SOUTH AMBOY, NEW JERSEY: Timothy "Timmy" Wiltsey was just five when he was brutally killed in the summer of 1991. Three decades since, his death still remains a mystery.
It took over a year to find Timmy's remains, a long ordeal that left the state of New Jersey in fear.
NBC's true crime show 'Dateline' is doing a rerun of the horrifying unsolved murder in the episode 'The Blue Blanket Mystery'. The episode will air on the network at 9 pm ET on Friday, September 1, 2023.
Timothy Wiltsey went missing from local carnival
It was a plain summer day on May 25, 1991, when South Amboy had its major Elks Club carnival. The usually merry event, however, plunged the town into an unforgettable nightmare that would continue to haunt it to this day.
The five-year-old was reported missing by his 23-year-old single mother Michelle Lodzinski after she allegedly put him on a ride and went off to buy some drinks.
After the police were made aware, the carnival was put under a complete shutdown and a wide search and investigation were initiated to find the little boy.
According to the report made after the investigation, it was found that several had seen a boy like Timmy around the carnival, one of them noting that he was wearing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sneakers.
The boy remained missing for weeks and months, with his pictures circulated in newspapers, flyers, milk, and even in the Yankee Stadium, as noted by NJ.com.
How was Timothy Wiltsey killed?
In October, close to the township of Sayreville where Timmy and his mother resided, a sneaker just like the one in his clothing description was found in nearby marshlands.
Further investigation in the area led to the discovery of more clothes, a pillowcase, and a blue blanket, besides skeletal remains including a skull and several pieces of bones.
Examination of the remains revealed that it was Timmy's body but no further details about the crime could be gleaned due to the advanced degree of decomposition. It still remains a mystery how and when the boy was killed.
Michelle Lodzinski's involvement and later conviction
Lodzinski's involvement in the case had not made her a suspect initially but she was under suspicion for changing her statement multiple times.
While she had first just reported a plain missing case, her statement eventually changed to note the involvement of a woman named "Ellen" and two other men who had apparently threatened her and taken Timmy away. She also staged her own kidnapping to make her statements believable, according to the New York Times.
Her changing statements and frequent lies to the investigators made her a suspect, and eventually the first person charged with her own son's murder, years later in 2014, as per ABC7.
She was found guilty in the initial trial and sentenced to prison without possibility of parole, as reported by The Star-Ledger in 2017.
She began serving her sentence but appealed for a mistrial, taking it up to the Supreme Court of New Jersey. After several hearings held online during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, her conviction was vacated and she was released from prison in 2021.
