CTVNews.ca Staff 
 
 
 
 
 
 Nearly 30 years after his disappearance, a Kitchener, Ont., man solved his own cold case when he suddenly remembered his identity. 
 
 Edgar Latulip was 21 years old when he vanished from the southern Ontario city. 
 
 But this Wednesday, Waterloo Regional Police confirmed he was found roughly 130 kilometres away in St. Catharines, Ont., and is doing well. 
 
 It was revealed that Latulip had suffered a head injury shortly after arriving in the city years ago and "effectively forgot who he was." 
 
 But in January of this year, Latulip told a social worker in St. Catharines that he remembered his name, putting the gears in motion for his return home. 
 
 At the time of his disappearance, police believed Latulip, who has a developmental delay, took a bus and travelled to the Niagara Falls area. Even though they were on the right track, they were unable to find him. 
 
 Years later, police were tipped off that he may have been spotted in Hamilton, Ont., but they still could not track him down. 
 
 "It's the only case, that I know of, where we've been able to find someone who has been missing for this period of time," Det. Const. Duane Gingerich, of the Waterloo Regional Police, told CTV Kitchener. 
 
 Police say a DNA test on Friday confirmed his identity and a reunion with his family is in the works. 
 
 "I did speak with one of the family members yesterday and today, and … they're obviously very happy about it, and they’re making plans to get together with Edgar and speak with him further," said Gingerich. 
 
 Latulip's mother, Silvia Wilson, said she is overwhelmed by her son's return, but she hasn’t spoken with him yet. 
 
 With a report from CTV Kitchener's Allison Tanner ||||| The tip that came into the hotline in February was a good one. 
 
 A child living in Orlando, Fla., looked a lot like the picture of little Timmothy Pitzen, who disappeared four years ago after his mother checked him out of his kindergarten class at Greenman School in Aurora, took him to a water park in the Wisconsin Dells, then killed herself in a Rockford motel room. She left a note saying the child was safe in the care of unnamed people but that he would never be found. 
 
 The Florida caller said the family had moved into her neighborhood around the time of Timmothy's disappearance, had a Midwestern state license plate and that the child never went to school. 
 
 And, "the kid down there looked so similar," Aurora police Detective Lee Catavu said. 
 
 Unfortunately, that tip turned out to be yet another in a long line of dead ends. 
 
 Still, four years after the disappearance of Timmothy, on May 12, 2011, Catavu remains convinced the child is out there somewhere and that at some point, he will be reunited with his family. 
 
 "That's what motivates us to keep looking," the detective said. "The family is just devastated … in some ways it's worse than knowing he's dead because there is no closure." 
 
 If anyone should have a feeling about this tragic story, it's Catavu. He's been living and breathing -- even sleeping -- this case since Timmothy disappeared. 
 
 It's been almost exactly three years since 6-year-old Timmothy Pitzen's mother committed suicide, leaving Aurora police with no idea what became of Timmothy. It's been almost exactly three years since 6-year-old Timmothy Pitzen's mother committed suicide, leaving Aurora police with no idea what became of Timmothy. SEE MORE VIDEOS 
 
 "I'll be in bed at night and all these thoughts swirl in my head," he said. "When I get a free moment, even on vacation, my mind will drift over to this case." 
 
 Over the years, local police have spent hundreds of hours of manpower and used every kind of technology available in their search. That hunt included combing acres upon acres of terrain in the Rock River area surrounding Sterling, Ill., where Amy Fry-Pitzen had placed her last call. 
 
 Catavu can't even count all the miles he's spent in a car, driving to and from Iowa and Wisconsin following up on leads. 
 
 Authorities thought they had a major break in the case in October 2013 when the cellphone belonging to Amy was turned in. The phone had been sitting for two years on a shelf after a woman had discovered it alongside the road on Illinois Route 78 north of Mount Carroll, according to police. 
 
 When her brother needed a new cellphone, it got powered up. And, as it turned out, the boyfriend of the stepdaughter of the woman's brother recognized some of the names in the contact list, including Amy and Jim Pitzen, who was Amy's husband and Timmothy's father. 
 
 But all those coincidences and connections led nowhere. 
 
 That's why a new age-progressed picture is "one of the most critical weapons we have to bring Timmothy home," said Angeline Hartmann, of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. "It could take nothing more than the right person looking at this face to pick up the phone and make that call." 
 
 Age-progression images, created every two years by forensic artists and computer technology, "are everything to us," Hartmann said. The age-progressed photo of Timmothy, just released, shows what he would look like today as a 10-year-old. 
 
 Since the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children was created 31 years ago, the organization has helped find more than 205,550 children. As awareness has grown, along with social media, the recovery rate has risen to 97 percent today from 62 percent in 1990. 
 
 Last year alone, the center received 400,000 tips, Hartmann said. And the agency never knows which one will lead to a lost child. 
 
 "We need the cooperation from the community and from the media to run these pictures," Hartmann said. "We need people to take a few seconds to look at the image, to absorb it and then be motivated to make the call." 
 
 Those sentiments are echoed by Catavu. 
 
 What was most encouraging about the Florida tip, he said, is "we know word has traveled and that people all across the country have their eyes peeled" for the missing Aurora boy. 
 
 The message he wants out there is all about immediacy. If someone sees something suspicious, he or she is asked to not sit on the information and instead to pick up the phone and call the NCMEC hotline, 1-800-843-5678, or Aurora police detectives, 630-256-5500. Callers can remain anonymous. 
 
 Catavu recalled one tip that came in from someone who thought he saw Timmothy at a Wal-Mart — three months earlier. When that much time elapses, witness accounts are foggy, surveillance video could be deleted and "valuable time is lost," he said. 
 
 Officials don't know how Timmothy's case will conclude. Catavu was interviewed recently for CNN's "The Hunt with John Walsh," for a segment this summer that will bring international attention to this case. But it takes just one observant person to give this story a happy ending. 
 
 That's what the detective is counting on. 
 
 Catavu noted that everyone he talked to who knew the family was adamant Fry-Pitzen adored her son and would never hurt him. 
 
 "The most challenging part," he said, "is figuring out who she was in communication with. That's the missing link." 
 
 Catavu takes comfort in knowing Timmothy was old enough when he disappeared to have known his parents and grandparents, and that he had lived in Aurora. 
 
 "At some point he will become a man and want to explore his childhood," he said. "We hope it doesn't take that long, but as long as he comes back healthy and safe … the family just wants him back in their lives." 
 
 Although the Florida lead did not pan out, Catavu thanked the woman tipster over and over for not only making the call but also doing so in a timely fashion. Even the parents of the child who looked like Timmothy were more than happy to help, he noted. 
 
 "When it comes to missing children, it's easy to put yourself in the shoes of these families ... we would like nothing more than to give them resolution." 
 
 dcrosby@tribpub.com
– Almost 30 years after he went missing from a group home in Kitchener, Ontario, at the age of 21, Edgar Latulip remembered something very important last month: his name. Police say the 50-year-old, who has a developmental delay and functions at a child's level, has spent the last 30 years living in St. Catharines, around 80 miles from where he disappeared, CTV reports. From what investigators can piece together, Latulip took a bus to Niagara Falls in September 1986 and ended up in St. Catharines, where he suffered a head injury and "effectively forgot who he was" until this year, when he told a social worker he remembered. Before his disappearance, Latulip had attempted suicide at least once, leading to fears he may have killed himself. Police officer Duane Gingerich, who investigated the disappearance, tells the Guelph Mercury that he's thrilled that Latulip has turned up alive. "I had hopes that he was out there somewhere," he says. "For us as investigators, this is great, this is awesome. It's satisfying because most of these cases don't turn out this way. You expect the worst when a person is missing for that period of time." A DNA test confirmed Latulip's identity and police say a reunion with his mother, who moved to Ottawa years ago, is being arranged. In a 2014 interview, she told the Mercury she was still haunted by the disappearance. "This is always at the back of my mind. Having an answer would mean closure," she said. (A California hospital recently identified the man it had called "Garage 66" for 16 years.)