OH OH - Brian Shaffer, 27, Columbus, 1 April 2006 - #3

DNA Solves
DNA Solves
DNA Solves
Status
Not open for further replies.
I found one article that cited this fact. It was originally viewable at: http://www.nbc4i.com/news/8474636/detail.html

You can still find the web archives here: https://web.archive.org/web/20060409081737/http://www.nbc4i.com/news/8474636/detail.html

It said..."Columbus police thought they might have had a break in the case with a surveillance video taken early Saturday morning outside of the Ugly Tuna Saloona, where Brian Shaffer was last seen. They thought a man seen on the video getting onto an escalator outside of the bar, followed by two men in black shirts, was Brian Shaffer.

Late Tuesday, however, police determined that the man was not Brian Shaffer after blowing up the video and showing it to family and friends."

Personally, I think it must have been someone other than Brian. If you showed me a video of my brother walking down the stairs of a building, even if the video was fuzzy, I would never eliminate the possibility for police unless I could be 100% sure it wasn't him. I'm guessing they showed it to several friends and family and it was obvious it wasn't him.

Wow, that article brings another lost fact other than "the two men behind someone of his stature" that were still making its way around but not as a common part of the story. But that there both Clint and Meredith say he spoke to them after coming back from talking to the girls and motioned to go up to the stage. Matching with what he told the two girls.
 
Brian and Alexis were not dating for a terribly long time, approx 9 months. Wondering if Brian had promised someone else he would go to the Pearl Jam concert with them before he made those plans with Alexis?
Were the thieves who broke into his apt.possibly looking to steal concert tickets?
imo.speculation.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/161801
By Carpenter S. Newton Apr 8, 2007
Carpenter Newton reporting for Digital Journal -- By all accounts, Brian Shaffer is one of our brightest. At 28, he's two years down with two to go on his medical degree from Ohio State University, but says the "whole doctor thing" is just temporary until he can get a band together and put out a record. He has an "awesome and amazing" girlfriend that he wants to own an island with, one day to bask in the sun and drink margaritas all day.
Police questioned everyone who knew Brian, examined the surveillance footage in-depth and found a homeless man who thought he had seen Brian a week after he disappeared.

A month later, burglars hit Brian's vacant apartment. Alexis was the first to be called: The police called me at 3 AM after I had finally cried myself to sleep at about 1 to tell me that someone had kicked in Brian's door and they needed me to come and tell them what was missing.

Brian had planned to take Alexis to a Pearl Jam concert on May 22 in Detroit. He had already purchased tickets, but as Alexis blogged on May 15, she felt like she couldn't go without Brian. Pearl Jam is Brian's favorite band; he loves the group so much, he had a band logo tattooed on his upper right arm. Alexis auctioned the tickets off on eBay and added the money to Brian's reward fund. June marked the year anniversary of her and Brian's first date.
July and August passed with no new information, but a promising development happened in late September. Alexis called Brian's cell phone, just like she had been doing at least once a day since he'd been missing. On September 23, the phone rang for the first time before going to voice mail.



Later in the month, Alexis published a thank you note to Eddie Vedder, frontman of Brian's favorite, Pearl Jam. Vedder had dedicated time during the band's Cincinnati show to read off Brian's description and dedicated a song to him. (See YouTube Video)
Cingular, Brian's cell phone provider, offered two possible explanations. The most logical was a computer glitch that caused a dial tone to be heard. However, there was a possibility that Brian's phone was turned on and working for at least a short period of time in September. Sadly, Brian's phone did not have GPS capabilities and could not be located by Cingular.
Alexis made a Christmas wish that Brian would somehow come home, but he didn't. She pondered what she would feel should Brian spontaneously come to her door: Obviously, at first I'd be so thankful and happy. Then I thought that if he were out there somewhere and if he knew what was going on and how much he was missed, how incredibly hurt and angry and heart broken I would be. How could you fully explain to someone what it was like to miss them, pay their bills, defend them against anything negative said about them, and tell people how wonderful they were for over 9 months?
attachment.php
 

Attachments

  • Brian-Flyer.JPG
    Brian-Flyer.JPG
    23.1 KB · Views: 184
If you ever have the time to go back through previous threads, a lot of these things were discussed in previous posts and articles.

For example, at the time, the door to the construction exit was chained and police did not believe someone of Brian’s size could fit through it. However, they did take cadaver dogs into the construction area anyway just to be sure and the building was checked multiple times by police. I am wondering when the photos above were taken because I have read the building has changed over the past ten years.

We have known for a long time, due to police interviews, that at least 1 of the cameras did pan and could theoretically miss someone while sweeping the room. Especially if a security guard was directing it to hone in on a situation and that caused it to miss something else. But the police watched the footage extensively, minute by minute, and didn’t ever say they thought the normal stream of the cameras was interrupted.

If Brian did exit normally, it becomes an even larger coincidence that the person who the cameras innocently missed is also the person who permanently disappeared.

And, as we have discussed, Brian had several drinks that night as they went from bar to bar. If he was planning a covert exit, it doesn’t seem likely he would choose to or be able to carry out a calculated plan while under the influence and in an area of town that is heavily watched by cameras.
 
I saw this article today and the last sentence mentions how many unidenitified bodies have not been claimed. With both of Brian’s parents dead, I wonder if there’s a body like the 1 in this story somewhere that no 1 has connected to Brian.

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2017/10/family_to_exhume_daughter_acci.html

FYI, I looked into this a little more. If you go into IdentifyUs.Org and search for white males in his age range who were found in Ohio, you get nothing.

But if you keep in mind that, like the article I shared above, there is a possibility that the police or examiner couldn’t always determine the race, there are 30 unidentified bodies in his age range whose race has been marked “unsure” in the U.S.
 
04/02/10
https://www.10tv.com/article/brian-shaffer-case-enters-year-no-4
attachment.php

"If I don't see him again, that's OK," said Derek Shaffer. "But just to hear from him (and know) everything's OK; it just makes me sick to my stomach to this day that someone could have possibly hurt him, or beat him like that."

Investigators are still not sure what happened to Brian Shaffer, who was last seen on April 1, 2006.

Surveillance cameras recorded him going up the escalator to the Ugly Tuna Saloona bar, located in the South Campus Gateway, but the Ohio State medical student was never seen again.
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.
Columbus police detectives have traveled to six states and the U.S. Virgin Islands to follow up on potential leads in the case.
 

Attachments

  • image_shaffer-video-280.jpg
    image_shaffer-video-280.jpg
    13.3 KB · Views: 169
crimestoppersohio

Published on May 1, 2007 Permission to use this video granted by E! News, we would like to thank E! News for permission to use this documentory. This video is a documentory of Brian Shaffers dissapearance. This video includes interviews with the Columbus Police, his father Randy Shaffer, Derrik Shaffer, and girlfrien Alexis Wagoner
[video=youtube;Fz50sB89uG8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz50sB89uG8[/video]
 
Admin, would it be okay to please edit the first post on this thread to include a link to this dropfile document I compiled with summaries and titles of 10 pages of previous news articles about Brian? (I uploaded it at Dropfile, but they only make the link to download available for 24 hours.) You might also add in the summary I posted a few pages back? That way, this information would always move forward with new threads about Brian.

Everyone else, some articles listed in the file are still alive on the web. Some are no longer online this many years later, but if you search the titles at a Columbus library, or even enter search for the titles online, you will find some web archives and posts on the internet that contain their text.

Please feel free to comment and notify me about any important articles not listed. I may add more on my own later too.

I decided to do this because new people with fresh ideas are coming on the thread, but it's difficult for them to get all the details because much of the information about the case is no longer easy to find online. I want everyone who is interested to be able to educate themselves.

My family is originally from Ohio and I am around Brian's age although I myself don't live in Ohio. Still, I have been to Columbus many times and it led me to take an interest in this case years ago.

The file with the articles is here:
https://dropfile.to/pUAfTYs
 
In addition to the summary and articles I compiled, I also wanted to add my thinking after following this closely for a while:

I see these as the most likely two broad options:

1. Brian intentionally left through an unusual exit--either he jumped the balcony outside, he left through the back exit by the movie theater (and the camera failed to capture it), or he somehow accessed and left through the construction area despite it being difficult to reach and the doors being chained. There are multiple reasons I can think of that he might have chosen to leave this way. These are all just based on speculation. Perhaps Brian was trying to avoid someone he had trouble with inside, perhaps he was discreetly meeting up with a romantic interest, perhaps he was meeting someone to score some weed, perhaps he planned to go to another location such as an after-party with a friend, an Ugly Tuna staff person, or band member. Upon exiting, Brian somehow got into a situation where he was harmed or accidentally fell into harm (an accident or overdose?). People who met him or who were with him hid his body. Less likely: By his own doing, Brian fell into the river or some other remote/hidden area and his body just hasn't been discovered yet.

2. Brian met with foul play or a medical issue induced by being over-served or overdosing on a substance while still inside the bar after hours. In the 24 hours that followed, someone (bar staff, band, building security etc.) hid his body inside the building or, more likely, somehow got it out of the building and disposed of it somewhere remote where it hasn't been found.

I think there's a chance Clint has some sort of additional information (perhaps he and Brian had a conflict that night or he and Brian used drugs together etc.) If he does know something, he still might not know what happened to Brian altogether, but might know it is related to some sort of secret they shared together that could also impact Clint's reputation as a medical professional. I've never met anyone involved here, but it says something that multiple people--Brian's Dad, Alexis' Dad, Alexis, and Brian's brother, Derek-- all seemed to think Clint might be holding back important information. Clint hired a lawyer and refused a polygraph. In these forums, it was said he requested immunity in exchange for sharing information, but was refused. I've never been able to confirm the request for immunity.
 
I don't want to muddy the waters with unverified reports, but I did happen on a post that linked to a NamUs profile of a body found approximately 15 months later in Michigan - 150 miles away. It's reported Clint left town the week following the disappearance and moved back to Michigan. The body recovered from the fire exactly matches the age range, height, weight, sex and race of Brian. I wonder if they compared any dental records or DNA to exclude him as an option?

It's reported that every minute of video footage was reviewed and "everyone who entered the bar was also seen leaving." Does this include workers and band members using a back stage entrance or maintenance entrance? I think not.

Again, I wish all footage would be released to the public. What harm could come from that?
 
In addition to the summary and articles I compiled, I also wanted to add my thinking after following this closely for a while:

I see these as the most likely two broad options:

1. Brian intentionally left through an unusual exit--either he jumped the balcony outside, he left through the back exit by the movie theater (and the camera failed to capture it), or he somehow accessed and left through the construction area despite it being difficult to reach and the doors being chained. There are multiple reasons I can think of that he might have chosen to leave this way. These are all just based on speculation. Perhaps Brian was trying to avoid someone he had trouble with inside, perhaps he was discreetly meeting up with a romantic interest, perhaps he was meeting someone to score some weed, perhaps he planned to go to another location such as an after-party with a friend, an Ugly Tuna staff person, or band member. Upon exiting, Brian somehow got into a situation where he was harmed or accidentally fell into harm (an accident or overdose?). People who met him or who were with him hid his body. Less likely: By his own doing, Brian fell into the river or some other remote/hidden area and his body just hasn't been discovered yet.

2. Brian met with foul play or a medical issue induced by being over-served or overdosing on a substance while still inside the bar after hours. In the 24 hours that followed, someone (bar staff, band, building security etc.) hid his body inside the building or, more likely, somehow got it out of the building and disposed of it somewhere remote where it hasn't been found.

I think there's a chance Clint has some sort of additional information (perhaps he and Brian had a conflict that night or he and Brian used drugs together etc.) If he does know something, he still might not know what happened to Brian altogether, but might know it is related to some sort of secret they shared together that could also impact Clint's reputation as a medical professional. I've never met anyone involved here, but it says something that multiple people--Brian's Dad, Alexis' Dad, Alexis, and Brian's brother, Derek-- all seemed to think Clint might be holding back important information. Clint hired a lawyer and refused a polygraph. In these forums, it was said he requested immunity in exchange for sharing information, but was refused. I've never been able to confirm the request for immunity.

The request for immunity was confirmed in the Ohio Dispatch report. I’m only assuming they verified their information before publishing their report.
 
I don't want to muddy the waters with unverified reports, but I did happen on a post that linked to a NamUs profile of a body found approximately 15 months later in Michigan - 150 miles away. It's reported Clint left town the week following the disappearance and moved back to Michigan. The body recovered from the fire exactly matches the age range, height, weight, sex and race of Brian. I wonder if they compared any dental records or DNA to exclude him as an option?

It's reported that every minute of video footage was reviewed and "everyone who entered the bar was also seen leaving." Does this include workers and band members using a back stage entrance or maintenance entrance? I think not.

Again, I wish all footage would be released to the public. What harm could come from that?

We have looked at this, I’m not sure what to think. 15 months later, I suppose the body could have been placed somewhere then burned later? Seems far fetched but who knows. This as well as another unidentfied have been submitted to LE regarding Brian. I know one other here as well as myself.

Interesting Clint went to Michigan though, I wasn’t aware of that. Do you have a link? Tia
 
We have looked at this, I’m not sure what to think. 15 months later, I suppose the body could have been placed somewhere then burned later? Seems far fetched but who knows. This as well as another unidentfied have been submitted to LE regarding Brian. I know one other here as well as myself.

Interesting Clint went to Michigan though, I wasn’t aware of that. Do you have a link? Tia


I recall a Reddit comment mentioning that he skipped town and moved back to Michigan with family, but all I can find now is an article from the Ohio Missing Dispatch that says Clint moved to Tennessee literally a few weeks after Brian's disappearance.

Clint's behavior suggests he is either extremely paranoid or he is hiding something.
 
We have looked at this, I’m not sure what to think. 15 months later, I suppose the body could have been placed somewhere then burned later? Seems far fetched but who knows. This as well as another unidentfied have been submitted to LE regarding Brian. I know one other here as well as myself.

Interesting Clint went to Michigan though, I wasn’t aware of that. Do you have a link? Tia

I originally posted that because I saw someone comment it on Reddit a while back. Not sure if it has been double posted, but I want to say I posted this a few months back because it caught my attention. It matches his height, weight, age, beard, etc. If Clint moved back to MI, that is a huge red flag. I emailed the Case Manager and others listed on a page a while back.

https://www.identifyus.org/en/cases/11730
 
I originally posted that because I saw someone comment it on Reddit a while back. Not sure if it has been double posted, but I want to say I posted this a few months back because it caught my attention. It matches his height, weight, age, beard, etc. If Clint moved back to MI, that is a huge red flag. I emailed the Case Manager and others listed on a page a while back.

https://www.identifyus.org/en/cases/11730

Interesting, under the “physical” section it states he had a mustache and partial beard: If it were Brian that would have to mean he would have been alive at least long enough to grow the facial hair. Regarding this UID it shows that dental is available but no DNA. Seems they would have it by now, unless their plan is to rely on dental alone, possibly due to the expense? I would hope LE is following up on the submitted possible matches, but it does make me wonder if they don't unless requested by family.
 
Interesting, under the “physical” section it states he had a mustache and partial beard: If it were Brian that would have to mean he would have been alive at least long enough to grow the facial hair. Regarding this UID it shows that dental is available but no DNA. Seems they would have it by now, unless their plan is to rely on dental alone, possibly due to the expense? I would hope LE is following up on the submitted possible matches, but it does make me wonder if they don't unless requested by family.

I agree it would be shocking if they already didn't determine it was Brian. The original Reddit comment said something along the lines of Brian being the only one with that height, weight, gender, race that was unaccounted for. When you think about it, if he stayed in that area ans was "homeless", he never really would have been found or accounted for. I know that sounds a bit far-fetched, but it's worth looking into. As I said, I can't find any info on Clint being from MI, but many have said that. If he is from MI I think that raises a huge red flag. The guy was in Brians apartment for 6 hours after, which is weird. He won't talk to cops or anyone. Not to mentioned him being from MI where a body was found that resembles Brian....that's too many coincidences for my liking.


However, yes I realize this is a long shot. I would assume they have ruled him out. But I am shocked I never got a response, along with many others not getting one either.
 
Like you, I tend to think the chances of any of these bodies being Brian’s are low. It really hasn’t been a highly publicized case and the detectives assigned to it have shown a lot of determination over the years. By there are oversights sometimes.

I will add that among the articles I posted 2 days ago, one did mention a reported sighting of a man serving tables at a restaurant in Michigan wearing a name tag that Read Brian S. Police investigated it and said it was a false lead.
 
I was having a discussing with someone the other day... And our discussing quickly turned into considering thoughts of Brian willingly leaving... Since there hasn't been a body and his disappearance appears to be rather deliberate than random, it is interesting to think of this. Now, I have never believed that Brian did leave on his own because he wanted to disappear or some other similar reason. But... there has never been a body recovered or any other evidence that would suggest that he is more likely to be dead than alive... I don't know... I just can't comprehend how could he leave Columbus, OH unnoticed and manage to live in disguise for so many years. What do you guys think?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I was having a discussing with someone the other day... And our discussing quickly turned into considering thoughts of Brian willingly leaving... Since there hasn't been a body and his disappearance appears to be rather deliberate than random, it is interesting to think of this. Now, I have never believed that Brian did leave on his own because he wanted to disappear or some other similar reason. But... there has never been a body recovered or any other evidence that would suggest that he is more likely to be dead than alive... I don't know... I just can't comprehend how could he leave Columbus, OH unnoticed and manage to live in disguise for so many years. What do you guys think?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The story does have a few question marks. I admit I have entertained the idea he could’ve made a calculated exit. That is kind of what my heart wants to believe. But common sense tells me it’s far more likely he fell victim to a crime or accident and is dead somewhere...hopefully somewhere where he will one day be discovered.

I just don’t see why, if he was choosing to sneak away, he would choose to go at night, after drinking shots at multiple bars, from an area with so many cameras. That sounds more like the recipe for a mishap than a carefully executed plan.

It’s also hard to believe he would leave his brother to fend for himself.

It’s not impossible he fled on his own. But it’s not likely either.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
95
Guests online
2,378
Total visitors
2,473

Forum statistics

Threads
601,861
Messages
18,130,859
Members
231,162
Latest member
Kaffro
Back
Top