Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - WOMAN CLAIMS TO BE MISSING CHERRIE MAHAN, 8, WHO VANISHED AT BUS STOP;MISSING BOY’S FAMILY SCARED OF IMPOSTER POSING AS TIMMOTHY

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

Two family grapple with individuals who claim to be long-lost missing children. A woman comes forward claiming to be Cherrie Ann Mahan. The little girl was just an 8-year-old when she went missing, after getting off her school bus, just feet away from her home.  A blue or green van is the only clue. Six-year-old Timmothy James Pitzen was dropped off at school by his father James. Not long after, he was picked up after by his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, who took the boy on a three-day trip to amusement parks in their region.  Fry-Pitzen's body was found in a motel room. The mom had committed suicide, leaving a note says Timmothy was safe, but his father would never see him again. Who would claim to be a missing child? JOINING NANCY TODAY:  Irv Brandt  - (Retired) US Marshals Service International Investigations Branch, Author: “GOING SOLO: The Gospel of Luke,” and “SOLO JOURNEY: Buddha Knights;” X: @JackSoloAuthor Lynn Shaw – Founder and Executive Director of Lynn's Warriors  Molly Miller - Crime reporter at the 'Butler Eagle' in Pennsylvania - Caryn L. Stark – Psychologist, Renowned TV and Radio Trauma Expert and Consultant; Instagram: carynpsych/FB: Caryn Stark Private Practice Alexis Tereszcuk –(CA) CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Writer/Fact Checker at Lead Stories; X: @swimmie2009   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Los Angeles is famous for the always captivating entertainment industry, some of the most famous sports teams, and incredibly expensive smoothies. But beneath the glamour, it's also a breeding ground for bizarre, historic, and unforgettable crimes. My name is Madison McGee. You might know me from my podcast Ice Cold Case, where for the last three years I've been investigating my father's murder. But now I've embedded myself into the LA Times crime beat to bring you not only some of the juiciest cases, but what it takes to be a gritty crime reporter in a giant metropolis.

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What happened to eight-year-old Cherry? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. In the last days, a woman claiming to be Cherry Mahan, who goes missing at just age eight, has emerged. What happened in the case? I want you to take a listen to this. Janice and Leroy McKinney hear Cherry's bus arriving to drop off Cherry, and Leroy wants to walk down the hill to meet his daughter, but Janice says, wait, it's a nice day, let her walk. Ten minutes pass, and Cherry hasn't made it up the driveway, so the McKinneys decide to walk down the driveway. As they walk, they don't see Cherry, nor do they see any of her footprints in the snow leading up the driveway. On the driveway, about 50 yards from the house, they see tire impressions in the snow soil of the driveway.

Joining me in All-Star panel, but first I want to go to Molly Miller, crime reporter at the Butler Eagle. Molly, thank you so much for being with us. What exactly do we believe happened the morning Cherry went missing? I'll get to the woman claiming to be Cherry in just a moment, but I want to establish what happened. All we know is that this bluish green van with the mountain skier on the side was following the bus. She exits the bus with three other kids and seemingly starts to walk up the driveway, but at that point, people don't really know where she went after that. No one, there's no reported sighting

from anyone. She's last seen wearing a gray jacket, blue jean skirt, some leg warmers and some earmuffs and no clothing is ever found. And her stepdad reportedly came down to check for her just 10 minutes after they heard the bus pull up. So really it seems as if she's vanished into thin air. You know, Irv Brandt, I actually think that's a lot of information. Why? Because we have a date and we have a very narrow window of time in which Cherry disappears. Irv Brandt, you and I have talked about this many, many times. Did you know over 30% of child kidnaps and disappearances have something to do with the school route, either getting to the bus stop, getting on the bus, getting off the bus, walking to school, coming home from school. Do you know over 30% of child kidnaps relate to the school bus or getting to and from school?

And I believe that is exactly what happened here. I agree, Nancy. When cases like this, and it's obviously this child was targeted, this wasn't a kidnapping of opportunity. This was, appears to be someone, you know, researched this, knew the route, you know, because other children got off the bus at the same time, but she was targeted in particular, and she disappears without a trace. That would lead you to believe, you know, this was pre-planned. And there's no telling how much pre-planning went into it. Obviously quite a bit because no viable leads were generated right after the kidnapping. There's a $5,000 reward in the search for Cherry. I want

to go back to Molly Miller, a crime reporter at the Butler Eagle. Molly, again, I think we've got a lot of information, even though this case hasn't been solved yet. For instance, very often when a child goes missing, you look at the immediate family, right? You look at mommy, you look at daddy, you look at step mommy, step daddy. In this case, you have the bio mom and the stepfather. They hear the bus arrive. They're waiting for Cherry to come up the driveway. They see each other. And I have no reason to doubt what the biological mother is saying.

Okay. Nothing suggests stepfather stole this child. And another thing regarding the stepfather who would immediately come under suspicion because the male member of the family is always a suspect until cleared. The 911 is made. The alarm is raised so quickly after the school bus stops. As soon as they go out and they see she's not there, they contact police. That narrows the window of time stepdad could have been involved. And this is why we know exactly what time that school bus was there. We have the little friends that got off the school bus with her. Other people saw the school bus. Then you compare that to the time that she was reported missing. There's not really time for stepdad to take the child, what, molest her and kill her. There's no time. If you look at the timeline, Molly Miller. There is some speculation

because, I mean, it all goes back to that van following the school bus. There's a lot of speculation, actually, that the van itself was just a transport vehicle to another location. It's possible that she was put in another vehicle. There was people seeing a blue compact vehicle in that area at the same time. So it's possible that that number one, there were

multiple people involved. And I mean, FBI has done a profile on Cherry's potential abductor, and it all points back to it had to have been someone she knows to have not raised alarm. And again, in such a short period of time, it's very unlikely that she was afraid of going with this person who did take her. To Lynn Shaw joining us, founder and executive director of Lynn's Warriors, an organization committed to ending human trafficking and sex exploitation, specifically of children. Lynn, thank you so much for being with us. The first thing I want to do is try to rule out the parents. Okay. Why? Because statistically

they or a family member is responsible for missing children, right? That's a given. That's a statistic. And what I'm trying to say is that that's a huge piece of this puzzle. We know the answer. It's not the stepdad. It's not the mother based on the timeline alone. That's very significant in Cherry's disappearance. I can't stress it enough. Yes, it opens up a whole nother avenue of inquiry, of investigation, but that's the first hurdle is ruling out mom, dad, stepmom, stepdad. That's the first thing you do, Lynn. It's the first thing, Nancy, you do. But the second thing you always do, immediate family members. Now, the next thing you have to look at the bus driver. Why aren't we looking more? There have been some reports looking at the bus driver. What about school, school teachers? I

don't understand, Nancy. You're a mom. I'm a mom. The worst thing in the world is your child disappears and nobody seems to know anything. We do know from law enforcement and from all our work at the Warriors, it is most likely somebody that knows Cherry, a family member. She was eight years old. She didn't scream. We don't know anything. If the father could hear the school bus up the driveway, he didn't hear anything else. Cars peeling off, the bus taking off. I don't know. I think we have a lot of information here. And for all the cherries out there, we cannot stop until we explore every single aspect of this case. We have to search for all these missing children. You know, it's interesting. You mentioned the bus driver. And of course, you got to look at the bus driver. But by all accounts, the bus driver drove off. He didn't take Jerry. Although you have to look when we say someone she knows, that doesn't mean it's the uncle or the grandpa. It could be, as you're saying, a bus driver, a school teacher, a neighbor, a neighbor. How easily could a neighbor have snatched her and taken her into his home, raped her

and murdered her? Very easily. She was gone just like that. So I know we're talking about the potential two-car theory that multiple people were involved in stealing Cherry, but I often think, Irv Brandt, that the most obvious answer is the answer. Irv Brandt is joining me, guys. Senior Inspector, U.S. Marshal Service International Investigations. He was also with DOJ in International Affairs.

He has worked all over the world with the U.S. government, including embassies abroad, trying to bring home missing people and catch perps that have absconded. He's the author of a whole series of books about Jack Solo, who I believe is Irv Brandt, specifically Flying Solo, Top of the World, and more. Irv,

weigh in on this. And I'm not saying I always think if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it's a duck. But very often, it is. You're exactly right, Nancy. And that's where you start an investigation. You start an investigation with the most obvious. It's Occam's razor. The simplest explanation is usually the correct explanation. So when you're investigating the case, the first thing you look for is to family members. And you're just going on that by past history of cases where in missing persons cases, family members are usually somehow involved. Then you

expand it out to neighbors, to people that know it. Like you were talking about bus driver, teacher, someone like that, someone who knows the routes. And then you expand further. And then eventually you're going to get into complex theories when you start running out of leads or lack of leads. You're going to start venturing into complex theories of multiple vehicles and multiple people and things. And it is possible, but like you said before, it's not likely, and usually the simplest explanation is the correct explanation. I mean, it's really hard for me to believe

that there are multiple kidnappers going after this one little girl, and after all this time, no one has blabbed. It's possible, yes, probable, no, although I am very interested in the van. Tamale Miller, crime reporter at Butler Eagle, tell me about the van. We've referred to it, but describe it for me. So an initial sketch came out a few days after Cherry was abducted.

It was described by schoolchildren as a blue or green van with a mountain scene and skier or skiers painted on the side. There's some discrepancy there. It also had porthole windows in the back. But less than a week after her disappearance, people started speculating that maybe it was a bush beer van, given the similarity of the landscape on the side. So people were searching into that, police were searching into it, and they got nearly, I mean, over the years, 400 reports of this one van being seen in West Virginia, all across the county, even as close as Pittsburgh. But unfortunately, nothing has been really nailed down as far as the make of the van.

The closest speculation people have is it's a 1976 Dodge style van. And describe what is painted on the side of it. Yes, so people are saying it's a mountain scene, specifically one peak of a mountain going up the center of the van, almost overlapping the windows. And this would be a white mountain, blue background. And then a skier going down the side, it appears to be the left side of the slope. People are saying it's either painted on or it was decaled on and stuck on. Parents call police immediately, which even narrows the timeline more. The timeline in which this eight-year-old little girl could be snatched off the bus. In the last days, a woman claims she is Cherry. Listen. A woman logs on to the

Memories of Cherry May and Facebook page claiming to be the little girl last seen walking from her school bus to the driveway of her house. Cherry's mother, Janice McKinney, sees the post and contacts the Pennsylvania State Police. The state police have their own contact with the woman when she leaves them a voicemail making the same claim. She is Cherry Mayen. Janice McKinney knows better than to get her hopes up as three other women have come forward previously making the same claim. Oh my stars. Let's just put the family through more pure hell by a woman claiming to be Cherry. Or is she? Molly Miller joining us, investigative reporter at the Butler Eagle. Molly, tell me about this woman now claiming she's Cherry. Well, as she said, she logs in to the public Facebook forum, Memories of Cherry Mahan,

and the post literally just reads, I am Cherry Mahan and has a phone number that actually comes out from Tennessee. And then she, I guess, has some back and forth with some people in the forum and becomes very aggressive. The posts have since been taken down, but one of the administrators of the page said that because of the aggression of the comments, there was cause for suspicion. She did leave a voicemail with police, but then wouldn't respond to any return it calls.

A couple days later, police actually said that they were able to review fingerprints from this woman calling herself Cherry, but it was not a match. This has happened many times in the past in other missing child cases. Isn't it a simple matter of DNA? Listen. Investigating the recent online post in a voicemail message left with the state police from a woman claiming to be Cherry Mahan, investigators go to work trying to verify the claim. Reaching out to the woman at the phone number and address she left, Pennsylvania State Police investigators fail to make contact with the woman at the phone number and address provided by the person.

However, investigators obtain fingerprints for the name of the person left by the caller and they are not a match with Cherry Mahan. The search continues. So that match, or mismatch in this case, is made from taking the woman claiming to be Cherry Mahan and comparing it to known prints, a little girl Cherry. Your fingerprints don't change. Your fingertips may grow from childhood, obviously, but the swirled patterns on

your fingertips never change no one has a perfect match to your fingerprints even if you're an identical twin as I said this has happened so many times in the past people coming forward claiming their high-profile missing child. I guess one of the most famous of those cases would be that of little girl Maddie McCann. Listen. The search for Maddie McCann seems to be over as a woman on Facebook claims to be the little girl who disappears from a hotel room while on vacation with her parents. Julia Wendell takes a DNA test that proves she is 100% Polish and not Maddie McCann. But that doesn't stop Wendell from showing up at a memorial service to commemorate the anniversary of Maddie's disappearance, hoping to get Kate and Jerry McCann to provide a DNA sample

that the hoaxer claims will prove she is their missing daughter. Wendell has done this before, claiming to be a missing German schoolgirl and a missing American toddler. Oh, my stars. What a fake. You know, Irv Brandt joining us, you have traveled the world finding missing people and apprehending convicts and fugitives. The Maddie McCann case blew up when Maddie was taken from a vacation rental. And her parents have let us search for Maddie for years. And then this woman jumps up claiming she's Maddie McCann. Do you recall this?

That's correct, Nancy. As you know and I know, in these high-profile cases, you get a lot of disturbed people calling in and their need for attention. And it has, unfortunately, well, not unfortunately, but you have to follow every lead and you got to disprove this. And it's part of the job and it's a waste of time and it's a waste of resources. But it's something that has to be done every single time. Yes, Maddie McCann's faker, the impersonator pretending to be Maddie, causing all sorts of pain to Maddie's parents.

That happened. Straight back to Lynn Shaw joining us, founder and director of Lynn's Warriors. I wonder what motivates people to pretend they're the missing child all these years later. And it breaks my heart that Cherry's mom tries to, quote, not get her hopes up when she hears that someone has emerged claiming to be Cherry, that means that she is so at the end of her rope, so beaten down, she doesn't even dare to hope anymore. I have so many questions, Nancy. First of all, people seek attention, especially in the last two decades with the internet, everybody wants their 15 minutes of fame. I have so many questions such as there's the Cherry Mahan Facebook group. There's lots of Facebook groups with missing children. I want to know why this particular woman, as far as we know,

it's a woman, is claiming to be Cherry. Why is she on that Facebook group? I also want to know, what if this woman claiming to be Cherry, who gave the name to the police, the phone number to the police, what if she just gave another person's name? So of course, the fingerprints aren't going to match at all. I have so many questions. I go back to even the van. The first thing I do is pull in a garage somewhere and get rid of the van very locally nearby and switch off. It has to be in this circle of somebody cherry nose. And the other thing is the internet, the internet, we have to keep talking about it as great as it is, and it's not going away. It is fueling these

people to come forward just to say and get their kicks. And that's the way I have to put it, kicks. We have a well-documented mental health crisis in the United States. And now people have found a new avenue of tormenting, tormenting parents and family members of missing kids. And there are a lot of cherry stories out there and it has to be more well vetted. The other thing I wanna leave you with,

we have so much advances in DNA as everybody knows. What about the advances? We work with a lot of great tech people. If this person was on that Facebook page, they should be able to go back and track that URL, where she was communicating from. So I have lots of questions, Nancy, that need answers. Speaking of DNA, I wonder if Cherry's DNA has been added into the DNA database. It's not hard to do. You don't have to have a bugle swab or give your blood in order for there to be a DNA profile of you. It's simply a matter of parents using her hairbrush or her toothbrush or items of her clothing or sheets that may have her hair or skin follicles or skin on that. You know, to Irv Brandt, that would be a major step forward to find out if her

DNA is in a DNA data bank. I agree, Nancy. Scientific evidence is some of the best evidence. You know, when we're talking about fingerprints, fingerprints are 100% reliable. If you have someone claiming to be or someone you think to be the missing person, 100% can be done through fingerprints and same way with DNA. So if you can put the DNA into the database and you could possibly get hits and it just generates more leads for you to follow. Six-year-old Timothy Pitson, picked up by mom at school, vanishes. A whirlwind, destinationless journey ensues, ended by his mom's hotel suicide. But where is Timothy? By all accounts, mommy would never have hurt her child.

And now, these years later, Timothy's family living in fear. In fear of what? An imposter posing as Timothy. What do we know? First of all, take a listen to this. When was the last time you saw your son alive? I dropped him off at kindergarten that morning. She usually drops him off at kindergarten. I pick him up after kindergarten, take him to daycare. Then when I get off work, I pick him up at daycare and take him home. But the school knows you and your wife both. Yes. What was the last thing he said to you and you said to him? He said, love you, dad. I go, I'll see you after school, buddy. And I watched

him run off to class. That's Timothy's dad speaking out to our friend, Dr. Phil. So what else do we know happened? Listen. Timothy lived in Aurora, Illinois with his mother Amy and father Jim. On May 11, 2011, Amy picked up Timothy from school. Cameras there captured the pair together that morning. Later that day, when Timothy's father realized they were gone, he reported them missing. Investigators say Amy and Timothy traveled more than 500 miles over two days and were captured together on surveillance video several times. This is the last known sighting of Timothy, 1010 a.m. May 13, 2011.

They are seen checking out of a Wisconsin resort. Now, the mom leaves behind a note stating that Timothy is with a family that will keep him safe and where he will never be found. But after she signs him out of school, unbeknownst to the dad, oh, by the way, you were seeing that from our friends at NICMA, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. After she signs him out from school, let me go to our panel. Alexis Tereshchuk joining me, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. She takes him, first of all, taking him out of school to take him to a water park and on a very circuitous route to fun adventures. That's all well and good. You know, I used to take John David out of play school and then real school to go bowling. Okay. Is that right? Probably not. So when I first heard that,

I wasn't disturbed, but wait a minute. They go from, correct me if I'm wrong, Alexis, to the Brookville Zoo. And then they go to a water park, Wisconsin Dells Kalahari Resort. Then they check out of a hotel and head back to Illinois that morning. Now in the car, isn't this true, Alexis, that Amy, the mom, makes multiple phone calls to family and they can hear Timothy in the background. In fact, at one point, he's saying, hey, mom, I'm hungry. Nothing is amiss, Alexis. Nothing at all. She called her mom. Her mom heard the little boy in the background. They were talking. He did say he was hungry. They stopped at gas stations and bought snacks and food.

They stayed in hotels where there was food. There was nothing that anybody was worried about because they heard that he was alive. They could nothing that anybody was worried about because they heard that he was alive. They could hear him in the car. And that's what mom did. She picked him up. They went to a zoo. It was about 45 miles away, 45 minute drive. Then they head up to the Wisconsin Dells where I've actually been on vacation. It is like Vegas for water parks. The entire town is just full of different water park resorts. It is heaven for children and families. And she went there with him. They went to water park. They had a great time. Security footage caught them leaving there. The husband, though, is the one that said something's amiss.

I've spoken to her, but now she's not coming back. And that was not something they'd planned. She'd never said, you know, I'm going to take a three day vacation with him and we're going to go do these things. He started to get very worried about where his son. You know, Karen Stark, joining me right now, a psychologist joining us out of Manhattan, TV radio trauma expert at karenstark.com. That's Karen with a C. Karen, I've taken both twins out of what they were supposed to be doing and spent time with them doing something fun. So that's not unusual. However, in this case, mom had never done that before and she didn't tell the dad. Like, say, for instance, I'm going to take Lucy somewhere and we're not going to be where we're supposed to be.

I tell David, hey, I'm doing so and so. Or when I would take John David to the foot doctor, i.e. bowling, it wasn't a secret. It wasn't a big surreptitious activity the way it is here. Plus, what this mom did was out of the ordinary, Karen Stark. Which these are all signs that something is really amiss, Nancy, just like you said, because why would the father not know? As a matter of fact, this dad went to the school to pick him up at the end of the day and had no idea that he had been checked out by the mom.

She was not in touch with him, and initially she wasn't in touch with anyone. So of course it's highly suspicious behavior and nothing that you would expect from a parent. Timothy Pitson's mom leaves a bizarre suicide note claiming the six-year-old is safe but will never be seen again. Is the boy dead or stashed with a cult-like commune? Mommy found dead. No sign of Timothy. This is how Timothy Pitson goes missing. In the last months, this case has bubbled back up to the surface because the Pitson family living in fear because of an imposter posing as

Timothy. But back to the time he disappears. Listen. Amy Fry Pitson's cell phone was not in her hotel room or car. Two years later, her cell phone is found discarded behind a silo on a remote road in Mount Carroll, Illinois. From Sterling, Illinois, where Fry Pitson made several phone calls, Mount Carroll is on the way to Dubuque, Iowa. In her childhood, Fry Pitson spent several years living with her grandparents in Dubuque. Fry Pitson's sister, Kara Jacobs, believes Amy still has connections in the area and possibly left Timothy with a family there. Joining me in all-star panel but now to Irv Brandt, renowned U.S. Marshal Service International Investigations Branch Chief Inspector, DOJ Office of International Affair, author of a string of books about a guy

named Jack Solo who bears an amazing similarity to Irv Brandt, author, solo shot, Curse of the Blue Stone on Amazon and many more. Irv Brandt, you spent your whole career figuring out where is somebody? Now, think about this. This mom had never displayed any violence at all to Timothy Pitson ever. Very loving. A divorce was pending she was very distraught about that so we find her dead in the hotel room I know this is Timothy's alive but I've given him to a family that will take care of him and

love him you'll never find him and then her cell phone turns up at a town full of good memories for her. She spent time, a lot of time, with her grandparents there and was very happy. So what do you make of this? Well, Nancy, the circumstances involving the disappearance of this case would lead investigators to believe, number one, just the state of mind that she must have been in when she committed suicide is just so unusual, the manner that she did. Then the places that she chose to go to,

you would imagine that the first thing that they would investigate it as is a suicide homicide. But given the information, the family background, you have to consider the possibility that she did indeed give Timothy to someone from her past, someone that she still had a connection with who would care for the child. That's a possibility that the investigators have to check out and have to focus on. They have to focus on the child being alive first and foremost. Well, wait a minute, wait a minute.

Irv Brandt, she's not a master criminal. She's a mom who has always shown nothing but love for this child. She's distraught about a divorce. Yes, she had to be beside herself to commit suicide by slashing her wrists and her own neck. She writes this note, Timothy is alive and well, and with someone that will love him, inferring the father wouldn't. And maybe she felt that way because she felt rejected in the marriage. He was divorcing her. She also writes, you'll never find him.

My point, Irv Brandt, again, she's not a master criminal. She's not some French art thief or a cat burglar. You really think she could have hidden his body and it would be never found? Nancy, I understand what you're saying, that she's not a career criminal or a criminal at all. She's someone obviously with mental health problems and has a history of mental health problems. But is she capable of it? I would say yes. But does the possibility exist that she did turn this child over,

that she did, you know, of course she loved her child, and she wanted to see her child safe. Did she give this child to someone who would care for him? Yes, there is that possibility. Well, especially Irv Brandt, the fact that we know she was back in this area that she loved. We know that because her phone was found behind a silo in a rural area where she grew up with her grandparents. So did she take the child there? We've got our cell phone there. We know she was there. And then suddenly when she's back at this motel where she killed herself, there was no sign of him.

Remember, she was spotted out and about. We saw that video from NICMA, National Center of Misandry and Exploited Children. We saw that video and that was the last time she was seen with Timothy. Okay. The next time she's spotted, no Timothy. Okay. A hundred miles away, checking into the motel. It's as if she stashed him somewhere and then come back to this motel to kill herself, Irv Brandt. I agree, Nancy.

When you watch the videos and you look how she's acting, when she comes in, she doesn't seem distraught. She doesn't seem like someone who just killed their own child. She seems, you could even describe her as maybe even being relieved coming in because she knows this episode is going to be close to finish because she obviously planned this out. Just as the Pitson family starts to believe their beloved Timothy may finally be found, their hopes are dashed. A DNA test reveals that the mystery teen is really 23-year-old Brian Reaney. Reaney was released from prison for burglary and vandalism the month before and finds himself in more legal

trouble. Reaney is charged with two counts of falsifying statements and aggravated identity theft. Reaney takes a plea deal and serves a total of two years in prison. Joining me now, founder and director of Lynn's Warriors, dedicated to protecting children, Lynn Shaw. Lynn, Rennie is not the only one that pretended to be Timothy Pitson, and the family has stated every time an imposter comes forward, it's, quote, like ripping off a scab, making them relive the pain all over again. Nancy, we work extensively with trying to find missing children. We work on murdered children. This is the case, and it's been escalating over the years, that people step forward pretending for their 15 minutes of fame or whatever we're calling it in today's world.

There are so many, I'm surprised there are not more people stepping forward about this, but I want to circle back on something if I might, to, I was doing digging in and doing research. And in a lot of cases we work on law enforcement with us as our partners tell us, if we don't find an actual body or a child alive within 48 hours, we usually assume that they are not alive. And I ask you, if her cell phone was found two years later behind a silo, wherever they found it in the field, what was the investigation like for the body? Because I have to ask, he was at that impressionable age of six where he could have been handed off and his mind sort of brainwashed into another environment

where he forgot about his family. But I ask you, this whole thing sounds like she's going through a divorce, they had money problems. We have dealt with cases where one of the mother, the father, one of them will say in a divorce, if I can't have my child full-time, nobody's gonna have my child. And it doesn't matter if they're a loving mother.

They have no criminal history. They will take the life of that child. And that is what concerns me here. So I think more work. We can never give up on looking for these missing children at all. And for all we know, Timothy Pitson is alive and well, living right under our noses with another family that he's convinced is his own. Now, according to those closest to mom, Amy, she would never have hurt Timothy, no matter what. Listen to her sister.

My nephew, Timothy, has been missing since May 13th, 2011. Timothy Pitson was six years old when he vanished. We just believe with every fiber of our being that he's alive. So without any kind of logic to give you, I can just tell you I know that he's alive. Amy would never hurt her child, and I know that maybe that's hard for some people to grasp, given what she did to herself, but she just wouldn't have she had nothing but kindness and consideration for other people in her life a body has never been found and again this mom is no criminal mastermind where would she have hidden

the body now you were hearing Timothy's aunt Kara Jacobs from our friends at NICMA National Center Missing and Exploited Children, who have also been working on this case. So those around her are convinced mom did not kill Timothy. So now, all these years later, we have people appearing one after the next, pretending to be Timothy. Now, a quantity of blood was found. It was Timothy's. But guess what? It was proven to have been from a previous nosebleed he had in the car. So another dead end. It's not the first time a seemingly normal person pretends to be a missing child. Remember earlier we mentioned Maddie McCann? Listen to this. She says that she believes she is Madeline McCann, but many have speculated that Julia

may not be telling the truth. Her own parents think she's an attention seeker and they say no for certain that she's their daughter because the mother says she delivered her. You just have to take their DNA and your DNA and compare it. I tried to do it many times. As I said, I called many authorities. Nobody asked for it. Ryan, I'm sure Scott Laniard just wouldn't pick up the phone. The DNA didn't match.

That's not Maddie McCann, bottom line. Karen, start with me, renowned psychologist. Karen, why would someone torture Timothy Pitson's family this way, pretending to be Timothy? They need to have the attention, Nancy. They're looking to be noticed. And of course, they will get this little bit of attention, exactly what was said. But I also want to say something. This is a mother who said that she was terrified if something happened to her and they got divorced, that her son would be taken away from her. So I just want everybody to consider, how does it make sense if she was that frightened he would be taken away, that she would give him to another family. I don't understand that.

And I'm afraid that that really didn't happen because it doesn't fit. They were supposedly like two peas in a pod. So that scenario, I hear a lot of anger, even in the suicide. I know desperation, but people do kill themselves because they are so angry. Is Timothy Pitson alive? Is he hiding right under our noses? If you know, or you think you know, the answer to this riddle, dial 630-256-5516. Repeat, 630-256-5516. Prayers continue for the families of these missing children. Nancy Grace signing off. Good night, friend. Los Angeles is famous for the always captivating entertainment industry,

some of the most famous sports teams, and incredibly expensive smoothies. But beneath the glamour, it's also a breeding ground for bizarre, historic, and unforgettable crimes. My name is Madison McGee. You might know me from my podcast Ice Cold Case, where for the last three years I've been investigating my father's murder. But now I've embedded myself into the LA Times crime beat to bring you not only some of the juiciest cases,

but what it takes to be a gritty crime reporter in a giant metropolis. From LA Times Studios comes its latest series, LA Crimes. From deep dives into the Menendez brothers to conversations about why Bravo TV seems to be a hotbed of white-collar criminals, we'll cover it all. The solved, the unsolved, the love triangles gone wrong, you get the idea. Tune in every Wednesday starting May 21st, wherever you stream your podcasts. You can also watch the episodes on YouTube and Spotify. You don't want to miss this. This is an iHeart Podcast.