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FBI rejects teen’s claim to be long-missing boy based on DNA

Cincinnati • DNA tests disproved a teenager’s claim that he was an Illinois boy who disappeared eight years ago, the FBI said Thursday, dashing hopes that the baffling case had finally been solved.

For a day and a half, a breakthrough seemed to be at hand when a teenager found wandering the streets of Newport, Kentucky, on Wednesday identified himself as 14-year-old Timmothy Pitzen and claimed he had just escaped from two men in the Cincinnati area who had held him captive for seven years.

Timmothy Pitzen was the name of a boy from Aurora, Illinois, who disappeared in 2011 around the time of his mother's suicide, and there have been a multitude of false sightings and hoaxes over the years.