Brian Shaffer

The security cameras caught him walking in.

At 1:15 a.m. on Saturday, April 1, 2006, a camera at the entrance to a bar called the Ugly Tuna Saloona, on the second floor of a new shopping and entertainment complex near Ohio State University in Columbus, recorded a young man with short dark hair walking up the escalator and into the bar with two other people. He was wearing jeans, a light-colored polo shirt and a dark jacket.

At 1:55 a.m., the cameras caught him again, just outside the bar’s entrance, talking with two young women. Then he turned and walked back inside.

That was the last image of Brian Shaffer that anyone has ever seen.

The cameras at the bar’s entrances kept recording until closing time and long after. They showed people coming and going all night. They never showed Brian leaving.

Brian

Brian Shaffer was twenty-seven years old, a second-year student at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. He was smart, friendly, easygoing, and well-liked — the kind of guy people described as a good friend. He loved music, especially Jimmy Buffett, and played guitar.

He had been through a hard few weeks. Just three weeks earlier, his mother, Renee, had died after a battle with cancer. Brian had been very close to her. Friends said he was grieving, but coping.

He had a girlfriend, Alexis Waggoner, whom he’d been dating for years. They were planning a trip to Miami for spring break, leaving in a few days. Alexis was home with her family in Toledo that weekend.

The Night

On the evening of Friday, March 31, Brian went out with his friend William Florence. They started the night at another bar, then met up with Florence’s friend Meredith Reed. Around 1:15 in the morning, the three of them went to the Ugly Tuna Saloona, a popular bar in the South Campus Gateway complex.

Sometime during the next hour or so, Florence and Reed lost track of Brian. When the bar closed at 2 a.m., they looked for him. They couldn’t find him. They figured he’d gone home on his own. They tried calling his cell phone. There was no answer.

Brian never came home. He didn’t show up for his flight to Miami with Alexis. That’s when his family knew something was wrong.

The Footage

The investigation that followed focused on the Ugly Tuna Saloona and its cameras.

The bar was on the second floor of the complex. According to police, it had two cameras watching its entrances, which were the only public ways in and out, and the cameras were working that night. Investigators reviewed the footage from the entire night, frame by frame. They watched Brian enter at 1:15. They watched him step out at 1:55 to talk to two women, and step back in. They watched the crowd leave at closing time.

They never saw Brian leave.

There were other possible exits. There was an employee-only service area and a back exit, used by staff, that led through a construction zone to the outside. Some have suggested that Brian could have left through that area, perhaps to avoid being seen, perhaps by accident. Others have wondered if he left disguised in some way, or blended into a crowd in a way the cameras didn’t catch clearly. Investigators also considered whether he could have been carried out, or still been inside. They searched the building. They found nothing.

The Search

Brian’s father, Randy Shaffer, threw himself into the search for his son. He put up posters, gave interviews, organized volunteers, and hired private investigators. He appeared on national television. He reportedly even consulted psychics.

Police searched the Scioto River, near the bar. They used cadaver dogs. They searched landfills. They followed hundreds of tips. Nothing was found.

In September 2008, two and a half years after Brian disappeared, Randy Shaffer was killed when a tree fell on him while he was doing yardwork during a storm at his home. He died without ever learning what happened to his son.

The Phone

There was one more strange detail.

In September 2006, about six months after Brian disappeared, his cell phone was reported to have pinged off a tower in Hilliard, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. The ping happened at a time when Alexis, his girlfriend, had been calling his phone, as she often did, just to hear his voice. The phone hadn’t been used since the night he disappeared, and the carrier later said the ping might have been a glitch. Investigators were never able to confirm what it meant.

Alexis Waggoner kept calling. For years afterward, she said in interviews, she still called his number.

Theories

Over the years, many theories have been proposed.

Some believe Brian, grieving his mother’s death, chose to leave and start a new life somewhere else, slipping out a back exit to avoid his friends. But he had a girlfriend he loved, a family, and a medical career ahead of him. He didn’t take any money or belongings. His bank account was never touched.

Some believe he wandered off drunk, fell into the nearby river, and drowned — though his body was never found.

Some believe he was the victim of foul play: that someone he met that night harmed him, perhaps inside the building, perhaps outside, and hid his body.

Some have wondered about a possible link to the “Smiley Face Killer” theory, which claims a serial killer has drowned young men across the Midwest. Investigators don’t believe that theory has merit.