Timmothy James Pitzen was six years old when he disappeared after leaving Greenman Elementary School in Aurora, Illinois, on the morning of May 11, 2011. His mother, Amy Fry‑Pitzen, checked him out of class that day citing a false family emergency; the two spent the day at Brookfield Zoo and then checked into the KeyLime Cove Resort in Gurnee. They traveled to the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells, and surveillance footage on May 13 shows them in the resort checkout line — the last confirmed images of Timmothy.

Amy made a series of calls that afternoon from an area northwest of Sterling, Illinois, during which Timmothy can be heard on the line. That evening Amy was captured on surveillance alone at two stores in Winnebago and later checked into a Rockford hotel where she died by suicide the next day, May 14. A note and mailed messages said Timmothy was safe with people who would love him but added You will never find him. Other leads have included Amy’s SUV being found in a grassy area and her cell phone recovered by a highway in 2013. A 2019 claim by a man in Kentucky that he was Timmothy was disproven by DNA.

The investigation remains active and unsolved; Timmothy’s family continue to search for answers. If anyone has direct information about Timmothy’s movements after May 13, 2011, or saw him with anyone during that period, please come forward.