WEHT the missing studly medical school student?

On the night of Friday, March 31st 2006; Brian Shaffer, a 27 year old 2nd year medical student at OSU went out with friends to have a few drinks and celebrate the beginning of Spring break 2006; it was his 'time out with the guys'. At around 9:30pm, the men headed to the Ugly Tuna Saloona, a bar located near the OSU campus. At 9:56pm, Brian called Alexis -his girlfriend- who at the time was visiting her family in Toledo, OH. He told her he loved her and that he would see her when she came back to Columbus; the two had planned on taking a vacation to Miami and were scheduled to leave for Florida on Monday, April 3rd. Shortly after talking to Alexis, Brian and his friend walked down to the Arena District in Columbus, OH; they stopped at the North Short Tavern and then went to Brother's, where they met with other friends. One of the friends drove them back to the Ugly Tuna Saloona, where they are seen in the surveillance tape at 1:15 am. The next time Brian is seen on cameras, he was outside of the Ugly Tuna, at the top of the escalator, talking with two girls; he appears to say 'bye' and turns towards the bar, he then disappears from the camera's view and has not been seen since.

Five years later, there are still no answers. Numerous searches have been conducted including the construction area by the Ugly Tuna Saloona, numerous locations close to his disappearance including help from Texas Equusearch and numerous search agencies in the Ohio area but to no avail. At one point, the police were looking for an individual seen on the escalator (the man with the orange sweater) - this has been ruled out and not considered linked to Brian's case.

Conversations have been had with the 2 girls who were outside the bar speaking with Brian but they were not able to provide any additional information to help locate Brian. It truly feels as if he just disappeared but we all know, Brian is SOMEWHERE and needs to be located.

Why would his fami;y post semi-nude pics of him?

I love the name Tuna Saloona but it should be Toona Saloona. Back to discussion.

What kind of sick person would do something like this?

"Investigators on Tuesday said that an Internet message pertaining to a missing Ohio State medical appeared to be a hoax.

Brian Shaffer disappeared on April 1, 2006 from the Ugly Tuna Saloona, located near the Ohio State campus.

Shaffer, a second-year medical student at Ohio State, went to the bar to celebrate the beginning of spring break with several of his friends when he disappeared.

Last month, Shaffer's father, Randy Shaffer, died when a tree fell on him outside his home. Three days after his death, someone posted a message on Web site in memory of Randy Shaffer that read, "Dad, I love you, Brian," from the U.S. Virgin Islands, 10TV News reported.

According to police, the Internet message did not originate from a computer in the U.S Virgin Islands, but rather from a public access computer located in Franklin County.

Investigators did not say specifically where the computer was located, but the facility does not require people to log in, leaving very little chance for authorities to learn who posted the message."

Interesting - both his girlfriend and his brother think the best friend who was with him that night knows something that he's not sharing. The best friend has refused to take a polygraph.

Maybe the stress of his mom's death and perhaps not wanting to be a doctor made him walk away.

Or he's is gay and can't deal with it and wanted out of his engagement and thought disappearing was the best way (doubtful)

Or maybe he was killed by the best friend.

Or maybe he became an escort. Ha!

[quote]Why would his fami;y post semi-nude pics of him?

So a headless torso can be recognized by the nipples. Duh.

His MySpace page is really poignant.

There are a couple of older relatives who still write "If you're out there somewhere reading this"-type posts, updating him on things like an uncle's death and his brother's wedding.

And one of them wrote "Brian we miss you and hope you find your way home again... Your always welcome here you know. I guess because of my dream [she'd had a dream about him] I wanted to make sure you knew that if you are out there somewhere." I found that poignant - that they still hold out hope that he might be out there somewhere alive and well, but too overcome by the guilt and shame at the pain he'd caused his family to ever get in touch with them. And that writing this on MySpace might somehow convince him to come back.

I wonder if an unsolved disappearance like this might be the worst thing a family could go through. If a family member is found gruesomely murdered, at least it's over, there's finality, and you can start on the long road of pain and grieving and hopefully through time reach the point where you can manage it. But with no closure like this, how can you ever start the grieving process? I would imagine you'd think "What if he's being held prisoner by some psycho somewhere?" and be wracked with guilt that you should be doing more to find him - that if you just hired one more PI, or posted his picture at one more website, or whatever, you might find him. How could you ever move on with your life under those circumstances?

And I wonder if there's a juggling act of holding on to some shred of hope or fantasy that he might have just taken off on his own and might walk in the door alive and well someday, while at the same time feeling tremendous anger at such a possibility, that he might have shattered your lives and put you through this pain willfully.

Although I guess it's also possible that being able to cling to the hope that he's out there alive and well might be easier to bear for some people than actually knowing the gruesome details of the last moments of a murdered family member's life.

I guess it's probably different for different people. All horrible, though.

,

There's a fascinating story this week about a boy, age 5, who got lost. He was in India and ended up far from his hometown and didn't know the name of his town. Living as a beggar child and then in an orphanage, he was adopted by a couple in Australia.

25 years after getting lost he started looking for his hometown in India on Google Earth. He found the waterfall and damn where he used to play. Amazing!!! He was reunited with his mother.

I agree r8, never having an answer would be horrible. A lot of people in this country disappear and are never found and a lot of john and jane does are buried but no one can put the two together. I do wish we could have a national data base of DNA for families to use but that will never happen for legal reasons so we are stuck. I just hope it never happens in my family.

The father died after a tree fell on him.

When I hear of cases like this, at least when the person who disappeared is a male, I always wonder if someone just decided to drop out and start life anew somewhere. I wouldn't even know how to begin to do it and subsist, but I'm sure many have managed. Does his friend refuse the polygraph because he helped his friend and knows a secret? Did his relatives leave those messages because they have suspicions? I suppose that if it can be interpreted more than one way from the outside, imagine how easy it would be for the family to create their own scenarios where their loved one is alive and believe it.

[quote]He found the waterfall and damn where he used to play.

That's mighty harsh, damning a playground.

The current People Magazine has an article about a child missing for 30-some years who was found.

Looking at those pics... he's gay.

Maybe he got amnesia. I saw that story on 20/20 or one of those shows a few weeks back about some groom who disappeared just minutes before he and his new wife were leaving for their honeymoon. His friend and best man had been in an accident right before the wedding, which they think might have triggered some sort of stress response, causing the amnesia. He was located a few days later, but didn't remember a thing about his wife, marriage - basically, his entire life.

I always find the stories of missing people fascinating with wondering what exactly happened to them.

I'm bored and can't sleep, so I've been reading up on this.

** September 25, 2006

In the weeks following the April 1 disappearance of Ohio State University medical student, Brian Shaffer, searchers combed the brush and bike path along the Olentangy river, from Lane Avenue to Confluence Park.

The missing student's father, Randall Shaffer, told reporters, "I don't want to find my son in the water someplace. I'm not saying he's there, and I pray to God he's not."

There was no reason to look in that particular place for clues. Brian had last been seen out at a bar with friends who were celebrating the start of spring break. Never the less, the area was searched and -- like every other place they'd looked -- authorities found nothing.

Brian Shaffer is just -- gone. The 27-year-old is 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighs about 170 pounds. He has hazel eyes and a tattoo of the Pearl Jam symbol on his upper right arm.

Police have no idea what could've happened. Shaffer's mother died shortly before he disappeared, and at one point, his father Randy suggested the stress of her death might have been too much for Brian. But it's now been half a year since anyone's heard from him. Family and friends are sure he didn't simply decide to take off. His car was parked at his apartment. His cell phone and credit cards have not been used.

Clint Florence is the last person to have seen Brian Shaffer. The two used to live together and were out bar-hopping till early on Saturday morning on April 1.

Florence told NBC-4 in Columbus that the men headed to the Ugly Tuna Saloon at about 9:15 PM. At about 10:30 Brian spoke with his girlfriend by phone. At 11:00 the men walked to the Short North Tavern, and at 11:40 they walked to another bar. Around 1:15 they returned to the Ugly Tuna.

Florence said while he was drinking, Brian periodically walked away to talk with some people he knew. Shaffer was last seen on surveillance cameras at about 2:00 AM.

"Brian got up with them. I am assuming he got up with them, walked out with them to talk with them on the foyer before going on the escalator . . . I called him that night and it went straight to voicemail. It was about 2 a.m. and -- no answer," Florence said.

At closing time, after looking for his friend, Clint Florence left the bar. "Of course, I regret now leaving, but I didn't think anything of it. I didn't think Brian -- that anything happened to him because he is known to walk away," Florence said.

Nobody wants to believe Brian met with foul play or had a fatal accident -- but he was certainly not known to stay away. Brian Shaffer's total disappearance has now become an agonizing mystery.

Randy Shaffer said vanishing is just not like his son and described him as an exceptional student, noting, "His idea of a bad grade is to get an 83. The last time my wife was here, he was in the top 10 of his class. I don't know where he's at now but not that far behind. He's such a smart kid."

Brian was supposed to leave that Monday morning for a spring break trip with his girlfriend, Alexis Waggoner. She immediately knew something strange had happened.

"I was kind of starting to worry Saturday night. And by Sunday morning when I hadn't heard anything, I was really thinking there was something wrong," said Waggoner, who then contacted his family and called police.

**

The above article was posted on some conspiro theorist's website with a bunch of other missing young men.

I can understand why his brother wants to cling to the hope that he's alive - both their parents are dead and there are no other siblings.

But how could he possibly have the means to disappear without a trace? Where would he go? How would he support himself?

I *think* this is a photo of the best friend and former roommate, Clint Florence, whom everyone thinks knows more than he's said. Some message boards say Clint is gay.

Note third and fourth fingers, right hand, in all three photos with parents on White Coat day.

Sad to hear the father died, as he was so frantically looking for his son. He never lost hope.

Why would they post a shirtless picture of him!?

R18 - that's 'one in the pink, two in the stink'.

He has gayface for days. Have they looked into that angle?

[quote]Looking at those pics... he's gay.

Wow. You're really pathetic.

[quote]That's mighty harsh, damning a playground.

Dam! Dam! Dam!

r23 - How is that pathetic? I wasn't the one who posted that, but he *does* look gay. It's not an insult. He just has that je ne sais quoi. Doesn't mean he *is* (more realistically *was*) gay, but it could lend itself to a few more angles.

You sound fat, R23.

Wow! That really was weird, R18.

Here you go R18:

There were four or five other people who disappeared from the same area before and after he did.

Since 1997 at least eight college men were found dead in local rivers after a night out at local taverns or bars in the mid-west. Many started to wonder if there was a serial killer in our midst, preying on vulnerable inebriated men.

The series of deaths began in July 1997, when the body of 19-year-old Richard Hlavaty was found in the Mississippi. In 2004 the body of 21-year-old UW-La Crosse wrestler Jared Dion was also found in the Mississippi river. In September 2006 UW-La Crosse basketball player Luke Homan was again found in the Mississippi and a month later police classified the death of Chris Jenkins, a University of Minnesota student as a murder and not accidental.

According to a criminologist at Minnesota’s St. Cloud State University, more than twenty college-aged men had drowned after disappearing from bars or parties since 1997 in an area from Minnesota to Ohio.

OK, those photos where he is throwing gang signs unobtrusively, that is fucking weird.

But in sign language, it means "I love you." Maybe it was a shout-out to a deaf family member or something.

The best friend needs to fess up.

Serial killer R30 or just drunk and falling in the water? Water and alcohol are a bad combination.

Have the authorities searched here?:

Denial by authorities is a serial killers best friend.

[quote] he looks gay

Could have fooled me!

kidnapped and sold as a sex slave. used in a snuff film. he's dead.

wow, R26... that his HILARIOUS. I cant believe you came up with something so funny. My sides... oh, my sides... imagine saying someone SOUNDS... and then describing the way they actually LOOK... bwwwaaa hahahaha. You are the reason I come to Datalounge. How original. Only a bright mind like yours could come up with something so original. You sound BRILLIANT... well, I guess im not as smart as you, but you understand, I was trying... I hope you dont mind if I steal your original post and use it as if it were mind. I cant imagine someone doing that, but you know im gonna.

A cop that I know told me that authorities do believe there is a "Smiley Face" killer(s) but publicly deny it. Their belief is that it's a loose knit group of truck driver serial killers.

I think a lot of serial killers are possibly truckers. The one in Houston called the I-45 corridor killer is believed by many to be several different truck drivers. The dump site for the bodies is close to the freeway.

Spring Break Kills

[quote]According to a criminologist at Minnesota’s St. Cloud State University, more than twenty college-aged men had drowned after disappearing from bars or parties since 1997 in an area from Minnesota to Ohio.

Twenty deaths in 15 years of drunk college age men in a six state area with many freezing bodies of water during the winter months is enough to call this the work of (a) serial killer(s)? I don't think these numbers look large at all. There is a lot of reckless drinking activity in the area. Is it a statistical anomaly compared to other years? How does it compare to deaths in Canada or on the east coast where guys are just as likely to get drunk and fall into water?

Stuff like this happens an awful lot and with the way binge drinking has taken off on college campuses.

R29, where did you read that?

I thought that when this happened he got in an argument with some guy who was harrassing a woman outside the bar.

Evil Smiley Face Killet

It may be a coincidence that at various colleges throughout the country, dozens of smart, athletic and popular male students suddenly vanished from sight while partying with friends near campus. It may be a further coincidence that the missing men were all later determined to have wandered off alone to a nearby river, accidentally fell in and -- apparently incapacitated by alcohol -- couldn't get out before drowning to death. But it's not a coincidence that at many of the different accident scenes, the same graffiti symbol had been scrawled depicting a "smiley face." Graffiti doesn't appear by accident, and the odds are astronomical of finding a painted "smiley face" in so many unrelated locations.

When something occurs the first time, it's a happenstance. If the same thing occurs again, it's a coincidence. At the third occurrence, it's a pattern.

To be sure, the matching graffiti may not have anything to do with the actual cause and manner of death in the matching missing person cases. Obviously the symbols are not just an accidental coincidence. However, anyone could've left the distinct markings at any time -- for any reason. Detectives Gannon and Duarte, the retired police officers who traveled the country and came upon the signs, have reported very few details about their findings. Maybe they were only seeing evidence of a sick joke. While not very likely, some person or group of people who had researched these mystery drownings could have arranged to mark the scenes some time after the deaths.

Based on what little the detectives have revealed, it would appear equally unlikely the strange graffiti markings represent a nationwide gang of serial killers. The significance of the findings is impossible to judge without knowing the extent and credibility of this new evidence. Graffiti only appears in about a quarter of the cases Gannon and Duarte insist are related. The detectives have said they also discovered 12 other matching symbols, similar to "gang graffiti." But the evidence they say could tie 40 or more cases together has not been publicly discussed.

So at this point, the sinister "smiley faces" are a mystery within a mystery, or more precisely -- a pattern within a pattern.

Has case been featured on a TV show like "Disappeared" on ID?

Since the mid-1990’s, more than 100 young American men with bright futures and vibrant personalities have either drowned or disappeared under similar circumstances.

Emmy Award-winning investigative reporter Kristi Piehl first exposed a theory of a possible connection between the mysterious drowning deaths in 2008 on Good Morning America. She’s also appeared on other national television and radio programs with Bill Szostak, a former fire investigator committed to solving his son’s death.

This site is a place where people can find facts surrounding drowning mysteries. The goal is to raise awareness.

Why are these tragedies continuing? Read the stories, watch the videos and come to your own conclusions.

Awareness=Answers

I think they should pursue the gay angle, too. In any case, it's very sad. Handsome guy with no doubt, what would have been a very bright future ahead of him.

If there is a gay angle, it is a closet case who rapes and bashes the drunk men and leaves them for dead.

Bump.

Or keeps them as chained-up sex slaves, #49?

Scary.

I hope the family or someone close reads this. I by any means don't know if my notes will help crack this case...but for some reason I have a strong feeling to share my thoughts. I do not know what kind of evidence authorities may have that they think Brian fled to an island or where the tip came from, but that would be out of the normal for someone to be drinking and plot how to sneak away from camera view especially when his mother passed away just days before this. Who wanted to go back to the Ugly Tuna? Why did they return there? I don't think this was a burglery no credit cards used, bank account hasn't been touched and cell phone never found...because these things are still with him!!! When was the bar tab closed for Clint or Meredith and does the time match up to when they both phoned Brian? What do those 2 girls remember about the conversation and where did they head to after they spoke to Brian because they didn't leave out the front? Could he have entered the movie theater? Do the two cops that were in the video remember that moment? Were they ever shown the video do they remember him reentering the bar or Clint and Meredith leaving without him? Were Clint and Meredith leaving without him on tape as well? How did they look or act? Does the bouncer remember Brian coming back into the bar???? That's a huge tip there! Did Brian tell Meredith and Clint he was going up to the stage where the band was before or after he was seen on video with the 2 girls? Why would he have gone up to the stage???...was it to meet up with those girls was there someone else there he spotted? I don't believe drugs were involved with him or there would be signs of it in his apartment. I came accross the Ugly Tuna Saloona lawsuit filed exactly 1 year after Brian's dissapearance by Mad Mex the restuarant underneath Ugly Tuna that was filed because Ugly Tuna didn't properly seal water and waiste lines and drains so it flooded their restaurant. Did anyone look into this? Maybe there was a reason it flooded...could a body have been to blame? Where are those pipes are they near that construction site or part of it? Also Clint said he called Brian at 2am or 2:10am and it went straight to voicemail. Was his phone dying throughout the night? Id' think if the phone was dying he would have mentioned that to someone if that was never mentioned it was turned off or it fell and broke causing the battery to fall out. Brian was last seen on camera at 1:55am if Clint called at 2am that gives Brian 5 minutes to walk through those construction doors and possibly fall? I believe it may have been an accidental death possibly. If his death happened that soon he fell his phone dropped and possibly cement poured on top of him or his body went unoticed all weekend? When did they search for his body in the construction site? I mean days after that were there new parts of concrete laid or parts built that could have covered him up? I definitly think that the police or even Don Corbett, the families private investigator should reask the two police officers, the bouncer if they remember this night and what they know. I think that Clint and Meredith need to be questioned again what happened the rest of the night what did they do where did they go? Did Brian ever talk to the band or anyone else in that bar? The 2 women Brightan Zatko and Amber Ruic need to be questioned again, where did they go after they spoke to Brian. That reward isn't working could you break it up and ask for everyone to come forward that was at that location that night and could prove they were there...texts, pictures, myspace posts, facebook posts or emails posting they were there March 31, 2006? And say if anyone comes forward with proof they were there and pictures they took, exc they get a piece of the reward? Is it possible to go back and search through the building again to see what is different now than 8 years ago? I believe Clint may have been involved in something he didn't want authorities to know about but I don't think he was involved in Brian's dissapearance.

IS this the one where the roommate was under suspicion because of some blood on a mattress?

Brian Shaffer Missing since 04/1/06

I bet the staff at [italic]McDonald's[/italic]all run and hide when they see R53 approaching.

Clearly R52 was all giddy about the potential Murder, She Wrote reboot.

Oops, make that R53

March podcast

Mysterious

The Ugly Tuna Saloona has closed and will be renovated into office space. Maybe the renovation will uncover some clues.

That's a possibility, R61.

A local man was missing for over a year before his body was found jammed behind a false wall in the basement of a nightclub. He died of "positional asphyxia" (ie, not murder) and was only found because the city banned indoor smoking.