The Disappearance of Brian Shaffer

Brian Shaffer was a man facing big life changes. The 27-year-old Ohio State University medical student had just lost his mother to cancer weeks earlier, and was planning to propose to his girlfriend during a trip to Miami the first week of April, 2006. He never made that trip, and exists in history as Ohio State Police Case MP#1709.

The Day of Disappearance – March 31^st/April 1^st, 2006

• Brian met his father, Randy, for a steak dinner. The elder Shaffer reports that his son seemed worn-out.
• 9 p.m. – Brian meets his friend and former dorm-mate William “Clint” Florence, and a bar near the college campus called the Ugly Tuna Saloona
• 10 p.m. – Brian calls his girlfriend, Alexis Waggoner, to tell her that he loves her.
• 10 p.m. – 12 a.m. – Florence and Shaffer bar hop, taking shots at several bars in the area. Brian is believed to be intoxicated.
• 12 a.m. – The men meet up with Meredith Reed and return to the Ugly Tuna to finish their night out with one last round.
• 1:15 a.m. – Security camera footage show the trio arriving at the Ugly Tuna and riding the escalator up to the bar’s second floor location.
• 1:55 a.m. – Brian is again seen on camera outside of the bar talking to two young women. He moves off-camera in the direction of the bar, as if he is going back in.
•  2 a.m. – Closing time at the bar, and Reed and Florence make their way out of the bar along with the large crowd. They search the area and wait for a while out front, but assume that Brian left without them.

Friends and family attempted to call Brian in the days that followed, but his phone went to voice mail. When he didn’t make his flight with Alexis for their trip to Miami, his family filed a missing person’s report. Everything at his home, just six blocks away from where he disappeared, looked as it always did. Brian had his wallet, and since the day of his disappearance his bank accounts, credit cards, and cell phone were never again used. The resulting investigation was extensive, with police searching streets around the bar for miles with search dogs, and the city granting access for the police department to search the sewer system. The monitored entrance to the bar was the only public entrance to the bar, but it is possible that Brian somehow gained access to the freight elevator and left another way. 

The Ugly Tuna was located in an area with a high crime rate, and several surveillance cameras in the area failed to capture images of Shaffer. Many people who knew Brian took polygraph tests during the investigation, but Florence refused. Members of the Shaffer family felt that Clint may have known more than he let on. Clint’s attorneys claim that the police believe Brian left of his own free will. Brian’s girlfriend, in an interview, claimed that a few days before the disappearance Brian told her that she should move on and find someone else, and later asked if she would just run away with him.

No trace of Brian was ever found, and nine years later, another man disappeared from almost the same place under similar circumstances and was never heard from again.

What happened to Brian Shaffer?

I got my information from –

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Brian_Shaffer

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/s/shaffer_brian.html

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2016/04/01/unsolved-mystery-10-years-later-brian-shaffer-still-missing.html

https://melmagazine.com/a-guy-walks-into-a-bar-53c784e7369b#.cu13ujka8