Then investigators found his car.
The Jetta in Elmont
On June 24, six days after Michael was last seen, his black 2004 Volkswagen Jetta was discovered in Elmont, New York.
Elmont is approximately 30 miles from Michael's West Islip home.
The discovery should have been a major breakthrough.
Instead, it deepened the mystery.
The engine was still running.
There was no Michael.
There was no Romeo.
And according to investigators quoted in contemporary reporting, there was nothing inside or around the vehicle that clearly established that violence had occurred there.
Suffolk County Police Deputy Inspector Gerard McCarthy described the extraordinary lack of evidence in blunt terms.
Speaking months after the disappearance, he said Michael appeared to have essentially vanished without leaving investigators an obvious trail.
CBS reported that police found no indication that the Volkswagen itself had been part of a violent scene.
That distinction is important.
An absence of visible evidence of violence in the car does not prove that nothing happened to Michael. Nor does it establish whether Michael drove the vehicle to Elmont himself, whether someone else was involved, or why the engine was running when authorities discovered it.
It simply means investigators did not publicly report evidence from the vehicle that provided an immediate answer.
The car raised questions instead of resolving them.
Why was it in Elmont?
Why had Michael apparently left it?
Why was the engine running?
Where was Romeo?
And, most importantly, where was Michael?
No publicly confirmed answer emerged.
A Family Waiting for a Phone Call
For Michael's parents, the mystery was not an abstract puzzle.
It was their son.
Weeks after his disappearance, Barbara and Russel Taus were publicly asking for help.
CBS New York interviewed the family in July 2010, roughly five weeks after Michael disappeared.
Barbara described overwhelming sadness.
The family hoped publicity might reach someone who had seen Michael, Romeo or the Jetta, or someone who knew anything about Michael's plans on June 18.
But weeks became months.
By December 2010, Michael had turned 26 in absentia.
The holidays arrived without him.
CBS again spoke with the family.
Barbara described that Christmas as the worst she had experienced because Michael was not there.
His parents still did not have the answer they desperately wanted.
Police had not shared any major new lead with them.
Michael's old phone number had even been reassigned.
Yet his family continued appealing for information.
This is one of the cruelest dimensions of a long-term missing-person case.
There may be no funeral and no confirmed explanation.
There is simply absence.
Birthdays continue.