IL IL - Timmothy Fry-Pitzen, 6, Aurora, 13 May 2011 - mom found dead - #1

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I did the math on this as well. I have a 2003 expedition, but only a 26 gallon tank...I haven't taken the time to see if it's 26 or 28 is correct or if it changed, but the actual mpg is not what is listed...a 7 year old truck is most likely to get closer to about 12 mpg rather than what the sticker states (17-19...I've never gotten that). So this puts her at about 320 miles per tank....minus the 225-250 that she drove depending on the route taken, leaves an average range of about 70-100 miles after she drives to all the places known, assuming she filled up in Johnson Creek completely. The LaGrange Service Garage should have her mileage logged. Either way, like you said, it doesn't necessarily tell us where she went, but it may eliminate where she didn't go depending on how much gas is still in the tank. This is also assuming she didn't stop for gas again. Not sure how much cash she had on her (maybe the husband knows) but if she bought gas with the CC the first time, lets assume she would the second time,....and we don't have the information. So the mileage and leftover gas could eliminet some possibilities????

No cell phone....she didn't want to be contact anymore (talked out of her suicide), not sure why she'd give it to Timmothy....for him to use, No, she's hiding him, she tossed it. Still just thinking out load....I think he's out there.
 
Is there a Toll booth between I-39 and the Sterling exit? That might tell us that she took a different route.
 
I figured that the odometer readings were partly why LE has been concentrating its efforts in the general area. She had the time to go much further, but the odometer must be telling them that she couldn't have done that.

Cubby said:
I have to think the person in the video to Amy's left was simply someone else standing in line waiting to check in or check out of the Kalahari. I doubt they would have overheard anything or have any information on Amy's plans following check out.
Click to expand...

I'd sure want to talk to someone who stood next to them for more than a minute and might have overheard their conversation.
 
Any idea is posters were distrubuted in Woodhaven (a private campground just south of Amboy) that is somewhat isolated from the outside world, and people often vacation there for 2-3 weeks at a time becuase the location allows for commuting and there is everything you need, convience store, hardware store, gas, etc. Wonder if she had a friend who own a place there or a similar type of 'private' vacation area.
 
I've not seen the actual suicide note or exactly what it says, understandably, but I'm curious if there are other thougths on the note other than Timmothy's 'okay' and he's 'with someone who cares about him'. Is LE paraphrasing for a reason? The last quote, if it is truly a quote, is concerning and almost implying what someone else didn't care about him.

Any word on what she bought at Sullivans? I know she got the pen, paper and envelopes at the Dollar store first, but what did she need for the last 3 hours of her life?....Was the suicide note in an envelope, if not, they who else did she write letters to or what were the envelops for?
 
Couple thoughts on the cell phone :

1) News articles about cell phones (Android and iPhone) keeping internal record of your movements every 2-3 minutes broke on April 20th and were repeated for weeks. Regardless of what has happened with Timmothy it seems like that is information she might not want known and could have ditched for that reason.

2) I've looked up information on cell towers in Sterling - there are 2 :
http://www.city-data.com/towers/cell-Sterling-Illinois.html

One is registered by Verizon, the other by what looks to be a public Utility (USCoc of Central Illinois)

Based on this thread :
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/33302-39-tower-range

There are three issues that drive cell tower range.

1). Height. Cell phone is line of sight, so ultimate range is rougly
the square root of the height the tower is about the surrounding land
in miles. 400 feet = 20 miles. In urban areas, you tend to run out of
transmit power before you run out of line of sight range.

2). Power output. GSM defines several power output classes, depending
upon the requirements. There is a minimum signal strenght required to
maintain an acceptable call. These are typically in the 5-20 watt
class, although up to 200 watts is defined. You may find a 200 watt on
top a big hill in a rural area.... The 5-20 watts effectively limits
the range to something in the 5-8 mile range, somewhat more in open
country.

3). Timing advance. GSM operates within narrow timing constraints, so
that the signal arrival at the BTS has to fall within the window. To
achieve this, the timing at the handset is 'tweaked' under BTS
control. The limit on timing advance is 35km. If you want to get past
35km, something has to give. It has been done in Rural Australia, but
it means giving up 4 of the 8 time slots so that the signal from the
handset no longer has to arrive within it's own slot. The next time
slot is sacrificed.
Click to expand...

So it seems like the line of sight for a Cell Tower is the max range, and then power and Timing Advance weaken it from there. So the Max range for this tower based on the sqrt of the height (297 ft) would be 17.2 miles for the Verizon tower, located at 4000 Lincoln Way, Sterling IL

The Uscoc tower doesn't give a height.

It's a place to start.
 
Also I spoke to my brother last night, he and his girlfriend live in Naperville, IL which is 14 miles from Aurora. Neither of them had heard of this story.

Granted this is completely anecdotal and they are both very focused college students but if they haven't heard - who else hasn't?
 
Niether of the 2 cell towers are in the area NW Sterling near Rt 40 as described by LE. Is there maybe another one on the out-skirts of Sterling?
 
From what I'm reading on Google the way they triangulate your position is actually based on information from multiple towers. The range of these 2 towers would fall right on the Sterling area and would possibly cover the NW Route 40 area (Depending on the range of the uscoc tower) ...
 
here's a thought...
There are different routes to get from the Dells to Rockford, using a navigation tool or the like, you can choose either the qucikest route, shortest route or preferred roads....all of which will either bring you down 90 to 39 or the back roads using Wis-Rt "M" mostly....either way she would have passed the 'best' route to Winnebago and motel area....so why go out of your way to the Sterling/Rt 40 area to make the calls, then ditch the phone......I wanna believe she's meeting someone to go that much out of her way, there are plenty of more-remote areas between Dells and Rockford area.

I'd really like to know how much further she could've drove based on mileage/gas.
 
pjessie said:
here's a thought...
There are different routes to get from the Dells to Rockford, using a navigation tool or the like, you can choose either the qucikest route, shortest route or preferred roads....all of which will either bring you down 90 to 39 or the back roads using Wis-Rt "M" mostly....either way she would have passed the 'best' route to Winnebago and motel area....so why go out of your way to the Sterling/Rt 40 area to make the calls, then ditch the phone......I wanna believe she's meeting someone to go that much out of her way, there are plenty of more-remote areas between Dells and Rockford area.

I'd really like to know how much further she could've drove based on mileage/gas.
Click to expand...

I think this is a great question. Unless she was just meandering, there had to have been a readon she'd go through Rockford to Sterling, and then back. And heading NW on Route 40 makes no sense either if you want to get back to Rockford. There had to have been a reason.

I'm with MarthaM on the mileage.
 
MarthaM said:
Channel 12 in Milwaukee aired an interview on Wednesday's late news with Timmothy's father and showed the video from the Kalahari. In the interview, the dad said that he hopes the other person in the video (standing to Amy's left) comes forward, thinking she might know something or at least have seen or heard something.



I think that's so interesting, and there are so many possibilities. She may have just tossed it after those calls to relatives because she didn't want anybody or anything to weaken her resolve. Or she could have left it with Tmmothy, if he is deceased. Or if she did give him to someone, and that person has her cellphone number, she might not have wanted the authorities and her family to find Timmothy that quickly if those people called her. Maybe she told quite a story to get them to take him, and that story would fall apart if they called her number and found out the truth.

Of course, I have no idea why she would go to that extreme. But so much of this story doesn't make sense anyway.
Click to expand...

One of the MSM articles indicated the last cell phone ping from Amy's phone was in the Rock Falls/Sterling area. Since newer cell phones ping even when turned off, that the phone has not pinged (if MSM is accurate) since those calls near Rock Falls/Sterling it leads me to believe she ditched or destroyed the phone in that general area. If she passed the phone onto someone, I would think it would still ping being indicative of Timm's location.
 
The main route to Sterling from Rockford is closed south of Byron 'till you hit Oregon (rt. 2). One of the earlier posts said they got a hit around Castle Rock State Park, between Oregon and Sterling. It's a lovely park, direct access to the river. There used to be play structures and picnic grounds. This time of year, lots of baby geese waddling around. Rt 2 runs into 88 which will take you to the Quad cities and Iowa. Made that drive lots of times, daughter went to Augustana.
Answer to another post: there is a toll booth at Love's Park on 39, just south of the WI boarder. 39 runs into 88 at Rochelle, and she'd hit another toll on that if she took it to Sterling. BUT, Winnebago is difficult to get to from Sterling, unless you take local back roads (I still get lost). Hope this helps.
 
Did she have an iPass? If she did, doubt that she's thinking that clearly to cover her tracks enough to pay cash instead....so if there's no iPass, it's likely she took a southern back roads route from dells down State M in WI to Route 73 in IL, and down to Sterling area?
 
According to this map :

http://www.illinoistollway.com/portal/page?_pageid=133,1495438&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

90 into Rockford has toll booths so coming from Wisconsin Dells she'd likely have to go through that booth. As scottiemom said there are also booths along 88, which if she took interstates and not back roads she would have had to have gone through.

If she didn't take interstates and did take back roads and 2 is closed from Byron to Oregon I guess that could explain why she was on Rt 40?
 
blazelet said:
Search For Timmothy Not Likely to Continue: Police

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/pitzen-search-122683199.html

Quote:
The search for a missing Aurora boy will most likely not be continued after Memorial Day, police said Thursday.
Click to expand...


I was afraid of that. If what MSM reported that the last cell ping was near Sterling/Rock Falls IL and the mileage on the car indicates she could have gone as far as Quad Cities with no credible sightings and no way to narrow where to search, LE would literally have thousands of acres and hundreds of miles to search. It's simply impossible for LE to cover that much ground without having a way to narrow down possible search area's.

I hope the area is continued to be papered with fliers by both family and volunteers in case someone sees something. My fears are if they didn't/don't find him early on it's likely someone will stumble upon his remains - if he is ever found. I hate thinking that but I have to be honest... since Amy took his location to the grave with her. Very sad.
 
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