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timmothy pitzen
*see an update to this storyhere
A family remains cautiously optimistic after news of a teen who claims to be Timmothy PItzen, an Illinois boy who went missing in 2011, came forward.
Pitzen made national headlines when the 6-year-old boy from Aurora, IL, vanished seven years ago. He was last seen at a water park in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin with his mother, who was later found deceased in Rockford, IL, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Police are still confirming the boy's identity after he said he was 14-year-old Timmothy Pitzen.
The teen alleged he escaped from his two captors while they were staying at a Red Roof Inn. He proceeded to run across a bridge and crossed state lines into Kentucky.
A recording of a police officer calling in a report was obtained by USA Today.
Newport Police Chief Tom Collins said someone alerted the police of a boy "walking around the east side of Newport and didn't seem like he belonged there. ... Things didn't look right."
Collins said:
"You can only imagine the challenges we're going through in the process of identifying who he is."
Campbell County, Kentucky, dispatchers contacted the Sharonville Police Department in Ohio on Wednesday and requested them to investigate the Red Roof Inn where the teen alleged to have escaped.
"Apparently, Timmothy had just escaped and kept running across a bridge into KY," read the Sharonville police report.
The FBI in Louisville confirmed they are working with authorities from Newport, Cincinnati, Hamilton County and Aurora while the teen is under care at at a local hospital.
Aurora police said that a DNA test to confirm if the teen is Timmothy Pitzen will take 24 hours.
The FBI told USA:
"There will be no further statement made on this matter until we have additional information."
The boy described his captors as two white men with a "bodybuilder-type build." One of the men has curly black hair with a spider web tattoo on his neck and the other has a snake tattoo on his arm.
According to the Chicago Tribune, Amy Fry-Pitzen picked up her son from kindergarten on May 11, 2011 to take him to on a 3-day vacation to the Brookfield Zoo in Illinois and a water park in Wisconson.
She was reported to have been depressed and in an unhappy marriage.
Fry-Pitzen was found dead in a Rockford motel room leaving behind "a note that says her child is safe with people who cared for him but that he'll never be found."
However, with the breaking news of this young man's escape, the public is optimistic that young Timmothy has been found.
This could be the end to a drawn out nightmare.
Timmothy's father, Jim Pitzen, believed his son was alive days after he went missing.
He told ABC News.
"He's out there somewhere, and I know he's OK. I just want him to come home to his family."
Timmothy's grandmother Alana Anderson, who lives in Chicago is "cautiously hopeful."
"I'm very hopeful that it's him, and that he's OK and he's been in a good place when he was gone and he's gonna come back to us."