The Disappearance of Brian Shaffer

In the early morning hours of April 1st, 2006, 27-year-old Brian Shaffer was out celebrating the beginning of spring break with two of his friends. Around 2 a.m., the medical student was seen on camera outside of the Ugly Tuna Saloona in Columbus. He was last spotted walking towards the entrance of the bar, which was located just off camera.

After this, his movements are unknown. He was never seen leaving the bar—at least not on the security camera footage—although it’s believed that he likely exited through another door. What is certain is that Brian vanished without a trace.

The investigation into his disappearance struggled to find evidence—anything that would make one theory stand out among the rest. Mysterious phone pings, an uncertain scent trail, and a lack of cooperation from one of his friends would only create further confusion. Nearly two decades later, the question remains: What really happened to Brian Shaffer?

Brian Randall Shaffer

The oldest of two sons, Brian Randall Shaffer was born on February 25th, 1979, in Pickerington, Ohio, to parents Randy and Renee Shaffer.

Brian went on to attend The Ohio State University, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in microbiology in 2003, as well as a minor in molecular genetics.

Those who knew him described Brian as free-spirited, intelligent, outgoing, and a jokester. He was especially close to his mother Renee, a nurse who served as his inspiration to pursue a career in the medical field.

Brian took some time off after graduation to work as a radiology tech assistant at Ohio State University Hospital. However, it wasn’t long before he decided to get back on track with his schooling. In August 2004, he began attending the OSU College of Medicine, with a view towards eventually becoming a doctor.

He met and began dating fellow medical student Alexis Waggoner.

Though they’d only been seeing each other for a matter of months, their friends and respective families believed that the relationship was becoming serious and anticipated that they would soon become engaged. No one was more hopeful for this outcome than Renee, who loved Alexis and encouraged her son to propose.

A Heartbroken Family

In 2005, the Shaffer family was dealt a difficult blow when Renee was diagnosed with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a rare type of blood cancer that interferes with the body’s ability to form healthy blood cells. It’s also commonly referred to as “bone marrow failure disorder.”

Renee’s diagnosis hit everyone in the family hard, but no one more so than Brian, who loved his mother dearly and described her as the “greatest and most wonderful person in the world”.

Her final gift to her son would be a trip for two to Miami for the upcoming spring break. He planned to go with Alexis.

Sadly, on March 6th, 2006, Renee Shaffer passed away at the age of 51, leaving behind a devastated family.

Disappearance

In the days and weeks following his mother’s passing, Brian struggled to come to terms with the loss.

One day he asked Alexis to run away with him, although it was unclear if he was joking or not. The matter was soon dropped but a week later, he told Alexis that she should move on and find someone else because he was in a dark place emotionally.

She refused to leave him, however, and the relationship continued. They still planned to go to Miami together in early April.

Brian appeared to be feeling at least somewhat better by late March. He was relieved when finals were over and spring break began. He went out for dinner with his father Randy on the evening of March 31st to celebrate.

According to Randy, Brian seemed exhausted—probably from pulling multiple all-nighters studying in preparation for his exams—but nothing else seemed out of the ordinary.

Allegedly, however, there was tension between Randy and his sons over the share of Renee’s life insurance policy that Brian and Derek were set to receive.

(Side note: Renee reportedly changed her life insurance policy without his knowledge and made their sons beneficiaries in addition to him—something he learned after she passed away.)

After dinner, Brian went out with his friend William “Clint” Florence. The two stopped at a bar early in the evening and while there Clint phoned his friend Meredith Reed, asking her to join them. She picked them up and the three eventually ended up at the Ugly Tuna Saloona in Columbus.

He called Alexis, who was in Toledo visiting her family, around 10 p.m. to tell her that he loved her and to confirm their travel plans for Monday.

Brian and Clint reportedly had an argument that night—the cause of which is unknown—but it ended with Brian walking away.

Around 2 a.m. on April 1st, Clint and Meredith realized that they hadn’t seen Brian in a while and started to search for him. They looked all over the two-story bar, including inside the restrooms, but couldn’t find him anywhere. They were also unable to reach him by phone.

Assuming that he had simply chosen to walk home—his apartment was only six blocks away—they ultimately left without him.

The following morning, Meredith took Clint to pick up his car from the parking lot of Brian’s apartment building, but neither checked on Brian while they were there, even though they still hadn’t heard from him.

Neither Randy nor Alexis could reach him that weekend either. When he didn’t show up at the airport on Monday, April 3rd, they knew something was wrong and reported him missing.

The Investigation

In an effort to locate Brian, or any evidence as to what had happened to him, law enforcement searched the Ugly Tuna Saloona, as well as hospitals, homeless shelters, dumpsters and trash cans in the area. Nothing was found.

Strangely, just days after Brian vanished, his apartment was broken into. However, the only items that appeared to be missing were DVDs, a television, and some clothing.

Since Columbus has more security cameras than any other city in Ohio—more than Cleveland, Toledo, and Cincinnati combined, in fact—the police hoped that video footage might shed light on the events that led to his disappearance.

The last known footage of Brian showed him outside of the Ugly Tuna Saloona just before 2 a.m. on the morning of April 1st, talking to two women. As stated earlier, he was last seen walking back in the direction of the entrance, which was located just off camera.

Theories

Though it has sometimes been erroneously reported that the Ugly Tuna Saloona had only one exit, there were actually others. One of these—the emergency exit—was also monitored by a security camera.

Many hours were put into reviewing all of the video footage, but Brian seemingly doesn’t make an appearance after 2 a.m.

However, there was a back door that wasn’t under video surveillance. Many have theorized that Brian could have used this exit. This is certainly plausible as those familiar with the bar noted that, while they weren’t supposed to use the back exit, people often did anyway.

Jump Cut in the Footage

According to Sergeant John Hurst, there was a point in the footage in which there appeared to be a jump cut, suggesting that the camera had been overridden by someone—possibly by a security guard.

However, Sergeant Hurst also said that there was an employee stationed at the emergency exit that night. During an interview, this individual said that no one attempted to use that particular exit on the night in question.

Another interesting piece of information was that one of the doors led onto a construction site. It has been suggested that Brian could have wandered in there while intoxicated and gotten hurt. This doesn’t appear to be the case, though, since the area was thoroughly searched afterwards, with cadaver dogs in tow, and no sign of the missing man was found.

Additionally, it has been speculated that after leaving the bar (however and whenever that happened), Brian could have either taken his own life or been abducted, possibly robbed, and then murdered.

It should also be noted that the Ugly Tuna Saloona was located in a high-crime area. (The business has since closed.)

Interestingly, Hurst also stated that Brian’s scent was tracked to a nearby Wendy’s parking lot. However, he wasn’t 100% certain that it really was his scent, so whether or not Brian was there that night remains open for speculation.

A New Life

Another theory posited was that he chose to leave and start a new life elsewhere. However, no evidence was ever found to support this idea. Although he did ask Alexis to run away with him just weeks before he went missing.

Furthermore, some have suggested that becoming a doctor wasn’t truly what he wanted and was rather something he’d been pursuing to make his mother proud, leading investigators to wonder if he was unhappy with his path in life.

For her part, Alexis didn’t believe that he’d choose to leave that way.

“I don’t think he’s alive. I can’t imagine he would have just done that.

There was no further activity on either his credit cards or his bank account following his disappearance. Yet authorities didn’t discount the idea that he might have willingly walked away and even sounded as if they might favor this theory.

Hurst:

“There is nothing we have been able to recover that shows he succumbed to foul play, so again, the probability of that isn’t as great as he just walked away.”

All told, detectives interviewed over 100 people, including the two women he was last seen speaking with that evening, but learned nothing that could help push the investigation forward.

Clint

Brian’s loved ones have questioned if Clint knows more than he is saying. While cooperative with law enforcement early in the investigation, Clint soon chose to stop speaking to the police after consulting with his lawyer. He also refused to testify before a grand jury.

Whether this is indicative of guilt, or rather just prudence and a fear of being falsely accused of a crime, is open for debate.

He also refused to take a polygraph test, though it’s difficult to determine how much significance to attach to this decision given the fact that polygraphs are notoriously unreliable.

To this day, no evidence implicating Clint in Brian’s disappearance has been discovered.

Derek Shaffer, Brian’s brother, had this to say:

“As soon as the detectives started getting involved, that’s when he pretty much had no contact with anybody. I’ve always thought he definitely knows something — just won’t come forward with it. If Brian did take off somewhere, if that is the case, we just always had a strong feeling that Clint would possibly know that.”

Cell Phone Pings and Other Clues

Alexis continued to call his cell phone every night for months after he went missing. Each time it would go straight to voicemail.

That is, until one night three months after Brian vanished when the phone actually rang three times. There was no answer, but investigators discovered that the phone pinged a cell tower in Hilliard, roughly 14 miles away from where he was last seen.

Why did this happen? Did someone discover his phone and turn it on? Or had the phone perhaps been in someone else’s possession since the night of Brian’s disappearance?

These questions, as with so many others in this case, remained unanswered.

Sadly, Randy Shaffer, who worked tirelessly to find his son, passed away on September 14th, 2008, when a tree fell on him during a windstorm.

However, his death inadvertently produced a possible clue in the case. A private investigator by the name of Don Corbett, who was hired by the Shaffer family, found a curious message posted on the online guest book for Randy’s funeral. The comment read:

Dad, I love you. Love, Brian (U.S. Virgin Islands)

The Columbia Division of Police subpoenaed the web host’s records to trace the commenter’s geographic origin. They later determined that the post was written on a public computer located in Franklin County, Ohio. The identity of the commenter remains unknown.

Corbett has since said that the police wouldn’t allow him to access information and evidence related to the case. As a result, he had to file an application for a writ of mandamus to compel case records and evidence from the police chief.

Financial Records Raise Questions

Kelly Bruce, host of the podcast Brian Shaffer Dead or Alive, was able to review Brian’s financial records from the months leading up to his disappearance and noted something interesting about them:

Hey everyone! I know it’s been a long time, but I want to give everyone an update on what I have been working on. Get ready for a novel. lol. A few months ago I received several months worth of Brian’s bank statements and 3 months of his credit card statements. At first glance there is nothing suspicious, but I noticed a couple of things that made me raise an eyebrow. On the February 2006 Discover card statement, Brian had a balance of $6,746.94. The February statement for his Chase Amazon card had a balance of $7,972.66. The February checking account statement shows Brian with an ending balance of $2905.52.

However, by the March statements both credit cards were paid off completely with no record of the payment on Brian’s bank records and his balance remained almost the same. So how did all his debt get paid off 1 month before Brian went missing?! While going through his transactions looking for any sign of how Brian’s credit cards were paid off I noticed something else odd. Brian had some very strange deposits for someone without a job. From November 2005- March 2006 Brian deposited 1 check each month in the amount of $425. That’s not too odd, but then I looked at the check numbers. #1326, #1327, #1328, and #1329.

So who has a checking account that is only writing checks to Brian once a month?! On 1/03/2006 Brian made a deposit into his bank account via an atm at National City Bank in Pickerington in the amount of $5275.00. Again this wouldn’t be strange if Brian had a source of income. So, who was giving Brian money? My first thought was his Mom, Renee. However, she was also on Brian’s checking account and could have just done a transfer from her personal account to her shared account with Brian. I cannot believe it’s been almost 19 years and I am still finding out new things about Brian’s life and disappearance. Imagine what we could learn if CPD would be transparent with this obvious cold case!! Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts.

According to Kelly, she was told by those close to Brian that Randy hadn’t been paying for any of his expenses, so it’s unclear who helped him pay off his debt. Additionally, she stated that law enforcement didn’t know the answer to this question either—or at least claimed not to when presented with this information.

A Tijuana Sighting?

In 2020, a photo of a homeless man in Tijuana, Mexico, bearing a resemblance to Brian Shaffer went viral on social media. However, facial recognition analysis carried out by the FBI later determined that this man is not Brian.

2023 Update

Fifteen years after his disappearance, the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Columbus Division of Police released an age-progression image of Brian Shaffer and requested help from the public.

Attorney General Dave Yost stated:

“Take a close look at this image: a single tip can reignite a cold case and bring a family closer to reunification with a loved one. Hope doesn’t have an expiration date — every missing person counts.”

Meanwhile, the lead Columbus investigator who worked on Shaffer’s case has since retired. Detective Blanch Tucker took over and started the process of re-interviewing witnesses and people connected to Brian.

Tucker said she believes someone involved with the disappearance withheld information during the original investigation, but declined to elaborate on this statement.

There have been no further developments. Brian Shaffer’s case remains open and unsolved.

Crime Stoppers of Central Ohio is offering a $100,000 reward for any information that can help solve this case. You can leave your tip anonymously by calling 614-461-TIPS.