Santa Fe police are awaiting DNA test results to determine if a teenager interviewed Wednesday night is the Robbie Romero who was 7 years old when he vanished from his Bellamah Drive neighborhood 11 years ago.

Police met the man at the home of Evelyn Romero, the mother of the missing boy, around 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Police say they interviewed the teenager for about 20 minutes.

"I think it looks a lot like him," Evelyn Romero said. "He said he goes by Robert and he and his parents are from Mexico, but he has all the characteristics of Robbie — the ears, the light skin. And he looked at all the pictures of Robbie, and he was just amazed. He doesn't really know what to think, either."

The man police interviewed Wednesday night never claimed to be the missing Santa Fe boy and never approached police or the Romero family making that claim.

Family friends who Evelyn Romero said have known the teenager for less than a year brought him to her home Wednesday night, where he was first told of the June 2000 case of the missing Robbie Romero. Police are familiar with the teen as 19-year-old Robert Terrezas from an arrest this past weekend on one charge of being a minor under the influence of alcohol and another of concealing his identity.

The teenager, who police believe goes by both Robert Romero and Robert Terrezas, says his family is from Mexico and that he grew up in Utah but has no recollection of his early childhood.

Terrezas' mother was interviewed Thursday afternoon by Santa Fe police. She said she gave birth to Terrezas in Mexico and both of them lived in Utah for much of the boy's life before moving to Santa Fe a few years ago. She could not provide police with a birth certificate, but was cooperative and says there is no doubt Terrezas is her son.

She also said a recent head injury may explain her son's memory loss about his childhood.

Evelyn Romero, meanwhile, said she is hopeful, but would not hug the teenager she met Wednesday.

"I've gotten my hopes up so many times before, and I don't want to freak this young man out right now," Evelyn Romero said. "I am trying really hard right now to be patient and wait for this DNA test."

Terrezas agreed to provide police with a DNA swab, which investigators have forwarded to the state crime lab for analysis. It will be compared with a DNA sample from the Romero family. It is uncertain how long the DNA test will take, but investigators are hopeful the results may be back as soon as Saturday.

The FBI, which was very active in the early stages of the investigation and over the past decade, is assisting Santa Fe police once again.

Terrezas' jail booking mug shot shows a similarity to the widely circulated picture of young Robbie from summer 2000. While the man interviewed Wednesday has a birth date of April 24, 1992, the missing Robbie Romero's birth date was April 10, 1993.

"In their conversation, the man said he has no memory of his early childhood," Lt. Louis Carlos said. "We told him of the case from 2000 of the missing boy, Robbie Romero, and this gentleman said he was OK with us taking an oral swab for DNA testing to see if it is the same person. But he also said he wasn't comfortable talking with police, and when we asked him if we could take his picture, he ended the conversation and left."

Carlos said there was no reason to detain the man and he was allowed to leave. Police do not have reason to believe the man interviewed will leave the area as he has lived in Santa Fe for several years.

Carlos said the case is still active and all leads are taken seriously, but there haven't been any new developments in the case for years.

A lot has happened with the Romero family since Robbie's disappearance, including the 2002 death of his father, Rudy Romero Sr.; and the 2008 death of his brother, Ronnie Romero, who has long been the primary target of police investigations in the case.

Searches for Robbie, or even his remains, have been futile, and the relationship between the Romero family and Santa Fe police quickly grew contentious.

The Romeros felt they were the target of constant police harassment. The family twice filed lawsuits against police — once claiming, among other things, that police botched the initial investigation. A second suit was resolved in 2010 when a federal jury ruled in favor of Santa Fe police in a harassment case brought by Evelyn Romero and 22-year-old Ricky Romero.

While police have never wavered from their contention Ronnie Romero was either involved in or had information that would have solved the case — now-retired Capt. Gary Johnson told The New Mexican in 2009 that he felt "strongly that we had enough to arrest Ronnie for this crime" — former 1st Judicial District Attorney Henry Valdez said police never presented his office with sufficient evidence to file charges.

Ronnie Romero reportedly once failed a lie detector test, but the results of that test never led to charges. In January 2006, Ronnie Romero reportedly told police his younger brother's remains were "60 feet deep."

Over the years, the investigation has included digs in the family's backyard — with dog bones being found — searches of family vehicles, dive teams scouring lakes around the state and multiple digs in the Caja del Rio Landfill.None turned up evidence placing police any closer to solving the case.

Criminal charges have never been filed.

Staff reporter Sandra Baltazar Martínez contributed to this article.

Contact Geoff Grammer at 986-3076 or ggrammer@sfnewmexican.com. Read his blog at santafecrime.com.