OH OH - Brian Shaffer, 27, Columbus, 1 Apr 2006 #5

[Kaie]

It doesn't look like a phone to me and I had the exact same phone myself back then.

What model of phone did he have? I've been trying to remember this, and I'm not able to watch the HLN special from where I am

 

[detlitch46]

How well have they checked out the band members? The last thing he said to someone was that he was going to talk to a band member. Maybe he knew them. Possible drug connection. I'm thinking that he could have easily been carried out in one of their large equipment cases unnoticed. And, bands travel....lots of people travel with the band too...have they thoroughly searched other venues the band went to? Just a thought. Not accusing the band....just saying they may know something or people who travel with them might.

 

[Stella]

If I'm not mistaken, this is it. The top model.
Tommy's CIS-106 Blog: Cell phone upgrades

 

[MerryB]

I watched the Nightmare version on YT and what I saw was Brian with his hand stuck in his pocket and after looking over at the security guards briefly to see if they were watching, he takes his hand out of his pocket and puts something in the girl's open purse as she turns around to leave. It doesn't look like a phone to me and I had the exact same phone myself back then. It looks like something square and dark brown. Maybe he slipped her a little snack size plastic bag of weed she had scored earlier from him or Clint?

To me, it looks small and silver.

 

[Ozoner]

To me, it looks small and silver.

That's what she said.

 

[dotr]

.

 

[Vidocq Admirer]

Forgive me if this is maybe factually irrelevant to the Shaffer case, but it's what came to mind as I'm reading this thread.

A month ago one of the kids I work with had a birthday get-together at one of the bars on South Street, here in Philadelphia. It was fun. I drank way too much vodka. I said goodbye to my friends and staggered out around 1am and waited for a bus on a street corner a few blocks down.

I was drunkenly reviewing the bus schedules on my phone when I heard a voice I didn't recognize. I looked up and 4 young dudes were sitting there in a car at the intersection. They were all staring directly at me with blank looks on their faces. Late-teens/early-20's. All wearing ball caps. The one kid asked me if I "was all right". I laughed a second and responded affirmatively.

There was an awkward moment of silence, then another kid asked, with a distinctly flat affect, "What happened?" I had knee surgery and am still walking with a cane at the moment. Before I could answer, one of the other kids asked, in his own flat tone, "Are you okay?"

This was a desolate section of South Street. There was no one around. No pedestrian traffic. No automobile traffic. Just me, my cane, and them. I immediately sensed at the time, and I still feel now, that I was being sized up for some kind of...unfortunate incident. I'm in my early-40's but I look a lot younger. I stood up straight, pushed my shoulders back, purposely took my weight off the cane. The point was to look as "not vulnerable" as possible. There was a few more moments of strange, tense silence, and then they drove off without another word, heading north towards downtown.

I got out of there, hobbled back in the direction of the bar, which was now closed. So I drunkenly wandered around the adjacent Old City neighborhood, which is decidedly safe. I was about to just call a rideshare, but by the Grace of God I stumbled upon the 40 bus, which heads to West Philly, where I live. A very random but fortuitous coincidence.

My point is, if those 4 little pricks (they could have been just bighearted kids sincerely concerned for my well being, but I doubt it) had snatched me up then dumped my remains in a pit somewhere after extracting the gold out of my teeth or whatever...everyone would now be discussing my missing person's case. And my friends and family would have no where to start. The randomness of my disappearance would be formidable.

Those kids just randomly rolled up on me. No one could have predicted it.

With all this mind, what my gut tells me, as I read about this case, is something was done to Shaffer. Alone and drunk= vulnerable. Even if you're 6 feet tall. This is likely, in my opinion, why the Shaffer case is so mysterious- if he was snatched, it transcends any clues we can discern out of his behavior, or any clues in what he said to anyone that night, because none of it would be relevant. If he was snatched, he had no agency in being snatched. It was done to him. It's an intrusion onto his timeline, entirely dictated by whoever's responsible. My guess is it'll take either the person responsible admitting it, or being ratted out by someone they've confided in and/or was an accomplice.

In no way am I advocating defeatism or apathy. Apologies, respectfully, if that's what it sounds like. I could be 100% wrong, and I'm heartened to see threads like this. It's a good thing that we discuss this case and try to sort it out. I just can't shake this dread that he was...descended upon. And that's a formidable thing to unravel. The randomness of the unknown person's- Shaffer's possible abductor/murder- actions makes it formidable. Just as it would have been in my nearly-but-didn't-happen-case.

These are just my thoughts as I read. Hopefully we find this guy alive. I sincerely hope so. Sorry about the novel.

 

[Ozoner]

Forgive me if this is maybe factually irrelevant to the Shaffer case, but it's what came to mind as I'm reading this thread.

A month ago one of the kids I work with had a birthday get-together at one of the bars on South Street, here in Philadelphia. It was fun. I drank way too much vodka. I said goodbye to my friends and staggered out around 1am and waited for a bus on a street corner a few blocks down.

I was drunkenly reviewing the bus schedules on my phone when I heard a voice I didn't recognize. I looked up and 4 young dudes were sitting there in a car at the intersection. They were all staring directly at me with blank looks on their faces. Late-teens/early-20's. All wearing ball caps. The one kid asked me if I "was all right". I laughed a second and responded affirmatively.

There was an awkward moment of silence, then another kid asked, with a distinctly flat affect, "What happened?" I had knee surgery and am still walking with a cane at the moment. Before I could answer, one of the other kids asked, in his own flat tone, "Are you okay?"

This was a desolate section of South Street. There was no one around. No pedestrian traffic. No automobile traffic. Just me, my cane, and them. I immediately sensed at the time, and I still feel now, that I was being sized up for some kind of...unfortunate incident. I'm in my early-40's but I look a lot younger. I stood up straight, pushed my shoulders back, purposely took my weight off the cane. The point was to look as "not vulnerable" as possible. There was a few more moments of strange, tense silence, and then they drove off without another word, heading north towards downtown.

I got out of there, hobbled back in the direction of the bar, which was now closed. So I drunkenly wandered around the adjacent Old City neighborhood, which is decidedly safe. I was about to just call a rideshare, but by the Grace of God I stumbled upon the 40 bus, which heads to West Philly, where I live. A very random but fortuitous coincidence.

My point is, if those 4 little pricks (they could have been just bighearted kids sincerely concerned for my well being, but I doubt it) had snatched me up then dumped my remains in a pit somewhere after extracting the gold out of my teeth or whatever...everyone would now be discussing my missing person's case. And my friends and family would have no where to start. The randomness of my disappearance would be formidable.

Those kids just randomly rolled up on me. No one could have predicted it.

With all this mind, what my gut tells me, as I read about this case, is something was done to Shaffer. Alone and drunk= vulnerable. Even if you're 6 feet tall. This is likely, in my opinion, why the Shaffer case is so mysterious- if he was snatched, it transcends any clues we can discern out of his behavior, or any clues in what he said to anyone that night, because none of it would be relevant. If he was snatched, he had no agency in being snatched. It was done to him. It's an intrusion onto his timeline, entirely dictated by whoever's responsible. My guess is it'll take either the person responsible admitting it, or being ratted out by someone they've confided in and/or was an accomplice.

In no way am I advocating defeatism or apathy. Apologies, respectfully, if that's what it sounds like. I could be 100% wrong, and I'm heartened to see threads like this. It's a good thing that we discuss this case and try to sort it out. I just can't shake this dread that he was...descended upon. And that's a formidable thing to unravel. The randomness of the unknown person's- Shaffer's possible abductor/murder- actions makes it formidable. Just as it would have been in my nearly-but-didn't-happen-case.

These are just my thoughts as I read. Hopefully we find this guy alive. I sincerely hope so. Sorry about the novel.

Your take on the case is very logical and entirely possible.

The only reasons why a random crime isn't considered a given in this case are 1) Brian was not seen or captured on video outside the building and 2) his body hasn't been found.

Most victims of random crime are not concealed ; they're usually robbed and killed right where they are and left. If Brian was victimized by perps who made the extra effort to toss him into a dumpster, then that might be all there is to the mystery.

 

[justinkjones1993]

^ These last 2 posts are along the lines of what I've always believed happened to Shaffer.

Either a random crime of opportunity like a robbery gone wrong or some kind of drug deal gone wrong. People tend to assume that a 6 foot 2 male is not vulnerable but as the previous poster mentioned, Brian was drunk by all accounts (a fact that pretty consistently gets overlooked in this case). Drunk often means bad decision making, bad coordination and thinking one is invincible when they are not.

He didn't even necessarily need to be involved in an altercation either, he could have very simply said the wrong thing to the wrong person and it ended badly for him. There's really no telling, but the cellphone pings and someone coming forward with details are about the only things that will bring any answers in this case I'm afraid.

 

[saztina]

I randomly started thinking about this case earlier. I can’t believe it’s been 16 years since he went missing! I saw a post earlier that said Brian had actually gone missing once before. I’m not sure how true that is but it’s so intriguing to me. I always believed that he left the bar that night and something happened him on his walk home. But then WHERE IS HIS BODY/ANY EVIDENCE???

 

[neesaki]

^ These last 2 posts are along the lines of what I've always believed happened to Shaffer.

Either a random crime of opportunity like a robbery gone wrong or some kind of drug deal gone wrong. People tend to assume that a 6 foot 2 male is not vulnerable but as the previous poster mentioned, Brian was drunk by all accounts (a fact that pretty consistently gets overlooked in this case). Drunk often means bad decision making, bad coordination and thinking one is invincible when they are not.

He didn't even necessarily need to be involved in an altercation either, he could have very simply said the wrong thing to the wrong person and it ended badly for him. There's really no telling, but the cellphone pings and someone coming forward with details are about the only things that will bring any answers in this case I'm afraid.

Yet, if I understand you correctly….. saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, and then it ending badly, would be considered an altercation. IMO
Just sayin… This is actually one of my main theories of what could have happened. Recall, that Clint claimed that Brian was known to shoot his mouth off, or something to that effect. That’s always stuck with me.

 

[Stella]

To me, it looks small and silver.

The actual phone is not silver except for small trimmings, mostly inside around the screen. It's a matte dark gray color, inside and out.

 

[MerryB]

The actual phone is not silver except for small trimmings, mostly inside around the screen. It's a matte dark gray color, inside and out.

Metallic gray/silver…I wasn’t being that specific because it’s too hard to differentiate between gray/silver shiny/matte in that video.

 

[Functionalist]

^ These last 2 posts are along the lines of what I've always believed happened to Shaffer.

Either a random crime of opportunity like a robbery gone wrong or some kind of drug deal gone wrong. People tend to assume that a 6 foot 2 male is not vulnerable but as the previous poster mentioned, Brian was drunk by all accounts (a fact that pretty consistently gets overlooked in this case). Drunk often means bad decision making, bad coordination and thinking one is invincible when they are not.

He didn't even necessarily need to be involved in an altercation either, he could have very simply said the wrong thing to the wrong person and it ended badly for him. There's really no telling, but the cellphone pings and someone coming forward with details are about the only things that will bring any answers in this case I'm afraid.

I think that’s a reasonable explanation considering the information that’s publicly available about the case. I don’t believe there is any hard evidence of an altercation like surveillance footage or DNA. But an altercation could have happened at a completely different location where Brian walked to or got a ride to after leaving the UTS.

Recently, a different theory came to mind that’s consistent with a lot of missing persons cases where no body was found or evidence of foul play emerged. Many of these cases involve someone that was driving, lost control of their vehicle, and ended up dying when their car ended up in a body of water like a pond or river.

Brian’s car was found at his apartment. But perhaps he met up with someone at the Wendys parking lot that the police dogs tracked his scent to, got a ride, the driver lost control of the car, and the car ended up in a body of water. Such an incident could have killed them both and trapped their bodies in the vehicle.

The driver could have been from out of town and may have just been visiting, so he or she wasn’t reported missing in the Columbus area. If this theory is true, the car would have probably ended up in a body of water somewhere in the metro Columbus area. Brian didn’t appear in any way prepared to go out of town that night, so I doubt they would have ended up much further than the outskirts of town.

 

[Ozoner]

Recently, a different theory came to mind that’s consistent with a lot of missing persons cases where no body was found or evidence of foul play emerged. Many of these cases involve someone that was driving, lost control of their vehicle, and ended up dying when their car ended up in a body of water like a pond or river.

Brian’s car was found at his apartment. But perhaps he met up with someone at the Wendy's parking lot that the police dogs tracked his scent to, got a ride, the driver lost control of the car, and the car ended up in a body of water. Such an incident could have killed them both and trapped their bodies in the vehicle.

The driver could have been from out of town and may have just been visiting, so he or she wasn’t reported missing in the Columbus area. If this theory is true, the car would have probably ended up in a body of water somewhere in the metro Columbus area. Brian didn’t appear in any way prepared to go out of town that night, so I doubt they would have ended up much further than the outskirts of town.

Snipped.

It's technically possible but the odds are pretty long.

It seems unlikely that someone from out of town and unconnected to Brian would happen to pick Brian up that night.

 

[Functionalist]

Snipped.

It's technically possible but the odds are pretty long.

It seems unlikely that someone from out of town and unconnected to Brian would happen to pick Brian up that night.

They could have been connected in some way that isn't generally known. It's not unlikely for someone in college to have visitors from out of town. It could have been a distant friend or someone Brian met on the internet with some shared interest.

Also, Brian's driver companion in this theory could have been someone from the Columbus area who had no one to report him or her as missing, like someone estranged from his/her family and without any close friends.

 

[NocNoc123]

Not to go backwards with this conversation, but I just can’t get it out of my mind about LE being able to get pings from the phone throughout some portion of April. I know it’s never been stated in regards to specific dates, but we know that they had a pinging service set up through Cingular for 30 days and that they did in fact get “hits” in the form of pings on more than one occasion.

A cell phone can only communicate pings with a cell site if it has power. If the phone had power, why would it not ring through? Has it ever been strictly clarified that Brian’s phone was not ringing through at any time during the month of April? I don’t recall ever reading anything that stated that a call went through, and of course I think of Alexis, because she stated several times that she would call the phone nightly. But the only way I would imagine it wouldn’t ring but be able to receive/transpond a ping is if it was on and in a very low service area, but in this case the battery would have been torched within a very short period of time (like, hours) because of the power ramp-up required to maintain a signal at all.

So I guess my question is; have we ever gotten more info regarding whether the phone was actively receiving any calls whatsoever after the 2:11 timeframe when Clint messaged Brian, or is this still unknown information?

 

[Joshmx]

I suppose we can only speculate as to if brian put something in brightans purse as the video is unclear, though it does look like he has his phone in his hand atleast at some point (given his head movement).

However, strangely one of the guys in front of brian and co, seems to put or take something from one of the other guys pocket just a second later? Which seems a strange coincidence (see attached).

Also do we have any idea where the random girl coming up the escalator was going? She turned the opposite way to UTS yet there was nothing on the other side except the door to a construction site and of course brian/amber/Brightan? Do we know who this girl even is?

Also, we know as per Amber that you could indeed open the construction site door as she had previously used the room to call her boyfriend on a different night at UTS.

Brian said he wanted to walk the girls back to their car, but they'd already left while Brian (presumably) stayed back to chat to the band members (as per Clint and meredith). IMO Brian probably tried to catch up with the girls after they left by taking the construction site exit, forgive me if I'm wrong but I'm 90% sure this exit takes you out on the side of the car park, where the girls would have been parked. Brian probably knew this exit was on the car park side and used it to try catch up faster with the girls.

Whatever happened to him after walking through that door is anyone's guess. I'm personally not sold on the idea he made it as far as Wendys (given that there's no cctv footage of him). I could be being naive here, but couldn't Brian have been at wendys earlier on in the day? Or even the day before? And that's why the dogs picked up his scent there? The dogs were also interested in the construction site, which would support my theory of him atleast being, but not necessarily dying there.

Assuming he did make it out of UTS alive, I know alot of people will say the chances of the same person being attacked by a serial killer, or falling into a river, being the same person that just so happened to be the only person not seen leaving UTS that night, are very low. Personally, given that we know brian was drunk and had a tendency to mouth off at people (as per Clint and also Brian's MySpace bio which reads "PISSS OFF YA ") I think its entirely possible he ran into trouble outside of UTS, perhaps one Smiley Face Killer.

I think that whatever it was that Brian was doing with his phone (as seen in the uncropped video), it resulted in his phone being turned off, for whatever reason. I believe i'm right in saying, his phone was then turned back on about 10 minutes later, could this have been an unsuccessful attempt to try and call the police, whilst being attacked?

On a side note, i did stumble across what is presumably a youtube troll, who was posting comments on videos about brian, saying he knew what happened to him. Usually, i'd dismiss this as a typical internet troll, however i've never seen a troll with a video as creepy as this one on their channel:

 

[dotr]

I suppose we can only speculate as to if brian put something in brightans purse as the video is unclear.

However, strangely one of the guys in front of brian and co, seems to put or take something from one of the other guys pocket just a second later? Seems a strange coincidence.

Also do we have any idea where the random girl coming up the escalator was going? She turned the opposite way to UTS yet there was nothing on the other side except the door to a construction site and of course brian/amber/Brightan? Do we know who this girl even is?

Welcome to Ws Joshmx, great comments!

 

[Joshmx]

I suppose we can only speculate as to if brian put something in brightans purse as the video is unclear, though it does look like he has his phone in his hand atleast at some point (given his head movement).

However, strangely one of the guys in front of brian and co, seems to put or take something from one of the other guys pocket just a second later? Which seems a strange coincidence (see attached).

Also do we have any idea where the random girl coming up the escalator was going? She turned the opposite way to UTS yet there was nothing on the other side except the door to a construction site and of course brian/amber/Brightan? Do we know who this girl even is?

Also, we know as per Amber that you could indeed open the construction site door as she had previously used the room to call her boyfriend on a different night at UTS.

Brian said he wanted to walk the girls back to their car, but they'd already left while Brian (presumably) stayed back to chat to the band members (as per Clint and meredith). IMO Brian probably tried to catch up with the girls after they left by taking the construction site exit, forgive me if I'm wrong but I'm 90% sure this exit takes you out on the side of the car park, where the girls would have been parked. Brian probably knew this exit was on the car park side and used it to try catch up faster with the girls.

Whatever happened to him after walking through that door is anyone's guess. I'm personally not sold on the idea he made it as far as Wendys (given that there's no cctv footage of him). I could be being naive here, but couldn't Brian have been at wendys earlier on in the day? Or even the day before? And that's why the dogs picked up his scent there? The dogs were also interested in the construction site, which would support my theory of him atleast being, but not necessarily dying there.

Assuming he did make it out of UTS alive, I know alot of people will say the chances of the same person being attacked by a serial killer, or falling into a river, being the same person that just so happened to be the only person not seen leaving UTS that night, are very low. Personally, given that we know brian was drunk and had a tendency to mouth off at people (as per Clint and also Brian's MySpace bio which reads "PISSS OFF YA ******") I think its entirely possible he ran into trouble outside of UTS, perhaps one Smiley Face Killer.

I think that whatever it was that Brian was doing with his phone (as seen in the uncropped video), it resulted in his phone being turned off, for whatever reason. I believe i'm right in saying, his phone was then turned back on about 10 minutes later, could this have been an unsuccessful attempt to try and call the police, whilst being attacked?

On a side note, i did stumble across what is presumably a youtube troll, who was posting comments on videos about brian, saying he knew what happened to him. Usually, i'd dismiss this as a typical internet troll, however i've never seen a troll with a video as creepy as this one on their channel:

Just to add to my theory, if there is a smiley face killer at work here, who's waiting outside of a bar for a drunk victim, it would make far more sense that they were lurking around the back (construction exit), rather than at the front entrance where there's crowds of people.

I've also attached an image of the construction exit, showing how close it is to the parking area (assuming this is indeed where the girls were parked), it would make complete sense for brian to take this exit to catch up with them.

Furthermore, a reason the dogs may have lost scent after the construction area, is because Brian was bundled into a vehicle, and so wasn't ever seen on other places cctv.

I'm convinced that brian was murdered that night, and that his body could have been disposed of absolutely anywhere. I've seen enough murder documentaries to know that these types of cases only tend to get solved when the suspect is arrested for something else, and they later admit to past crimes. For all we know though, whoever did it could be dead by now, and we can only hope to find a body some day.