Body of Azusa Boy, 7, Last Seen Playing Video Games, Found Near Home

A 7-year-old Azusa boy who “liked to ride his bike and play video games” was found dead Tuesday beneath a stand of trees in a plant nursery near his home, police said.

Carlos Adame had left his home Monday afternoon and was last seen playing video games at a nearby market at about 8 p.m., investigators said.

Azusa officers had begun an intensive search, going door to door and broadcasting from a helicopter, when a worker at the nursery discovered Carlos’ body.

A source familiar with the investigation, who asked not to be identified, said the body was unclothed, had suffered “major trauma to the head” and had marks on the neck. Azusa police, however, would not confirm that report.

“It has not been determined how the boy died, nor whether the case is a homicide, or accidental,” said Officer Wayne Ketaily. An autopsy was scheduled.

Police have asked homicide detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to assist with the investigation.

Carlos’ mother, Maria Adame, contained her grief behind a stoic face Tuesday as more than 100 onlookers gathered in the 600 block of South Lark Ellen Avenue, across from the nursery where her son was found.

“He liked to ride his bike and play video games,” she said in Spanish. “We’ve lived here for two years, and nothing ever happened.”

Monica Damasco, Carlos’ baby-sitter, said investigators told her that witnesses had seen a man in a white shirt driving around the neighborhood soliciting children and adults for sexual favors.

Carlos, she said, “knew to stay away from strangers.”

One resident of the apartment complex where the Adame family lives, Patricia Farr, 24, said she saw a “dark subcompact” car parked near the nursery shortly after midnight, when she was out with neighbors searching for Carlos.

A man wearing a white T-shirt was sitting in the car, and he quickly drove away after seeing her, Farr said. “It’s really sad that something like this could happen,” she said.

Kevin Neal, 18, said he and Carlos played video games until about 8 p.m. Monday at a market about two blocks from where the body was discovered. Neal said he went to Los Angeles and returned to the neighborhood at midnight to find police combing the area.

“I didn’t know what happened at first,” he said. “People were running around worried. That’s when I found out he was missing. He was a great little kid. We played video games together a lot.”

Carlos was “an energetic little kid,” said Damasco. “He liked to play, he liked to fight, he liked to do all the things little boys do.”

Maria and Sixto Adame, Carlos’ parents, illegally immigrated to this country from Mexico 10 years ago, and applied for amnesty under the new immigration law, Damasco said.

Carlos was the oldest of four children, she said. His two brothers and a sister were in good spirits as they played in a yard outside their apartment Tuesday evening. They had not yet been told that their brother was dead.