Family of missing boy was elated, then devastated by hoax

Eight years after an Illinois boy disappeared, his family began to think that their nightmare might be over at last. A young man found wandering the streets of a Kentucky town claimed he had just escaped from two men in the Cincinnati area who held him captive for seven years. And he told police his name was Timmothy Pitzen. It didn't seem possible that someone so far away could make up such a story. So for a day and a half, relatives waited and hoped for a breakthrough.

Then on Thursday came devastating word from the FBI: DNA tests showed that the person was not Timmothy, a boy from Aurora who vanished at age 6 in 2011, around the time of his mother's suicide.
"It's like reliving that day all over again, and Timmothy's father is devastated once again, as are we," said the boy's aunt Kara Jacobs, her voice choked with emotion.
Authorities said the person claiming to be 14-year-old Timmothy was actually a 23-year-old ex-convict who was recently released from an Ohio prison after serving time for burglary and vandalism.
Neither Jacobs nor the boy's grandmother Alana Anderson tried to hide their disappointment as they struggled for composure during a brief news conference outside Anderson's home in Antioch, about 60 miles north of Aurora.
Anderson said her prayer has always been that when Timmothy was old enough, "he would find us if we couldn't find him". She held out hope that if he's "in a place where he has communication with the media or a computer, that he'll remember us enough to look for us, and I think he will. He's a very smart guy."