora, Illinois, 40 miles west of Chicago. She then set out on a
three-day, 500-mile road trip with her son in tow, before slitting her wrists in a hotel room at the Rockford Inn.


A note found at the scene of her suicide read that Timmothy was safe, but that he would never be found.


On Thursday, authorities released new information about the case, but
are still apparently far from locating the missing boy. Instead, they
found what they describe as "concerning" blood evidence in his mother's
SUV, according to the Daily Herald, as well as a few other clues.


The 2004 Ford Expedition Fry-Pitzen was driving had a sizable amount
of blood in the back seat, which lab reports determined is Timmothy's.
But family members say the blood may have come from a bloody nose, and
authorities couldn't say how long the blood had been there.
The knife Amy used to commit suicide had only her own blood on it, police told the Daily Herald.


Some other unanswered questions were raised by the newly public information. For instance, the Chicago Sun-Times reports that Amy's I-PASS logged two trips
out through the suburbs earlier this year that family members can't
explain, one in February and a second along the same route in March.
And there are a number of key items still missing: Amy's cell phone;
the I-PASS device from her car; her son's Spider-Man backpack and the
toys from the car.


In the hopes of finding more information, investigators also released home video of Timmothy, which the Chicago Tribune has posted on its website. In the heart-rending clip, the young boy pieces together a toy guitar and hums a song as he pretends to play.


Aurora authorities are offering a $5,000 reward for any information that helps police find the missing six-year-old.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/11/timmothy-pitzen-missing-m_n_924761.html?ir=Crime&ncid=webmail10

Missing Boy May Have Been Seen Near Waupaca

Updated:
Aug 13, 2011 5:35 PM EDT

Authorities say a missing Illinois boy may have been seen this week near Waupaca.

6-year-old Timothy Pitzen was last seen with his mother checking out of a Wisconsin Dells resort in May.

His mother was found dead of an apparent suicide the next day, but authorities say she left a note saying the boy was safe with someone else.

Waupaca police say he may have been seen in the city on Wednesday.

Pitzen is described as 4'2" with brown hair and brown eyes.

Anyone with information should contact authorities.

http://www.wbay.com/story/15262422/2011/08/13/missing-boy-may-have-been-seen-near-waupaca

Two unexplained trips

The last time police can say for sure Timmothy and
Amy were together was between noon and 1:30 p.m. on May 13. Amy, 43,
called several friends and relatives while driving south on Interstate
39 and west on Interstate 88 toward Sterling. Sterling and Rock Falls
are twin cities, about 60 miles east of the Illinois-Iowa border in
western Illinois.

Although Amy has no known ties to that area or
Rockford, detectives discovered she took two trips on that route earlier
this year. Family members have been unable to explain why she went to
the area.

According to I-Pass records, on Feb. 18, Amy drove
her SUV through the Orchard Road Toll Plaza in Aurora at 3:58 p.m., the
DeKalb Toll Plaza at 4:21 p.m., and the Dixon Toll Plaza at 4:45 p.m.
Her vehicle was then traced on a return trip the same day through Dixon
and DeKalb, then passing through the Orchard toll at 9:44 p.m.

The second trip was on the morning of March 20. She
returned through the same toll booths that afternoon, police said.
Ferrelli could not say what the trips mean.

“It’s another unanswered question in the puzzle,” he said.

Last days together

After Amy checked her only son out of school on
May 11, she took him to Brookfield Zoo for the day. Jim Pitzen, Amy’s
husband and Timmothy’s father, reported the boy missing the next day. He
had dropped his son off at school that morning and has not heard from
them since.

In one of the videos released Thursday, Amy is
waiting in the Greenman lobby. She waves when Timmothy approaches and
they walk out together, holding hands.

The next two nights, Amy and Timmothy stayed at
resort water parks. When she finally called family, the conversations
seemed normal.

At 1:30 p.m., just north of Sterling, Amy turned
off her cell phone for the last time. She was next seen more than six
hours later, 50 miles away, when she was caught on a surveillance camera
— alone — buying Ritz crackers and milk at a grocery store in
Winnebago, west of Rockford.

Last week, testimony at a coroner’s inquest
revealed Amy stabbed herself in the motel. She left behind a
five-sentence suicide note saying Timmothy was somewhere safe with
people who love him and who will take care of him. “You will never find
him,” she wrote, according to testimony at the inquest. Police have said
Amy made previous suicide attempts.

Missing items

Investigators have still not found Amy’s cell
phone, I-Pass, Timmothy’s Spider-Man backpack, or any of the toys or
other items that were missing from the Pitzen vehicle.

Police also said clothing Amy was wearing when she
was captured on several surveillance videos also is not accounted for,
including a pair of brown Capri pants, a white or light pink top, and a
pair of sandal-type shoes with high soles. Police continue to ask people
in the I-88 and I-39 corridors to look for the items. Anyone coming
across them should leave the item alone and call local police or 911.

The investigation into Timmothy’s disappearance has been arduous for Aurora police.

“We still have no solid lead,” Ferrelli said. “It
is frustrating to investigators and it’s frustrating to the community.
The fact is, a lot of police officers have kids Timmothy’s age and they
take this personally.”

http://couriernews.suntimes.com/news/7017122-418/missing-boys-blood-in-back-seat-of-suv.html

The search for a missing Illinois boy comes to Wisconsin.

As Action 2 News reported over the weekend,
there was a possible sighting of six-year-old Timmothy Pitzen, who's
been missing from Aurora, Illinois, for about three months, at a Waupaca
grocery store.

Timmothy hasn't been seen since May 13, when
he and his mother left a Wisconsin Dells resort. The next day, Pitzen's
mother was found dead -- an apparent suicide.

She left a note saying her son was OK, but no one has seen the child since.

"The only real witness to this is the mother
who is now deceased because she killed herself, so there is nobody for
us to talk to or follow up and try and get more information, so yes, it
is baffling for us. Baffling, frustrating, and confusing," Lieutenant
Pete Inda of the Aurora Police Department said.

According to the Aurora Police Department --
the lead agency on the case -- tips have been coming in about the
missing boy from all over the Midwest, including one from Waushara
County just last week.

"A woman who actually lives in Glendale,
Wisconsin, was in the Waupaca area and she saw a boy resembling Timmothy
Pitzen in a grocery store there that one day. The next day she was back
home in Glendale, she sees a news story on the news about the missing
boy, so she called the Glendale Police who called us, and then we called
Waupaca," Inda said.

Asked to follow up on the tip, the Waupaca Police Department obtained surveillance video from a Pick N Save store.

Officers say after reviewing the video Monday, they don't believe any children in the store are Timmothy Pitzen.

"There's children that are approximately the
same age as Mr. Pitzen, however, some of the children are taller, some
of them are shorter, different hair color, different characteristics,"
Detective Sergeant Brian Hoelzel, Waupaca P.D., said.

While the Waupaca Police Department doesn't
believe the boy seen in the Pick N Save was Timmothy, they'll still send
the video to the lead agency.

"We haven't seen the tape ourselves. I do
know that the tape was reviewed by Waupaca and that they are saying that
it's probably not him, but we won't close that door 'til we look at the
video ourselves," Inda said.
http://www.wbay.com/story/15270926/2011/08/15/search-for-missing-illinois-boy-intensifies-in-waupaca-county

We have so many of these horror stories involving poor, precious, helpless children. For some unknown reason, some of them touch my heart more than others. This is one such case.

I keep praying he is found alive. The chances are slim but I refuse to give up hope.

Please God, keep Timmothy safe.

Are the police positive the mother committed suicide and was not forced to write the note?

Police in Aurora, Illinois are getting lots of tips on a missing boy

CREATED Aug. 15, 2011
AURORA - 6 year old Timothy Pitzen was last seen in the Wisconsin
Dells back in May. His mother was found dead in Rockford, Illinois, but
she left a note saying Timothy was safe. There are reports out of Green
Bay that over the weekend, there was a possible sighting of Timothy at a
Waupaca grocery store.

According to WBAY-TV, police say a woman who lives in Glendale was in
the Waupaca area and saw a boy resembling Timothy in a grocery store.
She came home, saw a story about him on the news, and called the
Glendale Police Department, who then called Aurora authorities. They're
the lead agency in this case.

After reviewing surveillance video from a Pick 'n Save in Waupaca,
the police department there doesn't believe any of the children in the
footage are Timothy, but the video has been turned over to Aurora PD. A
Facebook page called "Help Find Timothy Pitzen" has more on the young
boy, and ways you can help his family.


http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/127802193.html

New clues on Timmothy Pitzen


Video


http://www.todaystmj4.com/multimedia/videos/?bctid=1112199995001

Police have uncovered a secret email account used by the mother of a
missing child in the months before she killed herself, but investigators
said Monday that the discovery didn't add any new pieces to the puzzle.
Aurora
police say they recovered 34 emails from an account set up by Amy
Fry-Pitzen, the mother of 6-year-old Timmothy Pitzen, who has not been
seen since May 11, when she pulled him out of school.
They spent a night at a water park resort in Gurnee and a night in the Wisconsin
Dells. Fry-Pitzen's body was found May 14 in a Rockford motel, where
she slit her wrists. The child, however, has not been found.

Fry-Pitzen had "a Yahoo e-mail account that her husband has access to
and another Yahoo e-mail account that was kept secret from him,"
according to a June search warrant recently made public.
The secret account was consistent with the input of FBI profilers who think Fry-Pitzen may have used it to help plan her actions up to several months beforehand, the affidavit said.
But it turned out to be a dead end, police said Monday.
"A
lot of it was just spam," said Detective Trent Byrne, the lead
investigator. "It had absolutely nothing to do with Timmy's
disappearance."
Since Yahoo does not maintain records of deleted
emails, there is no way of knowing whether Fry-Pitzen used the account
and then erased messages, Byrne said.
In another warrant also made
public last week, police revealed that they had been looking for clues
by tracking Fry-Pitzen's Internet use. In the last three days of her
life, Fry-Pitzen accessed the Internet via her work-issued smartphone,
which has not been recovered, police said.
But that has not produced any significant leads, Byrne said.
Fry-Pitzen's
employer, Mike Baum of Baum Property Management in Aurora, said Monday
that Fry-Pitzen had worked as a property manager for him for about a
year at the time of her death.
Earlier this month, police said
they had discovered a significant amount of blood in the back seat of
Fry-Pitzen's Ford SUV and that it was undergoing forensic analysis.
Byrne said he hoped to get those test results in about a week.
Fry-Pitzen's
mother, Alana Anderson, said Monday that Aurora police talked to her
"about a week ago" about the investigation. She said she was not aware
of the secret email account but knew about the smartphone.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-pitzen-warrants-0830-20110830,0,7078963.story

For Timmothy Pitzen's 7th birthday a few weeks ago, his grandmother and
dad planted a 7-year-old blue spruce in the grandmother's backyard in
Antioch.

"I bought him a birthday card and cut out pictures of the things I would
have bought for him," Alana Anderson said. "A lighted skateboard. A
remote-control helicopter."




Timmothy, a bright, energetic,
brown-eyed boy, has been gone since May 11, when his mother, Amy
Fry-Pitzen, took him from his Aurora elementary school and went on a
two-day road trip that ended when she committed suicide in a Rockford
motel room. A note that Fry-Pitzen left said her son was safe, but she
did not elaborate.

Now, six months later, Timmothy remains missing and investigators are
stumped. Aurora police are expected to update the investigation and
release new video of the boy Friday in hopes of drawing out new leads.

Anderson and Jim Pitzen, the boy's father, are trying to cope with
heartbreaking anxiety while they prepare for a Thanksgiving far
different than last year's, when Anderson, Jim and Amy Fry-Pitzen, and
Timmothy gathered at the Pitzen house in Aurora. Fry-Pitzen prepared a
delicious meal.

This year, Pitzen will be visiting his parents out of town. Anderson will be accompanying an aunt to Arizona.

The family holds fast to the belief that the child is alive.

"I just try to do one day at a time," Pitzen said Thursday. "I hope
whoever has Tim understands that he's not theirs and he needs to come
home to his family."

Anderson said she, too, is trying to take every day as it comes, "trying
to put the pieces of my life together. They're just not that many of
them left anymore."

Anderson, who lives alone, said she misses her daughter, who helped
paint Anderson's house and clear her garden last spring, and her
grandson, who would sleep at Anderson's home every other weekend.

"It's been rough," Anderson said. "I think the first couple of months
you're in such shock, you're almost numb and it doesn't quite sink in.
But now … I don't expect it to be a whole lot better anytime soon."

In the months since Timmothy disappeared, Pitzen lost his manufacturing
job. He said he does "what I can do to keep occupied" and to keep his
mind off his son's absence.

Pitzen said he is "upset" with his wife but said he will forgive her "at some point."

"I think about her all the time," he said. "I just wonder what she did
with our son and why she wanted him to be with someone else."

Anderson is seeing a therapist and has received support from her pastor,
friends, co-workers and the National Center for Missing & Exploited
Children, which has assigned a volunteer who has dealt with the
disappearance of a loved one to counsel Anderson.

And, she started a journal about a week after Timmothy went missing.
Anderson said she writes "cute, little stories about him so he'll know
what he was like, how I felt about him; how hard we looked for him; the
places we went and things we did together."

Pitzen and Anderson base their contention that Timmothy is safe on two
factors: Amy Fry-Pitzen deeply loved her son and routinely demonstrated
her affection. In addition, she meticulously planned her own death,
leading Anderson and Pitzen to believe she'd made detailed plans for her
only child's safety.

Fry-Pitzen, 43, had a history of depression, but Anderson, a retired
emergency room nurse, said her daughter "was not a crazy person. She
absolutely never acted bizarrely."

After picking up Timmothy about 8:30 a.m. May 11 from his kindergarten class, Fry-Pitzen and the boy visited Brookfield Zoo, KeyLime Cove waterpark in Gurnee and Kalahari Resorts in the Wisconsin Dells, authorities said.

Mother and son were last seen together about 10:10 a.m. May 12, leaving
the Kalahari. Over the next 24 hours, Fry-Pitzen made several cellphone
calls from the Sterling-Rock Falls area, but authorities have been
unable to determine precise locations. Timmothy spoke on the phone or
was overheard in at least one of the calls, authorities have said.

Investigators have traced Fry-Pitzen's final call on May 13 to about
five miles northwest of Sterling, near Illinois Highway 40. When she
checked in to the Rockford motel about 11:15 p.m. on the 13th, she was
alone, police said.

By 12:30 p.m. on May 14, when motel employees found her body, Fry-Pitzen
had slit her wrists with a knife, investigators said. Anderson said her
daughter left one note at the motel and had mailed two others — one to
Anderson, one to a friend in Iowa.

Anderson's last contact with police came Tuesday, when she agreed to provide a DNA
sample. Although authorities already have DNA from Fry-Pitzen and Jim
Pitzen, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children had
suggested "a wider profile," Anderson said.

Police on Thursday declined to elaborate about what information they
would release Friday. One of investigators' latest efforts was a lab
analysis of plants and mud on the 2004 Ford Expedition Fry-Pitzen was
driving shortly before her death.

Authorities had said they hoped the analysis would lead them to a more
specific area to look for Timmothy. In May, dozens of local, state and
federal investigators searched state parks and other remote areas about
100 miles west of Chicago, where cellphone records indicated Fry-Pitzen
and Timmothy were last known to be together.

Anderson said police may have found a more specific area to search near
the city of Rock Falls. Jim Pitzen declined to discuss his recent
conversations with Aurora police.

While she waits, Anderson has started to clear some of her grandson's
belongings, giving away his Play-Doh, clothes that no longer would fit,
building blocks, puzzles and other items that had stopped drawing his
attention.

But she has kept some of his favorites: toy cars and trucks she found
under a bed, the book "Diary of a Worm," cloth for pajamas she was
making for him and a plastic spoon he used the last time they visited
Dairy Queen.

They remind her of Timmothy and, she said, she hopes he will be interested in them when he returns.

"He's out there," Anderson said, "and I think when he's old enough, he'll find us."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-timmothypitzen-update-20111118,0,7755262.story?page=2

Six months after the disappearance of 6-year-old
Timmothy Pitzen, Aurora police said Friday that tests from an outside
forensics lab may help determine what happened to him.

The lab, hired to assist in the case, has been
processing materials taken off of the SUV that Timmothy’s mother, Amy
Fry-Pitzen, was driving Timmothy in before she committed suicide May 13
or 14.

Fry-Pitzen took Timmothy out of his Aurora
elementary school on May 11, made stops at zoos and water parks around
northern Illinois and Wisconsin, and at some point drove around rural
areas in northwestern Illinois before checking into a Rockford hotel on
May 13.

On May 14, she was found dead at the motel — having killed herself — and Timmothy has not been seen since.

The lab determined that sediments and plant
material on the SUV show that it was stopped for a time on a wide gravel
shoulder, gravel road, or short gravel turnout near an asphalt
secondary road that had at one time been treated with glass road-marking
beads.

Near the gravel shoulder or road where the vehicle
stopped, it backed into a grassy field to a spot that is nearly
treeless. There are birch and oak trees in the general area but not
directly over or at the spot where the SUV stopped, the lab results
indicate. Both Queen Anne’s Lace and black mustard plants grow in a row
along the border of the field or the shoulder of the road.

The evidence strongly suggests that grasses were
the only major plants growing in the immediate area, which leads
scientists to believe that it is a meadow and not, for example, a field
that had once been farmland and not recently sown, police said.

Police said test results show the grass was not
cut, which helps rule out a rural residential lawn or a park. There is
also a strong likelihood that there is a pond, small stream, or creek in
the area.

While the findings are helpful to investigators,
they still do not have enough information with which to plan ground
searches, police said.

Also Friday, police released more video clips of Fry-Pitzen and Timmothy, including:

Security footage taken from a hallway
camera at the Key Lime Cove Resort in Gurnee around 3:50 p.m. on May 11,
shortly after the two checked in.

A clip from a security camera at the
Kalahari Resort in the Wisconsin Dells showing Fry-Pitzen and Timmothy
checking in about 3:40 p.m. May 12.

Footage of Fry-Pitzen entering and leaving Sullivan’s Foods in Winnebago, Ill., alone about 8 p.m. May 13.

Anyone with information about Timmothy’s
disappearance is asked to call Aurora Police at (630) 256-5500, or their
local police at 911.

Aurora Area Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of
$5,000 reward for information that leads to Timmothy. The phone number
is (630) 892-1000.
http://www.suntimes.com/8920918-417/police-hope-new-lab-results-help-locate-missing-aurora-boy.html

Six months after the disappearance of
Timmothy Pitzen, police are hoping that a detailed analysis of his
mother’s SUV will help lead them to the boy.
Policereleased some results on Friday of a forensic analysis of the grass,
dirt and debris that had accumulated on Amy Fry-Pitzen’s 2004 Ford Expedition.
They are also hoping that surveillance videos and details about where Amy may have
travelled that were released Friday will help jog a memory.
On May 11, Amy took her only son out of school and, without telling any family members, she and Timmothy went
on a three-day, 500-mile road trip, stopping at zoos and water parks in northern Illinois and Wisconsin.

On the third day, Amy finally called family to report she was fine. The next morning, police found her body
in a Rockford motel.

Police announced on Friday that the
lab has determined that plant material on the SUV indicate it was
stopped for a time on a wide gravel shoulder or a gravel road.

Near the gravel area where the vehicle stopped, the SUV was backed into a grassy field, the beaconnews.suntimes.com reports.

The lab results have given police a clearer indication of where Timmothy may have been dropped off.

A few weeks ago, six months after the Illinois schoolboy disappeared when his mother killed herself in a
roadside motel room, his grandmother Alana Anderson and father Jim Pitzen marked what would have been his
seventh birthday by planting a 7-year-old blue spruce tree in the back garden.
Anderson told the Chicago Tribune: 'I bought him a birthday card and cut out
pictures of the things I would have bought for him,' 'A lighted skateboard. A remote-control helicopter.'
The lively schoolboy vanished on May 11, when Fry-Pitzen, picked him up from his Aurora elementary school.

In what were to be her final days mother and son went to the zoo and a water park, one in the far north east Illinois,
the other in Wisconsin, before travelling west back into Illinois.
Fry Pitzen eventually checked into a motel near Rockford, northern Illinois alone and slit her wrists, leaving a suicide note and several letters in the post. In
the notes to her husband, her mother and a close friend, she said her
son was safe, and with people who loved him, but she did not say who she had left him with.

According to Anderson, one of the notes warns, 'You will never find Timmothy'.

And despite a massive search operation investigators have not been able to track down the missing child.


Clue? One of the new surveillance clips show
Timmothy and his mother walking to an elevator at the Key Lime Cove
resort in Gurnee around 3:15 pm May 11, shortly after they checked in

Three months ago police revealed that they found ‘a concerning amount’ of
the child’s blood in the backseat of his mother’s 2004 Ford Expedition SUV.

The clothes Fry-Pitzen was wearing when captured on surveillance video have never been found.

This includes the clothing she was wearing when she and her son checked out
of the Wisconsin Dells resorts, hours before she checked in alone to the hotel room where her body was found.

But the family continues to believe that Timmothy is alive.

The blood may have come from a nose bleed Timmothy had about a year ago, they say.


New lead? Fry Pitzen is shown here entering and
leaving Sullivan Foods in Winnebago, Illinois around 8 pm May 13, not
long before she killed herself.

And testing of the knife Fry Pitzen used to kill herself revealed no traces of her son's DNA.

'I just try to do one day at a time,' Jim Pitzen told the Chicago Tribune. 'I hope whoever has Tim
understands that he's not theirs and he needs to come home to his family.'
The family’s steadfast belief that Timothy is alive is based on two things.
Fry-Pitzen cared for her son deeply and showed her affection often.

The 43-year-old had periodically battled depression, but, her mother insisted, 'was not a crazy
person. She absolutely never acted bizarrely.'
For now she is just 'trying to put the pieces of my life together. They're just not that many of them left anymore.'
'It's
been rough,' Anderson told the Tribune. 'I think the first couple of months you're
in such shock, you're almost numb and it doesn't quite sink in. But now …
I don't expect it to be a whole lot better anytime soon.'

She started a journal about a week after Timmothy vanished, in which she writes 'cute, little stories about
him so he'll know what he was like, how I felt about him; how hard we looked for him; the places
we went and things we did together.'

Jim Pitzen has lost his job in manufacturing since his son’s disappearance, but tries to keep occupied
to distract himself from his loss, and his questions.


CCTV: There has been no sign of the vanished boy
whose picture has been plastered on missing posters across the Midwest
of the U.S. and on websites


Surveillance: These are the last images of
six-year-old Timmothy Pitzen before he vanished and his mother later
booked into a motel in Illinois and killed herself

He is still angry with his wife, the Tribune reported.

He said: 'I think about her all the time.'

'I just wonder what she did with our son and why she wanted him to be with someone else.'

Police are expected to release new video of Timmothy today, hoping that new leads may emerge.

Forensic investigators have been working to try to identify tall grass or weeds found on the underside of the SUV to link the materials to a more specific area.

After Timothy's disappearance officers searched a remote area about 100 miles west of Chicago, where
cellphone records indicated Fry-Pitzen and Timmothy were last together.

Meanwhile, mindful of time passing, the loving grandmother has started to throw away some of her grandson's
things, disposing of clothes that no longer would fit, and toys that he had outgrown.

To remind her of Timmothy, she is holding on to his favorites: some cars and truck, a much-loved book,
'Diary of a Worm,' and even a plastic spoon he used the last time they visited Dairy Queen.

She said: 'He's out there. And I think when he's old enough, he'll find us.'


Road trip: Amy and Timmothy Pitzen were heading
for the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells, but the mother-of-one
committed suicide at a hotel in Rockford, Illinois


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063256/Missing-Aurora-boy-Timmothy-Pitzen-Lab-results-offer-family-new-hope.html#ixzz1eBndEEzr

http://beaconnews.suntimes.com/news/9687001-418/mom-of-missing-aurora-boy-remains-a-mystery-to-police.html

It has been nearly eight months since Amy Pitzen pulled her 6-year-old son Timmothy out of school for an unannounced vacation. Mom and son took a three-day, 500-mile road trip, stopping at zoos and water parks in Northern Illinois and Wisconsin. On May 14, Amy’s dead body and a suicide note were found in a Rockford Motel.

Police and family members are still looking for Timmothy.

In those eight months, Aurora police Detective Trent Byrne has spent hundreds of hours studying surveillance tapes, analyzing clues, responding to possible sightings and scouring electronic records. As the lead investigator in the case, he has gotten to know a boy he never met. If Timmothy walked into a room, Byrne feels reasonably confident that he could predict how the child would act.

Despite equal analysis of Amy Pitzen, she remains a mystery.

“I don’t think I’ve scratched the surface on who she is,” Byrne said this week while reflecting on the case. “People’s perception of her is across the board. I don’t know her very well.”

But that cypher is the heart of the case. It’s what haunts Byrne in his off hours and consumes his time on the clock. Byrne and Detective Lee Cavatu have led an investigation that’s logged thousands of hours on a strange and frustrating case. Byrne has worked the case from Day One, when he happened to run into a patrol officer who had taken the initial missing person report for Timmothy and Amy Pitzen.

Byrne, an Aurora officer for more than 12 years, had worked plenty of runaway cases. Most were resolved quickly when the child returned home or the adult called a family member. But something struck him as odd about this disappearance.

From that day on, the case has been filled with tantalizing gaps in the timeline of Amy’s actions. At 1:30 p.m. May 13, Amy turned off her cellphone for the last time. She reappeared — alone — around 8 p.m., 50 miles away, at a grocery store in Winnebago, west of Rockford. Between Sterling and Winnebago, there are thousands of square miles to search and millions of questions.

“I wish that the evidence that gathered somehow became more clear, but it hasn’t,” Byrne said.

Everything hinges on Amy Pitzen. After a history of suicide attempts did she do the unthinkable and take her son’s life, too? Or did she find a way to pass him off to someone?

This week, Byrne talked publicly for the first time about a trip that Pitzen took the week before she and her son disappeared. It was her regular annual trip to the Bahamas with a female friend from Iowa. Byrnes said the friend reported nothing unusual about the trip. Amy seemed perfectly normal when she returned May 7. It’s just another inexplicable part of this case.

“On just the sheer time investment and emotional investment, there’s nothing I’ve had that comes close,” he said.

Although police officials have tempered the hope of a happy reunion, Byrnes still doesn’t even feel there’s any strong evidence that leans toward Timmothy being alive or dead.

“We’ve done everything we can do without getting a call from someone to push us in a certain direction,” Byrnes said. “We’re at a fork in the road.”

Tips still come in occasionally. A few weeks ago, someone thought they saw Timmothy in Massachusetts. Last week, it was at the Denny’s restaurant in North Aurora. Each time, an Aurora officer pulls the footage or has a local officer track down the lead.

Obviously, none has resolved the case. In fact, few have even been very promising. Of the dozens of possible sightings, Byrne has only needed Timmothy’s father to look at surveillance footage one time. The rest of the images have been easily dismissed.

Despite the tremendous odds, Byrne remains hopeful that answer is out there.

“Sure,” he said immediately.

“As long as we’re still getting media attention and tips or phone calls, it says people are still looking.”

I really feel for Detective Byrne & co. This case bugs the hell outta me too. It's so odd that if this is a murder suicide, why the bodies weren't found together. The only reason I can come up with for this is that she truly did give Timmothy to someone, but I find it hard to believe he wouldn't have been found by now if that was the case. Another explanation is that she was so vindictive she put Timmothy's body elsewhere as she wanted Timmothy's father to never know and suffer, but that doesn't really seem to fit their relationship either. I also find it incredible that she could spend a week in the bahama's with a friend just before this and not confide anything about her thoughts or at least seem disturbed.