Police have found the body of Michael Kingsbury, a 7-year-old with autism who went missing near his D.C. home on Sunday morning.
Police say he was found inside a locked car behind a short fence on private property just two apartment buildings down from where he lived.
D.C. police and dozens of recruits went going door-to-door in the Trinidad neighborhood where Kingsbury was last seen around 9 a.m. Sunday.
Michael's mother, Katrina Kingsbury, thanked the community Monday night for coming out to help with the search.
Many who helped look for the little boy just can't imagine how they missed him.
"We were there four times," said Gaston McVea, who was one of the dozens of people who helped search for Kingsbury after he disappeared. "That was our central location and somehow we missed this."
Questions -- about how Kingsbury died and how police and neighbors missed him during their search, among others -- remain; Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham said at a briefing that answers are being sought, reports the Washington Post:
The owner of the car was not immediately identified. A police source said that investigators were talking with the owner.
Newsham said it was not clear when the boy had entered the car, and he declined to say where in the vehicle the boy had been found. However, two police sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing said the body was on the floor of a locked sedan.
Newsham said police were assessing their search, trying to determine whether they had previously looked into the vehicle. Two police sources said that at least one officer had searched the sedan on Sunday. Newsham declined to confirm that account but said that police were looking into it.
As the Washington City Paper reports, some neighbors don't think police did enough, before Kingsbury's body was discovered.
Kingsbury's mother said her son was not permitted out without being supervised, and told WJLA that the only other time he'd slipped away, he'd been discovered "only one door away."
Update, Tuesday 6:41 p.m.: D.C. police have not deemed Kingsbury's a death a homicide, but are not ruling out the possibility of foul play. WUSA9 has more information from a Tuesday press conference:
Police said during the press conference that the car was checked out several times, by at least 3 police officers. Michael's mother told police she looked at the very same car her son was later found.
Michael's body is with the medical examiner's office. Police are say preliminary results of the autopsy show no signs of trauma. Police said on Tuesday that the medical examiner can't give an approximate time of death right now, but noted that the body had started to decompose. When asked about foul play, police told reporters that they were not ruling out anything.
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