OH OH - Brian Shaffer, 27, Columbus, 1 April 2006 - #2

DNA Solves
DNA Solves
DNA Solves

New Posts

Status
Not open for further replies.
bighairdontcare said:
Any way you could copy the article? You have to be a subscriber to view it.
Click to expand...

From today's digital Columbus Dispatch:

Unsolved mystery: 10 years later, Brian Shaffer still missing
FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 2016 05:55 AM
Ten years ago today, Brian Shaffer vanished and left a wake of unanswered questions that have tormented the people who want to find him most. Alexis Waggoner waited in Brian’s apartment alone for two days after he went missing, hoping that she and her boyfriend would get on a plane that day headed to Miami, where Brian hinted he might propose. But he never came home.
http://bit.ly/25AlrcQ
 
Snips from the lengthy article JerseyGirl posted

Wondering if Florence, Brian's friend - ever married ...a woman?
Why would F. be asked to take a polygraph in the first place and why would he not want to help the investigation in any way he could?
Was he known to be a particularly loyal person who would and could keep a secret if someone ( Brian ) asked him to?

http://www.dispatch.com/content/sto...-years-later-brian-shaffer-still-missing.html
Florence initially cooperated with the investigation but then hired an attorney and refused to take a polygraph test or talk further with police. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

“If I saw him I’d say, ‘Where the hell is my brother?’ ” Derek said. “If anyone knows whether he is still alive, or if something happened
to him, it’s Clint.”
Click to expand...
Snip>
It’s hardest for Derek when he hears news reports that someone else has gone missing. That was the case last month when Joseph LaBute Jr., a handsome 26-year-old, went missing after leaving a bar in the same area where Brian went missing.
Click to expand...
Snip>
Unlike most others familiar with the case, Alexis doesn’t believe in one theory. She now is numb to emotions inherent in the case, and her continued interest is rooted more in curiosity.

Looking back, she finds it odd that a few days before that night in the bar, Brian told her to move on and find someone else, because he was struggling with his mom’s death. And that a couple of weeks before that, he asked her to “just go away” with him.
Click to expand...
 
10 years. Wow.

My thought is that Brian met with some sort of foul play that night. I don't buy that if he planned to disappear, that he would pick a night out drinking with friends to do so. Also, while he could have left through the construction exit, I though that I read somewhere that if that door would have been opened, that a camera immediately focused in it. I could be mistaken..... Regardless, I also understand that it was kind of an obstacle to be able to even exit from this door because of the construction. If he just wanted to leave and ditch his friends, he could have easily done so using the main entrance without anyone seeing him. I also guess I don't get the impression that the voicemail he left his girlfriend that night was all that odd. A lot of guys---the sweet and caring ones at least--do that sort of thing.

I go back the comment he supposedly made to his friends about going to talk with some of the band members. I think he met someone in the bar that evening, or someone was watching him and took an interest. It has just never felt like he choose to disappear.
 
MerryB said:
From today's digital Columbus Dispatch:

Unsolved mystery: 10 years later, Brian Shaffer still missing
FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 2016 05:55 AM
Ten years ago today, Brian Shaffer vanished and left a wake of unanswered questions that have tormented the people who want to find him most. Alexis Waggoner waited in Brian’s apartment alone for two days after he went missing, hoping that she and her boyfriend would get on a plane that day headed to Miami, where Brian hinted he might propose. But he never came home.
http://bit.ly/25AlrcQ
Click to expand...

I'm unable to edit this post, but wanted to add the article in it's entirety as referenced in JerseyGirl and dotr's posts:

Ten years ago today, Brian Shaffer vanished and left a wake of unanswered questions that have tormented the people who want to find him most.

Derek Shaffer still wears a green missing-person bracelet with his brother’s name. Derek lost his entire immediate family in short order. Cancer took his mom. Three weeks later, his brother disappeared. And about two years after that, his father, who searched hardest for Brian, was killed by a falling tree branch in a windstorm. Now, Derek and his wife, Maurin, are left to shoulder the emotional toll of Brian’s unknown fate.

Alexis Waggoner waited in Brian’s apartment alone for two days after he went missing, hoping that she and her boyfriend would get on a plane that day headed to Miami, where Brian hinted he might propose. But he never came home. Waggoner soon became the beautiful face of a frantic search that gained national attention. As time passed, she moved beyond the bewildering unknown that imprisoned her, but she still occasionally finds herself online, searching for answers that may never come.

Sgt. John Hurst would awake to 3 a.m. phone calls from Randy Shaffer, sometimes for updates on his son’s investigation, other times just needing a friend. No case has consumed Hurst like Brian’s. There were hundreds of interviews, thousands of hours watching video and countless dead ends. Even after switching police units and jobs, Hurst kept the case, remaining the lead investigator on a case still swirling in questions.

Did someone murder the handsome 27-year-old Ohio State University medical student?

Did the death of his mother and stress of medical school cause him to run away from his life?

Did he kill himself? Is he still alive?

<modsnip>

mwagner@dispatch.com
 
True crime garage has a recent and good podcast regarding this case. They make mention of the fact that Meredith Reed, Clint's friend, picked them up at Brothers or possibly another bar and drove them to Ugly Tuna and parked in a parking garage and there is video of the three of them parking, then there is the video of him on the escalator heading into Ugly Tuna. I wonder then, there must be video of Meredith and Clint leaving that parking garage that night. Law enforcement has never addressed this to my knowledge, but I wonder how they are behaving on the video. I wonder where they went after and how long they were together that night. To me, i just can't see how Clint was involved. Brian is on the video at 1:55, described in the true crime garage podcast as swaying and possibly acting inebriated, and then its inside of 15 minutes that Clint and Meredith leave. Yet, by all news accounts Clint stopped cooperating early on in the investigation and refused at least two polygraphs. I can't image something nefarious happened in that 15 minutes inside the bar that he would want to hide, but there has been much public speculation and several news stories questioning his refusal to cooperate. Sure polygraphs may not be that reliable, but a price has been paid by not cooperating. He has now even chosen to go by his first name which is not Clint. It doesn't add up. Its also interesting to note that Clint and Brian were at Ugly Tuna earlier in the night and left to go to another bar, and they went down the escalator to do so. So its not as though Brian liked to use some super secret construction entrance when he went to that bar. Yet he must have used it at the end of the night. Nothing about this case makes any sense.
 
This article was a great read, very well written. Thanks for posting it, I came here to do the same but you beat me to it haha.
 
Brian's case was mentioned in an article about missing, but sadly found deceased,Joey LaBute.
Both apparently missing after stepping out from a bar.

On a completely different note, while following another case in Florida, came across this surprisingly nasty reaction of a gang member to people making hand gestures/symbols .
Surely not related to Brian's case, but considering the peculiar gestures he made in some photos, just wanted to take note, fwiw, imo, speculation.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fl-latin-kings-broward-sentenced-20160122-story.html
Jan 22 2016

When a group of deaf people were communicating by sign language in a Broward bar a few years ago, a Latin Kings member known as Queen Flaka interrupted them and flashed gang signs in their faces.

They politely shooed her away, federal prosecutors said, but she returned with two young men and the ensuing melee sent three people to the hospital &#8212; two deaf people were stabbed and a third person was hit over the head with a champagne bottle.

And when King Riko, the gang's South Florida regional leader and liaison for Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties, wasn't dealing drugs or plotting violent crimes, he was teaching his then-4-year-old daughter to flash gang signs for photos he posted and bragged about on Facebook, prosecutors said.

The anecdotes illustrate just some of the impact the gang culture has on its members and South Florida residents who cross paths with them, prosecutors said in court Friday
Click to expand...


https://1870now.com/columbus-man-goes-missing-in-short-north-10-years-after-gateway-disappearance/
Friday, March 4, Joey LaBute Jr. was out with his cousin and friends at Union Cafe in the Short North. He left their table to get a drink from the bar and never returned.

The next day when he didn&#8217;t respond to multiple texts and calls, his friends and family started to worry. They found his car parked at an apartment complex on Thurber Drive but found no sign of him.

Columbus police are now investigating his disappearance. Union Cafe has turned over 12 hours of surveillance footage from 14 different cameras and his family is continuing to place flyers with his photo and information around Columbus.

The disappearance of Joey LaBute Jr. comes almost exactly ten years after the disappearance of OSU student, Brian Shaffer.

Shaffer was last seen at Ugly Tuna in the Gateway on April 1, 2006, celebrating the start of spring break. Surveillance video turned over to police showed Shaffer speaking to two women outside of the bar and then walking out of frame back into Ugly Tuna, according to police.

His friends left Ugly Tuna shortly after but not without calling his cell phone multiple times and even checking the bathrooms to no avail.

Shaffer still has not been found.

If you have any information about Joey LaBute Jr. or Brian Shaffer, contact Columbus police at (614)645-4624.
Click to expand...
rbbm.
 
I just can't shake the feeling that Brian's disappearance is related to Joey Labute's disappearance...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
So many. The circumstances. Separating from friends late at night. Successful and apparently happy. Close proximity. And, to me anyway, their appearances are notably similar.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
And the possibly notable similar time of year when this occurred, and Joey disappeared near Brian's ten year missing anniversary.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
This is my first time posting on Websleuths; I'm brand new so I apologize if I'm not using this correctly. I went to Ohio State (actually lived across the street from Ugly Tuna) and the disappearance of Brian has haunted me for several years. It's been 10 years since his disappearance and there have been no clues or breaks in this case in years. While in college, I visited Ugly Tuna almost once a week with friends and I am extremely familiar with the entire Gateway area (my apartment complex actually had us park our cars in Gateway garage due to no parking at the actual apartment site). It haunts me to know that Tuna is the last place that Brian was seen. For those of you that have never been to Ugly Tuna, when you walk inside the entrance of the "Gateway" you are immediately facing an escalator. When you take the escalator to the top, when you turn to the right there is the entrance to the Ugly Tuna and to the left is the box office and concession stands for the Gateway movie theater. There is no other exit besides an emergency exit stairwell that is located inside the entrance to the movie theater. I am unsure if the movie theater had been completed at the time of Brian's disappearance. It completely baffles me how Brian was never seen exiting Tuna as there is absolutely no other way to leave the complex besides going back down the escalator. This leads me to believe (as I see most people are also speculating) that he may have been taken into the Employees Only section of Tuna, which is the kitchen area. There is possibly another exit back in this area, or some sort of elevator that is used for vendors to supply food and alcohol. In-between the building that contains Tuna and the movie theater and the parking garage is an alley that leads to the side street (11th avenue). I am completely convinced with the lack of evidence and clues surrounding Brian's disappearance, that his friends MUST know something. I really do not believe that this was a stranger involved in Brian's disappearance, but rather someone he knew. Our local newspaper (The Columbus Dispatch and OSU's newspaper The Lantern) occasionally posts articles on Brian to keep his disappearance talked about, and I believe I remember reading that Clint Florence said he would only answer police questioning if he was granted amnesty? Can anyone confirm this? To me, that would mean that he has to know something. Sorry for the long post...I was never familiar with WebSleuths but found it after searching Brian's name and would love to discuss this case with others that are passionate about it as well.
 
knsnw said:
This is my first time posting on Websleuths; I'm brand new so I apologize if I'm not using this correctly. I went to Ohio State (actually lived across the street from Ugly Tuna) and the disappearance of Brian has haunted me for several years. It's been 10 years since his disappearance and there have been no clues or breaks in this case in years. While in college, I visited Ugly Tuna almost once a week with friends and I am extremely familiar with the entire Gateway area (my apartment complex actually had us park our cars in Gateway garage due to no parking at the actual apartment site). It haunts me to know that Tuna is the last place that Brian was seen. For those of you that have never been to Ugly Tuna, when you walk inside the entrance of the "Gateway" you are immediately facing an escalator. When you take the escalator to the top, when you turn to the right there is the entrance to the Ugly Tuna and to the left is the box office and concession stands for the Gateway movie theater. There is no other exit besides an emergency exit stairwell that is located inside the entrance to the movie theater. I am unsure if the movie theater had been completed at the time of Brian's disappearance. It completely baffles me how Brian was never seen exiting Tuna as there is absolutely no other way to leave the complex besides going back down the escalator. This leads me to believe (as I see most people are also speculating) that he may have been taken into the Employees Only section of Tuna, which is the kitchen area. There is possibly another exit back in this area, or some sort of elevator that is used for vendors to supply food and alcohol. In-between the building that contains Tuna and the movie theater and the parking garage is an alley that leads to the side street (11th avenue). I am completely convinced with the lack of evidence and clues surrounding Brian's disappearance, that his friends MUST know something. I really do not believe that this was a stranger involved in Brian's disappearance, but rather someone he knew. Our local newspaper (The Columbus Dispatch and OSU's newspaper The Lantern) occasionally posts articles on Brian to keep his disappearance talked about, and I believe I remember reading that Clint Florence said he would only answer police questioning if he was granted amnesty? Can anyone confirm this? To me, that would mean that he has to know something. Sorry for the long post...I was never familiar with WebSleuths but found it after searching Brian's name and would love to discuss this case with others that are passionate about it as well.
Click to expand...

Welcome to Ws. knsnw!!
:Welcome1:

Glad you found us, and thanks for your insightful post, long posts are no problem here, so no need to apologize whatsoever.
This is a very peculiar case and particularly tragic in light of both his Mother's death, followed by his Father's and still no answers.
How can somebody simply disappear, especially a tall, standout guy like Brian?
imo, speculation.
 
By April Johnston
From the April 2009 edition
Click to expand...
http://www.columbusmonthly.com/content/stories/2009/04/randy-shaffer-in-the-name-of-the-father.html
In the Name of the Father
The case always has been a tragic one, even for the detectives who are accustomed to investigating hardship. Brian&#8217;s mother, Renee, lost her battle with cancer only three weeks before he disappeared. The double loss sent her husband, Randy, into a tailspin. He spent the next two and a half years on a rabid, relentless search for his oldest son, sloshing along miles of riverbank, fielding phone calls from psychics and making pleading, public pitches for help, until a freak accident during a September 2008 windstorm took him, too.

The only other surviving family member, Brian&#8217;s younger brother, Derek, has fallen mostly silent since Randy&#8217;s death. Friends say he needs a break from the pain and the overwhelming, and increasingly hopeless, task of finding Brian.

But those who watched Randy fight&#8212;friends, detectives, volunteers and even sympathetic strangers&#8212;have a renewed fervor for the case. They want to find the answers for the father who never got them. They want an ending to this story, even if it&#8217;s not a happy one. Only, without Randy, they&#8217;re not quite sure what to do or where to begin.
Click to expand...
But the cameras at Ugly Tuna only caused more confusion, because while they caught Brian entering the bar that night, they never caught him actually leaving. Detectives were perplexed: If Brian left the way he arrived&#8212;on the escalator&#8212;he surely would have been taped by one of the cameras. But they soon learned there were other ways out. He might have changed his clothes or donned a hat and kept his head down and face obscured. He could have left through an exit that led directly to a construction site. It would have been difficult to navigate, especially if Brian were intoxicated, but not impossible. Or, the worst scenario of all&#8212;maybe the cameras simply missed him. One panned the area constantly; another operated manually. What if Brian had slipped out in the anonymous space between them?
Click to expand...
One of those tips came from a young woman who, on a drive through Michigan, had stopped to eat at a diner and
was waited on by a man who looked suspiciously like Brian Shaffer. His name tag even read &#8220;Brian S.&#8221; She was afraid to ask the question, so she called police instead. When they tried to follow up, the restaurant owners were coy, claiming no one named Brian worked there.
Click to expand...
 
neesaki said:
That "I miss u dad love brian" computer hoax, who would do that? I hope they were able to find out who it was, it sounds like a taunt to me.
Click to expand...

Nasty taunt indeed, who does that and why?!
Maybe someone who wanted his dad to think Brian was still alive?
imo.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

DNASolves

Who is DeKalb County John Doe (2022)?

Members online

... and 136 more.
Total: 3,476 (members: 137, guests: 3,339)

Online statistics

Members online
137
Guests online
3,339
Total visitors
3,476
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
603,276
Messages
18,154,295
Members
231,694
Latest member
Jonnyfastball
Back
Top