Police Release New Surveillance Video Of Missing Aurora Boy
Updated 11/18/2011 at 4:30 p.m.
AURORA, Ill. (CBS) -- It has been more than six months since 6-year-old Timmothy Pitzen was last seen, and police have released new surveillance video in hopes that someone will come forward with information.
Timmothy, who lived in Aurora, was last seen on May 13 when his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, took off with him. Fry-Pitzen committed suicide in a Rockford motel room.
The case of Timmothy's disappearance has since gone cold.
Back at Timmothy's home, his room has been kept the way it was left. For Timmothy's dad, James, it's been six months of hell.
"I miss my son, and I wish he was here," the father told CBS 2's Mike Puccinelli on Friday.
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 p.m. May 11, shortly after they chiecked in.
Another clip shows them checking in at the Kalahari Resort at Wisconsin Dells around 3:40 p.m. May 12,
Other clips show Fry-Pitzen entering and leaving Sullivan Foods in Winnebago, Ill., around 8 p.m. May 13, likely not long before she killed herself. Below is the clip of Fry-Pitzen entering the store.
Fry-Pitzen pulled her son out of school on May 11 and took him first to the Brookfield Zoo, then to Key Lime Cove and the Kalahari Resort. Then on May 13, Fry-Pitzen checked into the motel in Rockford with her son still in tow. That was where she committed suicide.
Fry-Pitzen left a note saying Timmothy was in someone's care, but she didn't say who. It also said he was with people who love and care for him and had a statement that he will never be found
James Pitzen finds it hard to believe Amy would harm their son. The prospect that the boy is alive is what keeps him going, he said. He asked whoever may have Timmothy to drop off the boy to authorities.
"I just wish you would drop him off in the hospital, police department, library, fire department and just give him a note saying who he is and that he's missing so that he can come home to his family," James Pitzen said.
Aurora police say a private forensics lab has been processing materials on the sport-utility vehicle that Fry-Pitzen was driving.
The lab has found that sediment and plant material show it was stopped for sometime on a gravel road somewhere near an asphalt secondary road that had been treated with glass road-marking beads, police said. Nearby, the lab found, the gravel road must have backed into a grassy meadow or field without trees.
The lab says grasses are the only major plants growing wherever the vehicle was stopped, and there is likely a pond or creek nearby. Queen Anne's lace and black mustard plants are believed to grow near the meadow.
The meadow is believed to be in northwest Illinois, likely in Lee or Whiteside County, police said. But other nearby counties cannot be ruled out.
Detectives had hoped substances on the van would prove unique to some areas in western Illinois where Timmothy and his mother were last known to be together. Detectives know they were together in the Interstate 88 and 39 corridors in the Dixon-Rock Falls-Sterling area.
Police seized Pitzen's 2004 Ford Expedition sport-utility from the parking lot of the motel after her body was found. When the SUV was found, it was visibly dirty, and weeds were found under it, Aurora police said.
The lab has also found blood in the SUV that turned out to belong to Timmothy. But it is not known how long the blood was in the vehicle, and family members tell police it could have been from a bloody nose he suffered in the past year or year and a half.
Only Fry-Pitzen's own blood was found on the knife she used to commit suicide, police said.
Police previously released pictures of toys similar to the ones Timmothy had with before he disappeared. They include an "Aquatic Rig" toy truck made by Wild Republic toys; Kalahari Resort commemorative coins with pictures of giraffes, lions, elephants and other wild animals; an Iris brand plastic craft case, a Hot Wheels toy race car starter set, and a tube of kids' Crest toothpaste.
Anyone in the area is asked to be on the lookout for items.
Timmothy is about 4 feet 2 inches tall and weighs around 70 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
Anyone with information on the case is asked to call Aurora Police at (630) 256-5500, or their local authorities by dialing 911.
