Timmothy Pitzen case: Teen tells Kentucky authorities that he's Aurora boy missing since 2011
Aurora police headed to the Cincinnati area Wednesday to assist the FBI with a possible break in the case of Timmothy Pitzen, an Aurora boy who went missing in 2011 when he was 6 years old.
Wednesday morning, a 14-year-old boy told authorities that he was Timmothy and that he "had just escaped from two kidnappers that have been holding him for 7 years," according to Cincinnati area police authorities.
Residents in a Newport, Kentucky, neighborhood -- just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati -- called police after the boy was found wandering the streets. He approached a woman in a vehicle asking for help.
A woman who stood with the boy until police showed up said he looked confused and rattled.
WATCH: Timeline of Timmothy Pitzen case
"He looked like he had been beat up, punched in the face a couple of times," one of the residents said. "You could see the fear on him and how nervous he was and how he kept pacing. He just looked odd."
In a statement Wednesday afternoon, Aurora police said they could not confirm that the boy is Timmothy. One of the two detectives headed to Ohio is a cold case investigator.
DNA results are expected Thursday afternoon. The boy was taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital for evaluation.
FBI agents from Louisville and Cincinnati said they are coordinating with the Newport Police Department, Cincinnati Police Department, Hamilton County Sheriff's Office and the Aurora Police Department on a missing child investigation.
Timmothy was last seen at Wisconsin Dells with his mother. Aurora police said they have received hundreds of tips in the nearly eight years since he went missing.
RAW VIDEO: Timmothy Pitzen last seen on surveillance video
On Wednesday, Timmothy said his kidnappers were two white men with a "body-builder type build" and tattoos, according to a Sharonville (Ohio) Police Department incident report. He said he escaped and kept running across a bridge in Kentucky. They had been staying at a Red Roof Inn, but he said he did not know where.
The report says that the men were driving a "newer model Ford SUV, bearing unknown Wisconsin plates, with a 2nd row, white in color with yellow transfer paint, and a dent on the left back bumper."
READ: Sharonville PD incident report
The boy was not spotted in Sharonville, but they do have a Red Roof Inn and had been made aware of the incident as investigators searched for all Red Roof Inn hotels in the Cincinnati area.
Timmothy's grandmother, Alana Anderson, said she is "cautiously optimistic."
"We never stopped looking for him," said Anderson, who lives in north suburban Antioch.
Anderson had a message for her grandson: "We never stopped looking for him, thinking about him and we love him and we'll do everything we can to get him back to a good life."
RELATED: What would 10-year-old Timmothy Pitzen look like?
On May 11, 2011, surveillance video captured Timmothy's mother, 43-year-old Amy Fry Pitzen, picking him up from Greenman Elementary School in Aurora. She told the school there was a family emergency.
Police said Pitzen took her son to Brookfield Zoo and to Key Lime Cove in Gurnee. On May 12, they checked into the Kalahari Resort in the Wisconsin Dells.
Timmothy and his mom were last seen together on the morning of May 13, checking out of the resort.
New image released of Timmothy Pitzen, missing Aurora boy
Police said Pitzen then checked herself into a motel in Rockford, Illinois, that night. She appeared to be alone.
She was found dead on May 14. She had taken her own life.
Police said Pitzen left a suicide note that said, "Tim is somewhere safe with people who love him and will care for him. You will never find him."
In August 2011, police disclosed they found a "concerning" amount of blood in the back seat of Pitzen's SUV after her death. Tests showed the blood was Timmothy's. Authorities also released a video clip of 6-year-old Timmothy playing a make-believe guitar, hoping that the boy's disappearance would remain in the public eye.
In 2013, Pitzen's cellphone was recovered from a roadside ditch near Rockford. Police said there was no useful information on the phone.
In 2015, the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children released an age progression of what Timmothy would look like at 10 years old. A woman in Rockton, Illinois, thought she saw a boy resembling the image, but it wasn't him.
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