He Said He Was Timmothy Pitzen, a Missing Boy. Tests Show He Isn’t.

By Thursday afternoon, the authorities had completed tests and ruled out the possibility that the person was Timmothy.

Mr. Rini was released from prison a month ago after serving 14 months of an 18-month sentence for burglary and vandalism, Ohio prison records showed.

In that case, the police said Mr. Rini had posed as a prospective homebuyer so that he could gain access to a $400,000 custom-built home in a Cleveland suburb and throw a drug-fueled party that he promoted on Facebook, causing thousands of dollars in damage.

In an email, Timothy Beam, an F.B.I. agent, said: “To be clear, law enforcement has not and will not forget Timmothy, and we hope to one day reunite him with his family. Unfortunately, that day will not be today.”

The police in Timmothy’s hometown, Aurora, Ill., said they were gravely disappointed, especially for the missing boy’s family. “This is yet another time where they’ve had their hopes raised potentially,” said Sgt. Bill Rowley of Aurora.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, about 3,000 children who were reported missing for at least a year have been found over the past five years. About six in 10 of those children were runaways, and almost all of the rest were abducted by a relative. Only 16 of the 3,000 had been abducted by someone who was not a family member. More than 25,000 children were reported missing to the center last year.

Jen West, another of Timmothy’s aunts, said the family had been through this before. But she saw some hope in the renewed interest in Timmothy, and in all the images of him that had shown, once more, on news stations.