On the evening of June 7, 2000, seven-year-old Robert Robbie Romero left his home in the Bellemah neighborhood of Santa Fe to walk a few blocks to a friend’s house and never arrived. He was wearing blue jeans, a white t-shirt and black and white sneakers; he has brown hair, brown eyes and freckles across his nose. Family searches stretched for hours before police were notified.

Investigators treated the disappearance as a homicide. Attention centered on Robert’s 22-year-old brother Ronnie Romero after reports that Ronnie slept late and stayed in his room while others searched, failed three polygraph exams about the case, and was said by a female acquaintance to have confessed to causing Robert’s death and hiding the body. No charges were filed. Authorities also tried to identify a man with long, gray-tinged hair seen riding a bicycle in the neighborhood about the time Robert vanished; he was never found. Extensive searches, including the family property, vehicles and the local landfill, produced no trace. A 2011 tip from a teenager claiming to be Robert was ruled out by DNA. Ronnie Romero died of a drug overdose in a Santa Fe jail in 2008.

Does anyone in Bellemah who lived there in 2000 remember the bicycle rider or have other information that could help bring Robert home?