DNA results show person claiming to be Timmothy Pitzen, missing since 2011, is not him – NBC News

Aperson who told authorities in Kentucky that he escaped from kidnappers after being held captive seven years is not Timmothy Pitzen — who went missing in 2011 after his mother was found dead in an Illinois motel room.

DNA tests indicate that the young man is not the boy from Aurora, Illinois — who disappeared when he was 6 — as he had told authorities in Campbell County, Kentucky, on Wednesday morning.

His real name is Brian Michael Rini, 23, of Medina, Ohio, a police official in Kentucky told NBC News.

Aurora police pledged to continue their search for the missing boy.

“Although we are disappointed that this turned out to be a hoax, we remain diligent in our search for Timmothy, as our missing person’s case remains unsolved,” the Aurora PD said.

Timmothy’s family members said at an afternoon news conference that they remain optimistic they will someday be reunited with him. They also expressed sympathy for Rini.

“We know you are out there somewhere, Tim, and we will never stop looking for you, praying for you and loving you,” Kara Jacobs, Timmothy’s maternal aunt, said. “We hope that everyone will join us in praying for the young man who claimed to be Timmothy Pitzen.”

Alana Anderson, Timmothy’s grandmother, said she has felt a mix of emotions during the last 24 hours.

“It’s been awful. We’ve been hopeful, frightened,” she said. “It’s just been exhausting.”

She also asked for the public’s prayers for Rini.

“I feel so sorry for the young man who has obviously had a horrible time and felt the need to say he was someone else,” Anderson said. “And I hope that they can find his family.”

Rini told investigators Wednesday that he escaped two kidnappers, described as white males with bodybuilder physiques, according to a Sharonville, Ohio, police report.

He said that he was staying at a Red Roof Inn with his abductors and that after he escaped, he ran across a bridge from Ohio into Kentucky, where he was found wandering the streets, according to police.

A woman who encountered Rini on Wednesday morning on a Kentucky street told NBC affiliate WLWT that the young man asked her to call 911.

“I asked him what was going on, and he told me he’s been kidnapped and he’s been traded through all these people,” the woman said, asking not to be identified. “He just wanted to go home. He needed help.”

She said he looked as if he’d been beaten up and “had a really big bruise on his face.”

Timmothy disappeared while on a road trip with his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, 43, in May 2011.

Amy Fry-Pitzen is believed to have picked up her son from school and taken him to a zoo and a water park in the Wisconsin Dells before she was found dead by what appeared to be suicide in a motel room in Rockford, Illinois, according to a police report and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Notes she left behind stated her son was safe but would never be found, authorities have said.

Anderson told NBC News on Wednesday that she last saw her grandson when he was 6 1/2 years old.

“His mother left me a letter and she said that he would be with people who would love him and take care of him,” she said. “She felt that her life had come to an end and she was going to end her life, and she didn’t want to leave him without good parenting.”

Anderson said Thursday that she has never stopped thinking about her grandson.

“My prayer has always been that when he was old enough, he would find us if we couldn’t find him,” she said.