Timmothy Pitzen: Man who claims to be teenage boy who went missing eight years ago is actually 23-year-old criminal

'Law enforcement has not and will not forget Timmothy,' officials say

Brian Michael Rini told authorities he had fled from a Red Roof Inn and crossed a bridge into Newport, Kentucky, where he told local police he had “just escaped from two kidnappers”.

The Louisville FBI then said a DNA analysis confirmed he was not who he had claimed to be.

Authorities said the man was in fact a former convict who was recently released from an Ohio prison after serving time for burglary and vandalism.

Hopes were briefly raised that he was Timmothy, who was last seen after his mother pulled him out of school in Aurora, a far-west suburb of Chicago, and then killed herself

“A local investigation continues into this person’s true identity,” Louisville FBI Agent Tim Beam said in a statement after the discovery.

“Law enforcement has not and will not forget Timmothy, and we hope to one day reunite him with his family,” the statement added. “Unfortunately, that day will not be today.”

Timmothy Pitzen went missing in May 2011 at the age of six, after his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, pulled him out of school and took him on a trip to a zoo and a water park.

She killed herself soon afterwards in a motel room, leaving a note that local media said made the boy’s whereabouts a mystery.

“Tim is somewhere safe with people who love him and will care for him,” she wrote in the note, according to reports by ABC7 Chicago. “You will never find him.”

On Wednesday a person who said his name was Timmothy told police in Newport, Kentucky, that he had been held captive for seven years by two white men he described as “body-builder types” until he escaped and ran across a bridge from Ohio into Kentucky.

Additional reporting by Reuters