Seven-year-old Michael Kingsbury was found dead in a car last night, just feet from the Trinidad home he had disappeared from Sunday morning. How could police and other searchers have missed him?

Assistant Chief Peter Newsham told reporters he couldn’t speculate how Kingsbury hadn’t been seen in previous searches around the car, parked in an alley on the 1700 block of West Virginia Ave. NE. “It’s too early to determine whether somebody missed something or not,” Newsham said.

The cause of Kingsbury’s death hadn’t been determined Monday evening. It wasn’t clear how long he had been in the car, or whether foul play was involved.

Newsham pushed back on complaints that MPD’s effort, which included the posting of flyers and door-to-door canvassing, hadn’t been strong enough in the neighborhood. I walked nine blocks in the neighborhood where Kingsbury was discovered and only saw one police flyer, although it’s not clear how many were taken down after he was found.

Trinidad resident Gaston McVea confronted Newsham, accusing him of not giving searchers enough authority to go into locked backyards. McVea said he passed the white car where Kingsbury was discovered several times during the search without seeing him.

“That’s something that I have to sleep with and live with,” McVea says. “Because we were that close.”

Photo courtesy MPD