Community Corner

Wife of Missing Local Man: 'I Just Want Him Home Safe'

It was exactly two weeks ago Friday that Ida Mayer spoke to her husband about planning a trip to Italy and their upcoming Father's Day plans.

That was the last time they spoke before he went missing from their Dix Hills home June 14.

"We were talking about our son's concert the next day, which he never would have missed. Then he said goodbye, I love you," she recalled. That was the last she heard from him.

Mayer made a tearful plea for her and her two children, who attend Commack School District, Friday before neighbors and friends embarked on a search party near the Deer Park train station, where his car was found that night.

"My daughter’s 11. She’s in denial. She has a list of things for when daddy gets home that she wants to show him. My son hasn’t slept in nights," she said.

Teams have been out searching since his disappearance, but no clues have been found so far.

Police have not given details on the case, as it is an ongoing investigation, but said they don't believe a crime was committed.

"It’s been horrible for his family. His children are distraught - the entire family. My mother can’t even leave her apartment. It’s terrible," Christine Ellis, Robert's sister said.

Friday was the first time Ellis went to the place her brother was last seen. She said it was too emotionally difficult to drive there see the missing posters.

"This is something you watch on the news and not something your family actually experiences. I’ve just been trying to be very strong for my sister in law and for my neice and my nephew," she said.

Ida expected her husband home around 3 p.m. that day. She had called and texted him in the afternoon, but he never answered and his phone went dead around 2:45 p.m., she said.

Ida said that police were last able to track Mayer's cell phone signal around Route 110 in Huntington, while he was on his way home around 1:45 p.m.

She said that her husband drove his red 2004 Pontiac into work, where it was also seen by coworkers, but police found his vehicle that night at the Deer Park train station. Mayer said that she didn't know how his car got there, since her husband never took the train for work because he worried about leaving his car unattended at the station.

Mayer is unlikely to have identification on him since he left his wallet at home in the family’s garage that morning. 

Robert Mayer is a white male, 6-feet and 1-inch-tall and about 200 pounds. He has brown hair, hazel eyes and was last wearing light blue jeans, a gray polo-type work shirt and sunglasses.

Mayer describes her last conversation with her husband in the video above.


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