There’s a reason so many parents refuse to give up hope when their children go missing, and the case of Timmothy Pitzen is a prime example.

Yes, his name is Timmothy, and no, he didn’t run away from home because of it.

The story of his disappearance remains shrouded in mystery, although police do have some basic details. After his father dropped him off at school back in May 2011, his mother collected him and removed him from the school, citing a family emergency.

Amy Fry-Pitzen (with Timmothy, above) and the then six-year-old spent three days visiting various amusement parks, zoos and water parks, before she was found dead by suicide in a motel room, where authorities found a note saying that Timmothy was safe.

It added that he was with people who would love and care for him, and that authorities would never find him.

Fast forward seven years (almost eight), and authorities believe the boy has been found – or rather, he found someone who called the authorities.

Here’s the Daily Beast:

…a battered and frightened 14-year-old boy surfaced in Kentucky on Wednesday claiming to be a kidnap victim. His name, he said, was Timmothy Pitzen.

“He walked up to my car and he went, ‘Can you help me? I just want to get home. Can you just please help me?’ And I asked him what was going on and he told me he’s been kidnapped,” a good Samaritan who called police told WCPO.

“Really you felt bad for him, his face looked like he’d been beat up. He had a really big bruise on his face. I was hurt for him.”

Police have not said whether they have confirmed the teenager is, in fact, the same boy who walked out of Greenman Elementary School, wearing a Spider-Man backpack, with his mom years earlier. Preliminary DNA tests could take at least a day.

Details of where the teenager has been and who was holding him are also scant. A police report said he described his captors as “two male, whites, body-builder type build,” with tattoos and a vehicle with Wisconsin plates. He told cops he escaped from a Red Roof Inn and ran across a bridge into Newport, Kentucky, where he asked strangers for help.

Timmothy’s father, James (not Jammes), has previously stated that there were some issues in his marriage with Amy at the time that she took her son and then committed suicide, but nothing that would suggest either’s life was in danger.

Finally, after saying the words “Maybe I’ll see Tim in the morning,…Maybe tomorrow they’ll find him” every night since Timmothy’s disappearance in 2011, James may be reunited with his son.

I guess it’s stories like these that keep the parents of Madeleine McCann filled with hope.

[sources:cnn&dailybeast]