Town Still Feels Loss of Boy’s Tragic Death but Sees Tighter Community : Missing Child: More than 10,000 people joined the search, fearing he had been abducted. But the child died accidentally in the back of a car.

His black tombstone is covered with Match Box cars, toy soldiers and a tiny football left by visitors to the grave. The inscription reads in gold letters: “Clovis’ Child. Our little boy forever.”

A year after 6 1/2-year-old Matthew Joseph Roberts disappeared, no one in this eastern New Mexico town of 30,000 has forgotten him or the impact of his death.

On May 8, 1990, Matthew went running after his mother, who had just left for the grocery store. The boy did not return.

Officers were dispatched.

Radio stations broadcast a description of the boy, and within hours more than 10,000 neighbors were organized for a search.

Parents and children scoured the city’s narrow streets, rummaging through alleys and garbage bins in hopes of finding the likable first-grader.

A week went by without a trace of the boy.

T-shirts were printed with Matthew’s picture. Thousands of fliers with the boy’s blond hair and smiling, blue-eyed face were distributed to missing children’s centers across the country.

After a second week passed, police approached the case as an abduction and feared for the boy’s survival.

Still the town searched.

“With each passing day, the chances of finding him alive decreased,” said then-Police Chief Caleb Chandler.

On May 23, 15 days after Matthew disappeared, two joggers passing by the Roberts’ residence smelled a strong stench coming from the back of a car parked in the driveway. Matthew’s body was found curled up in a rear compartment of a 1978 Chevrolet Impala station wagon that had been loaned to the family.

“My first thought was outrage,” Chandler said. “I thought it was a homicide and that whoever was involved had put his body back at his home. I thought the person had to be one of the weirdest, most thoughtless people ever to walk the Earth.”

But after crime and medical lab results were returned, Matthew’s death was ruled an accident. Authorities determined that the boy had played a deadly game of hide-and-seek. He entered an 18-by-18-by-12-inch storage compartment that could not be opened from the inside, police said.

“He likely stopped breathing within a matter of minutes,” the autopsy said.

The car had been recalled for the very reason that small children could become trapped inside the compartment. Geoff and Debbie Roberts, who adopted Matthew when he was 2 days old, were recently awarded a settlement from General Motors. Neither side will discuss the amount.

A year after Matthew’s disappearance, the town still feels it. A plaque at the entrance of Highland Elementary School commemorates the boy as “Clovis’ Child,” with a verse from the Bible.

“Matthew has made the community come together and be more concerned about each other, especially the safety of our children,” said Grace Jones, principal at Highland. “The boys and girls now go everywhere in pairs.”

The Robertses are still trying to recover from Matthew’s death. Part of the healing has been to help other parents who have lost children, working through the Matthew Roberts Foundation.