Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham. Photo by Sarah Anne Hughes.

At least four police officers looked into the car where a seven-year-old autistic boy’s body was found yesterday before a fifth discovered him.

At a press conference Tuesday, Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham provided a timeline of police activity leading to the discovery of the body of Michael Kingsbury, who went missing from his home in Trinidad between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Sunday.

Around 10 a.m. Sunday, a missing child alert was broadcast to police in the fifth district, according to Newsham. By 11 a.m., the Metropolitan Police Department had tweeted about Kingsbury’s disappearance.

As many on Twitter have pointed out, the child’s height was incorrectly stated as five-feet-3-inches in the tweet.

At 1:30 p.m. Sunday, an MPD officer looked into the car where Kingsbury’s body was found Monday just before 6 p.m. Another officer looked into the car during the midnight shift Monday, with two more officers checking the car during the day.

It wasn’t until a veteran detective looked into the car Monday around 5:55 p.m. that the body was discovered on the floor of the rear seat. Newsham said the car was locked at the time, but it’s unknown if it was locked for the entire period Kingsbury was missing.

Newsham said the family had also looked into the car where Kingsbury’s body was recovered. He declined to speculate about whether police missed something, as it’s still unknown when Kingsbury entered, or was placed, in the car.

“We don’t know if Michael went into the car on his own, or was placed in the vehicle,” he said.

At the moment, the case is a death investigation. No time or cause of the death has been determined, although Newsham said the boy’s body had suffered “obvious decomposition.” No signs of trauma were visible.