<p>A car belonging to a convicted child molester who allegedly left Florida with an 11-year-old boy was found abandoned Friday in northwest Georgia's Bartow County and authorities said the two may be hitchhiking.</p><p>Frederick Fretz, 42, picked up 11-year-old Adam Kirkirt at Dunnellon, Fla., Elementary School on Tuesday, police said. Fretz's car was found at the end of an Interstate 75 northbound exit ramp in Emerson, Ga., 40 miles northwest of Atlanta.</p><p>"It appears it broke down. There was a lot of antifreeze under the car," said Emerson police Sgt. Mike Powell, adding that the car's license plate had also been removed.</p><p>The FBI took over the examination of the car and search dogs were being brought in from Cobb County Sheriff's Department, Powell said.</p><p>"I would assume they went north since they were traveling north at the time," Powell said.</p><p>Powell said there was no sign of Fretz or Adam at the scene. He said some camping gear was left in the car.</p><p>The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation issued an Amber Alert in the case Friday after the car was found. The alert said the two might be traveling north along the Interstate 75 corridor. "Subjects may be hitchhiking," the alert said.</p><p>The Tennessee Highway Patrol dispatcher said Adam is white, 5-feet-tall and weighs 100 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes and was wearing black pants and a black sweatshirt with a Spiderman symbol on it when last seen.</p><p>Fretz was living with the boy and his father, Ivert Kirkirt, who says Fretz never told him he had been convicted of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy in Pennsylvania 1991.</p><p>The men had recently served time together in the Marion County, Fla., Jail and realized that they had known each other as teens in New Jersey. Kirkirt had invited Fretz to move into his Ocala, Fla., mobile home when Fretz was released in October after serving a sentence for domestic battery and marijuana possession. The boy joined them in December.</p><p>Kirkirt, 41, was under house arrest after serving time for probation violation on an aggravated battery charge and couldn't take his son to school because he only could leave home for work and church.</p><p>Fretz regularly drove Kirkirt to work, took Adam to school and picked him up.</p><p>Desiree Craven, who said she is Ivert Kirkirk's friend, said Fretz was too obsessed with Adam.</p><p>"He always worried about Adam and I told Ivert that wasn't normal," Craven said. "It was like two 12-year-old boys together, you know how they do everything together? That's normal for two 12-year-olds, but I don't think that's normal for a 42-year-old and an 11-year-old."</p><p>Craven was at Kirkirt's trailer home on Friday. Kirkirt was not home. Craven said Kirkirt was at the Sheriff's office undergoing a lie detector test.</p><p>Fretz left a voicemail message for Kirkirt Tuesday afternoon shortly after he picked up the boy.</p><p>"We are in the middle of nowhere. The only reason I'm able to call you is someone came out on a dirt bike and had a cell phone," Fretz said on the message. "We are broke down and we need you to come find us. I don't want to spend the night in the car. I don't know where the hell we are."</p><p>Wednesday morning, authorities issued an Amber Alert to notify the public and other law enforcement agencies once they learned about Fretz's Pennsylvania conviction.</p><p>He registered as a sex offender when he moved to Arizona in the mid-1990s, but never registered as a sex offender when he later moved to Florida, a felony that could have kept him in jail longer when he was arrested last September.</p><p>Cpt. Dennis Strow, spokesman for the Marion County, Fla., Sheriff's office, said Florida's law requires public notification for sexual predators, but not sexual offenders, which was Fretz's classification.</p><p>Background checks are performed on inmates who have committed felonies, not misdemeanors, which was Fretz's offense.</p><p>Strow said he did not know why Frentz's background did not come up during his last sentencing.</p><p>Strow said background checks now are performed on the inmates before they are released.</p><p>With a background check, Fretz would been charged with failure to register as a sex offender, Strow said.</p><p>___</p><p>Associated Press writers Mike Schneider in Ocala, Fla., and Bill Poovey in Chattanooga, Tenn., contributed to this report.</p>
