ohio 14-year-old says he is boy who went missing in 2011

Associated Press

SHARONVILLE, Ohio

A 14-year-old boy who said he escaped from two kidnappers in Ohio and fled across a bridge to Kentucky told authorities he is an Illinois boy who went missing nearly eight years ago.

Police in suburban Cincinnati’s Sharonville wrote in a short incident report that the teen said Wednesday morning that he had “just escaped from two kidnappers” he described as white men with body builder-type physics. They were in a Ford SUV with Wisconsin license plates and had been staying at a Red Roof Inn.

The boy, who identified himself as Timmothy Pitzen, told police that after his escape he “kept running across a bridge into” Kentucky.

Timmothy Pitzen was 6 when he disappeared in 2011 after authorities said his mother took her own life in a Rockford, Ill., hotel.

Police in the Chicago suburb of Aurora said Wednesday afternoon that the department is sending two detectives to the Cincinnati area. Aurora police don’t know who the boy in Ohio is or if he has any connection to Pitzen, Aurora Police Sgt. Bill Rowley said.

“Pitzen disappeared 10 years ago and we’ve probably had thousands of tips of him popping up in different areas,” Rowley said. “We have no idea what we’re driving down there for. It could be Pitzen. It could be a hoax.”

The FBI said in a Wednesday afternoon statement that its offices in Louisville and Cincinnati were working on a missing child investigation with Aurora police and police departments in Cincinnati and Newport, Ky., and the Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office in Ohio.