IL IL - Timmothy Fry-Pitzen, 6, Aurora, 13 May 2011 - mom found dead - #3

[imstilla.grandma]

Timmothy’s paternal grandmother Linda Pitzen recently told the US Sun that after “torturing” herself trying to decipher the note, she is convinced her grandson is still alive.

His childhood friend Hannah Soukup, who has done her own research into his disappearance, also believes this and has a theory about where he could be.

She thinks Timmothy is living on a remote Mormon commune — his mother had converted to the religion — without access to the internet.

“I still think about Timmothy a lot and what happened to him, and with Amy, there were a lot of unexplained visits to certain places,” Soukup told the US Sun.

“I believe she dropped him off somewhere – I don’t know if it was in a religious area, or something like that – but I think she dropped him off and gave him to people she knew would keep him safe and hidden,” she added.

“And I think she made it clear that either his identity had to be changed or that he had to stay away from the internet so he’d never know he was missing.”

Timmothy’s grandmother agrees and said “it would explain a lot.”

“I’ve agreed with that theory from the beginning.

“I read that suicide note, and if you read that note and you know her, I would guess she probably gave him to somebody to live in a compound. I have to hope that’s true because it’d be a lot better option for me to deal with, as opposed to what the other options are.”

Family of missing Timmothy Pitzen believe he’s being kept on a Mormon commune

In 2011, Timmothy Pitzen’s mother took him out of school for a spontaneous road trip. Three days later, she had killed herself but there was no trace of the boy, who is still missing 13 years later. Loved ones say a clue to his whereabouts was in her suicide note. Andrea Cavallier reports

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Piknik]

This is all so simple. Take the mileage from the repair shop and run it against the mileage from where it was found. You can put a circumference around the route she took and you have your search area.

 

[drbuzz0]

I read about this recently, and I am a bit split on what happened to him. On one hand, I would love to believe that there is some isolated Mormon community that is raising him, but the circumstances and her words make me think this is likely a case where he was killed and disposed of in a location that is indicated by the debris left on her car.

Analysis has shown it likely was an area with certain minerals, potentially recently paved roads, mustard seed, birch, grasses etc. A couple of locations have been pointed to as suspicious, including a disused farm field and an area near a river and a state park.

If I could get some exact geographic details of where they think locations are that meet these criteria, there is a way of searching that may have not been fully explored.

There are a huge number of aerial and satellite photos taken of the US and the world in general. They are done by private organizations and government agencies such as the Landsat program and also the department of agriculture takes a lot of infrared photos to gauge vegetation health.

So images exist from the US government, foreign space agencies, private organizations (Digital Globe, Spot imaging and numerous others)

These images are not all together in a single repository. You have to know where to look for them. They are in various archives.

So what you are looking for is distinct changes between before 2011 and after. Disturbed ground, changes in vegetation that can indicate disturbed ground. Tire tracks, signs of a vehicle would be another thing.


I could start looking, but I'd need to know exactly what places of interest exist.

 

[Piknik]

We've addressed a lot of what you posted above already. The problem is that detective in charge is a dud. He believes in the Mormon/Amish theory and won't do the due diligence like disclosing the mileage the vehicle traveled from its time at the repair shot to where it was recovered. This would give us an excellent idea of where she would have left him, but again, he's a dud.

 

[drbuzz0]

That is really a shame. I think there is potential to solve cases by using the extensive historical database of land survey and satellite imagry. His mother was a small statured woman and I don't know that they proved she had a shovel or anything.

IF she buried him, it was likely shallow and in soft ground. It was probably easy to get to.

If we knew the milage then we could narrow it down. There are places of interest (I mentioned there is a field area nears the border with Iowa that has been mentioned)


But it would ne necessary to narrow down the locations. If you are just looking for signs of disturbance over that area, then you'll be on a wild goose chase.


But okay, lets say it is a remote Mormon community. If that is the case, he is reaching young adulthood and may well be able to be reached through the media or something. I'd strongly suggest reaching out to actual Mormons. Moderate members of the LDS movement are very mainstream and reasonable people, and many of them fully understand that there are those who take the beliefs to the extreme. This has always caused friction in the church, with some favoring a much more integrated a secular approach to dealing with the world. In any case, there ought to be people you could work with, who would know more about what communities might be out there are how to reach them.

 

[Piknik]

We have a verified time where she was on the phone with family and Timothy was with her. I'd love to know the mileage that was on the vehicle at the repair show and when it arrived in Rockford. Let's say there's 5 extra miles on vehicle. Well, we know it would be 2.5 miles at most off the arteries she was on. We have a confirmed location where the phone was found, so it would most likely be between the place the phone was found and where the truck was found. Now we take the data of the plants and items found on the underside of the vehicle and we can zero in even tighter.

However, this detective just doesn't have the know-how to put 2+2 together.

 

[Piknik]

Do tower/cell phone records exist of her two trips (Feb/March)? This article seems to indicate they do, and she had gone to the same places she would later be at.

The Disappearance of Timmothy Pitzen — Talk Murder With Me

Saying goodbye is something we do almost everyday, but we don’t think of it in a permanent sense. When we go to school, work, or leave the house for any amount of time, we usually say goodbye to someone, with the assumption that we will see them again later in the day.

www.talkmurderwithme.com

 

[drbuzz0]

It seems that it should not be hard to determine a limited geographic area where she COULD have deposited her child. It would be possible to work out her route before the time she were to have last been known to have had him, which was her phone call, at a known approximate location. Then she most likely deposited her phone (at a known location) and then disposed of him. Or perhaps she got rid of the phone after, Both need to be accounted for. In any case, then her next whereabouts are known to be at the shop in Winnebago,

So yes, if we had the mileage on the car, which ought to be known, we can get a search radius down, and that would help a lot. One would presume it to most likely be on the edge of the radius, as the probably didn't go anywhere else. I would think they would have done thios, if the police were competent at all. It would just be so helpful if they would say so that it could be searched. What is the point of holding back? Not like there is a suspect on the run!'

But yeah, if we had that info, the mileage, to start building a map of probable locations and comparing it to the forensics, then it would be possible to narrow down the areas and to start looking at satellite and aerial survey photos of the areas in question.

 

[nannymo]

Why don't you attempt to contact LE and ask if you could have that info? You appear to be very knowledgeable and ask if you can volunteer your services? Maybe sign some sort of contract to not share that info?

 

[Keiri]

Took me a while to figure this out, but they moved Timmothy from being missing from Wisconsin Dells to being missing from Illinois on NaMus

 

[Satch]

I am so convinced that his Mother did this! All the evidence is there!

Satch

 

[ekardh]

I am so convinced that his Mother did this! All the evidence is there!

Satch

Of course she did. It's wishful thinking that she gave Timmothy away. I believe she couldn't admit to what she really did to him, and she also wanted to use that to spite her husband. Her note explaining that Timmothy was with someone who loved him and would care for him, was basically her way of saying "he's with the angels". Heck, she may have even meant herself being reunited with him in the hereafter.

 

[oceanverde]

I am so convinced that his Mother did this! All the evidence is there!

Satch

What evidence is there?

 

[Keiri]

What evidence is there?

for what it's worth, they found sizable traces of his blood in the back seat. "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." source New Details On Boy Who Disappeared After Mother's Suicide

 

[oceanverde]

"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."

 

[Piknik]

What evidence is there?

What evidence exonerates her?

 

[oceanverde]

I'm not the one that made the statement "I am so convinced that his Mother did this! All the evidence is there!". When you make statements of fact like that, it's not unusual to ask for the evidence proving it.

But there's not a single shred of evidence at this point that points to Tim being dead so I would say that exonerates her.

 

[Satch]

I'm not the one that made the statement "I am so convinced that his Mother did this! All the evidence is there!". When you make statements of fact like that, it's not unusual to ask for the evidence proving it.

But there's not a single shred of evidence at this point that points to Tim being dead so I would say that exonerates her.

Or she could have hid Tim in such a remote area that he will never be found? Why would she kill herself if she had nothing to do with Tim's vanishing and alleged death?

Satch

 

[Keiri]

I'm not the one that made the statement "I am so convinced that his Mother did this! All the evidence is there!". When you make statements of fact like that, it's not unusual to ask for the evidence proving it.

But there's not a single shred of evidence at this point that points to Tim being dead so I would say that exonerates her.

There’s circumstantial evidence. Lots of it. She was going through a major depression. there was blood that was Timmothy’s and circumstantially, we could argue it’s from murder. Her car tires indicated flat land soil with queen Anne’s lace, suggesting a field. Her clothes that she wore out that day were missing. Then there’s how long he’s been missing, no one has seen a strange Child show up at someone’s house missing his birth certificate, social security number, or other important things. He couldn’t have been enrolled in school without noticeable trouble. Timmothy himself was old enough to possibly remember and the crime hasn’t exactly been low profile. He’d be over 18 now. And the people taking him in wouldn’t have been very good or safe parents if they went through with this plan as she planned it. The sheer fact there’s been nothing strange, no sightings, nothing, in itself is circumstantial evidence he’s dead. Personally, that’s why I think Stacy Rudolph is dead too. In both cases we’re talking about an incredibly, absurdly entitled mentally unbalanced person who put her wants ahead of her child’s. Given all that and especially how long he’s been missing, I think it’s fair to say he’s dead. MOO

I’m sure we all would like to see him be alive, but if you take a step back - and remember we’re not a court of law who can only accept some types of evidence - he is probably deceased.

 

[SadieSeeks]

This is my first time posting, so please let me know if there’s any etiquette or rules I may accidentally be going against.
A couple questions I have:
1) Does anyone here know what specific areas in between the two states that were fully searched with groups and dogs?
Having those locations may be helpful in seeing what specific areas have been searched and where there may be locational gaps in the search efforts.
2) I read in the thread that one of the people that Amy had called during this timeframe was her brother in law. Is there any information out there on his statement specifically? I’m interested in learning what he had to say, especially since he was Jim Pitzen’s brother, I’m curious if her tone was different or if she left any sort of subtle indication of anything

From my perspective, I can only realistically envision that Amy unfortunately took Timmothy’s life. She was suffering from severe mental illness, and she may have been fearful of what the outcome of her divorce could do to her custody rights.. and of Jim and the courts potentially taking Timmothy away from her. I believe she drugged Timmothy. I don’t believe she stabbed him even though there was blood found inside the vehicle, because I feel as though if he was stabbed before/in the car, there would have been more signs of him being taken out of the car via blood droplets/smears/residue showing blood also on the outside of the vehicle, on the steering wheel, or even droplets/smears showing some sort of directional trail.
I have a difficult time believing that he is in a Mormon/cult/amish community because he is no longer a minor, and I believe he would have ventured out by now, seen something in the news, been spotted by someone else, or left to find his real family, he was 11 when he disappeared, I doubt that he would just forget about his family over time at that age. I also feel like a member of the community/group out of guilt or after removing themselves from the community, tells LE about Timmothy and where he is located. I do have quite a bit of confidence in this theory, however, what throws me off is Amy buying clothes and toothpaste for those items to go missing as well. It doesn’t completely add up that she would purchase them right before murdering her son? And where did they go? Was this part of Amy’s plan to make it look like he was taken somewhere? Did she bury the items with her son? Or am I off base and he was in fact given to another individual/group. This is all IMO.
I hope they can one day locate him for the peace of his family and the community that has showed such everlasting and great concern over him.