Where is Brian Shaffer?

It has been almost two decades since the Ohio Medical Student vanished from a local bar.

It has been 18 years since Brian Shaffer vanished without a trace from a bar near the Ohio State University Campus. His loved ones still search for answers.

Brian began his studies at the Ohio State University College of Medicine in 2004. During his second year there in March of 2006, his mother passed away from bone cancer. Brian was a guy who always would put up a front to appear fine, but those who truly knew him said that his mother’s death hit him hard. 

During his time at Medical school, he met Alexis Waggoner and they had been dating for a couple of years. Everyone thought that Brian would probably be proposing to her sometime that year. More specifically, everyone thought this would happen on the couple’s trip to Miami. Alexis and Brian had planned this trip for their spring break that started on April 3rd.

At the end of classes, Brian went out for dinner to celebrate with his dad, Randy. He mentioned he was going to be going out for drinks with his roommate William Florence AKA Clint. Randy stated he thought Brian looked exhausted from all the studying from finals but he didn’t say anything because his son was 27 and obviously could make his own choices. 

On March 26, 2006, Clint and Brian went bar-hopping making their way down to the Arena District. At each stop the two had one shot each of hard liquor, according to Clint. Around 10:00 p.m., Brian called Alexis to confirm their trip and to tell her that he loved her. That night, she was headed to visit her parents in Toledo before their trip on Monday morning.

After midnight, the two met Meredith Reed, a friend of Florence, at The Short North. She gave them a ride back to the Ugly Tuna Saloona. This is where they had started the night, and joined them there for a last round.

While the three were there, they met up with more people so their group grew and Brian separated from his friends. Clint and Meredith both said they had been trying to find him, repeatedly calling him because Last Call had come up. 

Clint and Meredith left with other patrons when the bar closed at 2 a.m., where they waited outside for Brian. When he was not among the departing crowd, they assumed he had returned to his apartment without letting them know.

The weekend went by and no one heard from Brian. Alexis was a bit worried but thought ‘Okay maybe he’ll just meet me at the airport, because we’re now on April 3rd’ but he never showed. Immediately Alexis and Randy filed a missing persons report.

The police started their investigation which included checking the security footage from the bar since this is the last place Brian was seen. They reviewed the footage, which showed Brian, Clint, and Meredith going up an escalator to the bar's main entrance at 1:15 a.m.

As they continued to review the footage, Brian was seen outside of the bar around 1:55 a.m. He was talking briefly with two young women and saying goodbye. After this he was then moving off-camera in the direction of the bar, apparently to re-enter. These women were looked at and they were cleared. 

The fact that raises more questions than answers is that the camera did not record him leaving there when the bar closed. 

Now while the bar did have one other exit, it led to a chaotic construction site. This did have investigators wondering if perhaps Brian had disappeared on purpose. Their initial thought was, that he could have changed his clothes and/or left through the exit that led to the construction site. Brian’s friends and family insisted that even with the tragic loss in their family, he had more to look forward to than to escape from.

It was reported that 50 officers were searching for Brian at a time. Authorities conducted searches with cadaver dogs, they checked the surrounding area, and his apartment but there was nothing to help provide a lead or any answers.

The thought that went hand in hand with this theory was the thought that maybe Brian left because he wanted to grieve his mother by himself, but there was no evidence to point this as true. Upon investigation, there was no activity on his credit card and his phone was dead...except for one time.

Brian’s girlfriend, Alexis, called his cell every night to try to see if she could get someone to answer it. It always went straight to voicemail, indicating it was off until one night it rang three times. This instance was deemed to possibly be a glitch by his cellphone provider. Knowing what we know about cell phone pings and technology, it does raise the question of not looking into this area closer was a missed opportunity because it pinged only 14 miles away in another town.

Randy had dealt with a lot of grief and so he sought the help of a medium who had said Brian’s body was in water near a bridge pier. Authorities checked the nearby rivers but again had no luck. 

Some people suspected Clint knew more than he was saying because he lawyered up and refused polygraph tests when asked. Of course, there is the argument that he wanted to be proactive and protect himself. To protect him from what? That was unclear.

Additionally, there are theories that he could have been a victim of the Smiley Face Murder Theory, but that also fizzled out as a lead once investigators took a look at this angle. 

Sadly Randy passed away without knowing the answers to his son’s disappearance when he was fatally struck by a tree in his yard during a wind storm. Brian’s younger brother has continued searching for Brian to this day.

For a brief moment in 2020, authorities thought they may have some development in Brian’s disappearance. That year, a photo of what looked like an American man who was homeless in Tijuana, Mexico, bore an uncanny resemblance to Brian, and that image went viral. However, the FBI determined that it wasn’t Brian.

If alive, Brian Shaffer would be in his early 40s. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation released an age progression image back in 2021, in hopes that someone might miraculously spot him should he still be alive.

The Central Ohio Crime Stoppers has continued to offer a $100,000 reward. If you or anyone you know has information on Brian Schaffer, please call the Columbus Police at 614-645-2358.