UPDATE: It was a CRUEL HOAX. 'Teen' who claimed to be missing boy is 24-year-old man.

UPDATE: 

A 'boy' found wandering the streets, who claimed to be missing child Timmothy Pitzen, is actually a 24-year-old MAN, police have said.  

Brian Michael Rini, from Medina, Ohio, LIED to investigators and claimed to be Timmothy, who vanished seven years ago, saying he had escaped two kidnappers in Cincinnati and ran across a bridge to Newport, Kentucky.

But DNA tests proved that he was not the missing child, FBI investigators have said.     

'Although we are disappointed that this turned out to be a hoax, we remain diligent in our search for Timmothy, as our missing person's case remains unsolved,' an Aurora Police Department spokesperson said. 

It's not clear why Brian Rini lied about his identity, or raised the hopes of Timmothy's father and grandparents that he had been found, but police are still questioning him. 

EARLIER:

A missing boy, who vanished when he was just 6-years-old, could have miraculously been found, if his story is true.

Authorities are investigating the claims of the teen calling himself Timmothy Pitzen after he vanished without a trace in 2011.

The 14-year-old from Aurora, Illinois claims to have escaped two kidnappers who have been holding him hostage for eight years.

Timmothy hasn’t been seen since his mother, Amy Fry-Pitzen, took him out of school, spent several days with him enjoying the zoo and a water park and then took her own life in a hotel in Rockford while they were on the three-day holiday.

She left behind a suicide note saying Timmothy was safe but claimed he was with people who would love him and he would never be found again.

His father, Jim Pitzen, registered him as a missing child but he has never been found - possibly until now. 

But now, a teenager has surfaced saying he has been held by two kidnappers, according to an Ohio police report filed on Wednesday. The boy was unsure where the hotel was.

After escaping, the boy found said he ran and “kept running across a bridge” until he reached Kentucky in Ohio, according to the police report.

His face was bruised and he was “very scared and agitated”, according to residents from Newport, Cincinnati who encountered the boy when he was found.

A local witness told CBS the boy had said he had been running for two hours, explaining he’d “been passed around for seven years”.

Local police searches of a Red Roof Inn and other nearby motels revealed nothing.

“We have no idea if this is Timmothy Pitzen,” Aurora Police Sergeant Bill Rowley said.

“We don’t know if it’s a hoax. Obviously, everyone’s hopeful, but we have to be super judicious.”

The boy is undergoing DNA testing to find out if he is the real Timmothy Pitzen. Those results should be released on Thursday.

“We’ll have to vet this out,” Sergeant Rowley said. “Now we have a grandmother, dad and aunt wringing their hands, hopeful. We are hoping this isn’t a hoax because just imagine the let-down.”

“This could be the story of a decade,” he said. “But if it’s not, it’ll be a horrible let-down.”