AURORA, Ill. (WKOW) -- Friday marks one year since Amy Fry-Pitzen checked her then six-year-old son Timmothy out of his Aurora, Illinois elementary school and took him to the Wisconsin Dells for a two-day vacation.
Fry-Pitzen then took her own life, and Timmothy has not been seen since.
On this one-year anniversary, Aurora police are making a renewed appeal for northwestern Illinois land owners and residents to search their properties for several missing items authorities think may help pinpoint what happened to the boy.
Forensics testing last November on dust, vegetation, and other materials found on Amy Fry-Pitzen's SUV, indicated the vehicle was stopped for an unknown period of time on a wide gravel shoulder, gravel road, or short gravel turnout either adjacent to, or just off of, an asphalt secondary road that had at one time, been treated with glass road-marking beads.
In close proximity to the gravel shoulder or road where the vehicle stopped, it backed into a grassy meadow or field to a spot that is nearly treeless. There are birch and oak trees in the general area but not directly over or at the spot where the SUV stopped. Both Queen Anne's Lace and black mustard plants grow in a row along the border of the field or the shoulder of the road.
In addition, there is no corn growing in or adjacent to the spot where the SUV stopped, nor is there any indication that the area had been used for agriculture in the recent past. Instead, the evidence strongly suggests that grasses have been the only major plants growing in the immediate area which leads scientists to believe that it is a meadow and not, for example, a field that had once been farmland and not recently sown. Forensic results indicate that the grass was not cut which helps rule out a rural residential lawn or a park. There is also a strong likelihood that there is a pond, small stream, or creek in the area.
Scientists further believe that the meadow is most likely in Northwestern Illinois with Lee and Whiteside Counties as the most likely locations. However, areas in Carroll, Ogle, Stephenson, and Winnebago Counties cannot be ruled out. Microtrace has since performed other tests but has not been able to further narrow down the six county area -- an area much too large for police to conduct ground searches.
Missing items that may yield clues and those of which people should be looking for include Timmothy's Spider Man backpack, several toys and a tube of toothpaste Amy had bought for Timmothy before he disappeared; and Amy's cell phone and I-Pass device. Since there are several state parks and other popular areas for outdoor enthusiasts in that part of Illinois, police are also hoping that hikers, bikers, boaters, and other visitors will be on the lookout for the items.
Pictures of several of the items are posted on the City of Aurora's
website. Anyone finding any of the items should immediately call Aurora Police at 630-256-5500.
Investigators still have no leads into Timmothy's whereabouts, including whether they boy is still alive or if he met with foul play. The last time anyone heard from Timmothy was on May 13, 2011, when he talked to a relative via his mother's cell phone as the pair were traveling about five miles west of Sterling, Illinois.
