Missing boy Timmothy Pitzen's grandmother believes his mother hid him in a Mormon commune before she killed herself 13 years ago

Missing boy Timmothy Pitzen could be sequestered in a Mormon commune with no idea who he really is, his grandmother believes.

Timmothy vanished without a trace on May 11, 2011, shortly after being dropped off at Greenman Elementary School, in Aurora, Illinois, by his father.

His mother Amy Fry-Pitzen told the school she needed to take her six-year-old son home because of a family emergency.

Fry-Pitzen, 43, then took her son on a three-day holiday, visiting the zoo and several water-parks and was found dead in a motel room on May 14 alone.

A suicide note she left behind said her son was safe and being 'well cared for', but added: 'You'll never find him'.

Timmothy Pitzen vanished without a trace on May 11, 2011, shortly after being dropped off at Greenman Elementary School, in Aurora, Illinois, when his mother picked him up early

Amy Fry-Pitzen, 43, then took her son on a three-day holiday, visiting the zoo and several water-parks and was found dead in a motel room on May 14 alone

Since then, his father Jim Pitzen and grandmother Linda Pitzen - along with police - have fruitlessly searched for him without any leads.

Timmothy's childhood friend Hannah Soukup couldn't let the case go either, and did her own research into his disappearance.

She believes her missing classmate is living in a remote Mormon commune without access to the internet - and Linda agrees.

'I think she wanted Timm to be raised Mormon,' Linda told the US Sun, adding that her daughter-in-law was raised in the religious sect.

'The rest of us aren't Mormon and I think this was her way of making sure he was after she'd gone.

'She never pushed it on anyone apart from Jim. But he was reluctant and I think her church may have been pushing her a little, I don't know.'

What Timmothy would look like today, aged 19

Timmothy's grandmother Linda Pitzen believes he could be sequestered in a Mormon commune with no idea who he really is

Timmothy's childhood friend Hannah Soukup believes he is living in a remote Mormon commune without access to the internet - and Linda agrees

Soukup said her old classmate, who like her would be 19 now, had to have no idea who he was so he wouldn't come looking for his family.

'Whatever Amy did, she did a good job of hiding him,' she told the US Sun.

'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.

'I definitely think he's alive, but I definitely think he's somewhere that will be very difficult to find.' 

Soukup, whose lasting memory of Timmothy was when they were sent to timeout together for opening Thanksgiving treats early, recalled how her teacher explained what happened to him.

'I remember we all just kind of assumed he was sick, so it was all very sudden, and because we were all so young we didn't really understand what was going on, even when Mrs Broach briefly told us what happened in a sugar-coated way.

'I just remember being very, very confused that he wasn't there.'

The first sign anything was wrong was when Jim Pitzen (left) arrived to pick up Timmothy from school and was told his wife (right) already collected him

Soukup said her old classmate, who like her would be 19 now, had to have no idea who he was so he wouldn't come looking for his family

Another missing poster released in 2019 showing Timmothy when he disappeared, and what he would look like at the time as a 14-year-old

Soukup didn't find out the truth until her mother sat her down at age 11.

'It's so unfair that he was taken from the rest of his family because his mother had ulterior motives,' she said.

'And it breaks my heart that people would keep him and not let him know who he is or anybody he knew before, and keep him secluded away from the rest of the world.

'At the same time still, what really scares me is he could be out there leading a normal life with no idea who he is.

'He could be at college with a completely different name and think these people he was handed off to are his family.'

The first sign anything was wrong was when Jim Pitzen arrived to pick up Timmothy from school and was told his wife already collected him.

The couple discussed separating in the weeks before Fry-Pitzen took off with her son, and she was was 'not happy about the prospect of another divorce'.

For more than a day, he found no sign of Timmothy or Fry-Pitzen, until eventually she called him and his brother Chuck on May 12.

'Timmothy is fine. Timmothy belongs to me. Timmothy and I will be fine. Timmothy is safe. Tim is my son, I can do what I want,' she told them. 

She told Chuck: 'What, don't you trust me?. I'm not going to hurt myself. I'm not going to hurt Tim.'

Fry-Pitzen also told her mother 'everything's fine' and she just needed to spend some time alone with her son.

The last known images of Timmothy and his mother together were captured on CCTV, checking out of the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells on May 12.   

The last known images of Timmothy and his mother together were captured on CCTV, checking out of the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells on May 12

Here they are walking out the door together, the last moments before he vanished

The following day, Amy was spotted alone by a surveillance camera in a supermarket 120 miles away near Rockford, having bought a pen, paper, and some envelopes

The following day, Amy was spotted alone by a surveillance camera in a supermarket 120 miles away near Rockford, having bought a pen, paper, and some envelopes. 

She used them to write her suicide note and send it to her mother Alana Anderson.

'Ive taken him somewhere safe. He will be well cared for and he says that he loves you. Please know that there is nothing you could have said or done that would have changed my mind,' she wrote.

Fry-Pitzen was found dead inside her Rockford Inn motel room on May 14, having taken her own life by swallowing pills and slashing her wrists.

Aurora Police launched an investigation spanning three states – including Illinois and Wisconsin – after her death to find the person allegedly in possession of Timmothy.

Police say they also explored the possibility Amy may have murdered her son in the midst of her turmoil and hidden the child's body somewhere.

The razorblade-edged knife she used to cut her wrists with showed only traces of her blood.

The couple discussed separating in the weeks before Fry-Pitzen took off with her son, and she was was 'not happy about the prospect of another divorce'

But three months after Timmothy's disappearance investigators found a 'concerning' amount of blood in the back seat of Amy's car.  

However, hope the six-year-old could still be alive was revived when the blood was later concluded to have come from a nosebleed suffered by the Timmothy several months earlier.

Analyzing the exterior of Amy's SUV, police were able to determine the vehicle had at one stage been parked in a grassy area, near a stream and a road treated with glass beads.

They believed this could have been the location where Amy handed over Timothy to the mysterious third-party, but nothing further came from the evidence. 

The last breakthrough in the disappearance of Pitzen came in 2014, when a woman hosting a garage sale in northern Illinois dialed 911 to tell police a boy matching his description had been standing in the front-yard of her home.