The year was 2006, going out on a Friday night with the gals, wearing your baby doll dress, with that cute shrunken jacket. Headed out to see the number one movie She’s the Man starring Amanda Bynes. Getting in your newly released tesla roadster, to hit up the local hangouts. Before calling it a night and watching Dexter, Psych, and Heros before turning in for the night. One man went out and had a night of fun and vanished into thin air seemingly.
Brian Randall Shaffer was born February 11, 1979, to Randy and Renee. Brian would grow up in Pickerington, Ohio. He had a younger brother named Derek. Brain was a great child, very smart and outgoing. He was very active in sports, especially tennis. He was so good some say he could have gone pro. He was two matches away from state, when the coach asked him to cut his hair. Brian had entered a rock phase and it was a little longer. He was especially into Pearl Jam and even had their logo tattooed on him. So with his headstrong attitude he decided he would quit the team. This did not stop him from reaching his goals, he graduated high school and by 2003 he was graduating OSU, with a degree in microbiology. (Ohio State University)
Ohio State University
By 2004, Brian began to attend the College of Medicine at OSU. In March of 2006 he was in his second year of Medical School when he was hit with some heavy stuff. His mom passed away from cancer. This was super hard on Brian as he was incredibly close to her. Renee was a registered nurse, and Brian wanted to make her happy so he chose medicine for his career. He would do anything to make her proud. However what Brian really wanted to do was start a band and make music, travel to an island and live that lifestyle.
Brian and his dad Randy
Brian had many friends, and many of the ladies were sweet on him. He was considered a ladies man by many and some say could not be faithful to any lady he was dating. That did not stop a fellow med student from trying. Alexis and Brian met on campus, hit it off and began what Alexis would consider a serious relationship that would last nine months before Brian would drop out of sight.
Brian and Alexis
The relationship with Alexis was serious enough his mom bought and paid for a spring break trip for both her son and Alexis to go to Miami on April 3, 2006. She had planned all this the previous Christmas and it is even said that Brian helped plan this trip with his mom. Leaving many to believe he was going to propose to Alexis on the Miami trip.
Friday March 31, 2006, started off like any other day for Brian, he attended classes that morning and took his last final before break. Things were looking good. His dad had called him to go out to dinner that evening. Brian would then call his brother and ask him if he would like to go as well. Derek could not attend as he had made prior plans that evening. It is thought that Brian wanted his brother there because he was sure his dad was going to bring up the insurance money that his mom left him. Randy felt she did not mean to do that and the money was rightfully his. Brian would attend dinner at a steakhouse around six pm with his dad. No one can say for sure what they talked about, but Randy would state his son looked exhausted, and when Brian told his dad he was going out that night. His dad remembers thinking to himself it was not a good idea for his son to do this. Going back in time he would have said something had he known it was the last time he would see his son again.
After dinner with his dad that evening, Randy dropped Brian off at his apartment. This is where he meets up with his friend and former roommate Clint. (NOTE: Clint would not take a polygraph and lawyers up.) They would get ready at the apartment having a few drinks before heading out for a night of bar hopping around campus. Around nine pm they head off on foot for the Ugly Tuna Saloona. This is a bar located in the South Campus Gateway, on High street in Columbus. Also a very popular and busy spot on Friday’s. This Friday however it was especially crowded as spring break had just begun and finals were over.
Ugly Tuna Saloona
Brian would call Alexis at ten pm. He let her know where he was and was asking her about her trip back home to Toledo before saying their goodbyes. Alexis had no idea this would be the last time she would hear her boyfriend’s voice. At some point Brian and Clint leave the saloona and head for multiple other bars, doing shots at everyone. Sometime during this bar hopping Clint calls his friend Meredith to join them. She arrives at the bar they are at, when some friends and fellow medical students call Brian. They are all at the Ugly Tuna and want Brian to join. Meredith offers to drive them back there. All three are seen entering the bar at 1:55 am. Upon entering Brian tells Clint and Meredith he is going to go talk to the band, it is highly likely this is also when he began talking to the group of friends who called him back to the saloona as well.
Brian(circled) Clint and Meredith
Entering the Ugly Tuna
Brian would mingle and talk to a lot of people while there. He would even meet and converse with two women that night, Amber and Brighton. Brighton would later be talked to by police and she would say that Brian was very flirtatious with her even kissing her on the neck. Both girls had just met Brian that night. As the bar was closing he was planning on walking them out to their vehicle, when he suddenly changed his mind and decided against it. The girls would be seen leaving on camera at 1:58 and 1:59 am. (NOTE: Something new was seen on surveillance footage, it appears to be Brian putting his cell phone in one of the ladies purses he was talking to that night right before she left. A link will be posted at the end of the blog.) Around 2 am you can see Clint and Meredith leave Brian is not with them. They would say that before leaving they looked for him and couldn’t find him. However where he was standing they would have walked right past him to get on the escalators to leave the saloona. It is possible because of the intoxication and all the people they did not see Brian.
Talking to Amber and Brighton
Outside Meredith would use Clint’s phone to call Brian, it went straight to voicemail. Assuming he had gone back to his apartment that was nearby, Clint and Meredith left. Brian would never be seen again. It is a mystery that many online sleuthers are still trying to figure out what happened and where is Brian. How does a six foot two inch 165 pound male vanish into thin air? There were several security cameras around the saloona and neighboring businesses. Brian is not captured on a single one of those cameras. There were only two exits at the saloona, the one Brian is seen entering and a back service door that led to a construction area. This was an up and coming neighborhood they were trying to make nicer for the college students.
Back service door.
All weekend Alexis and Randy tried to get a hold of Brian with no avail. At first neither thought anything of this as they knew he had been studying hard and went out that Friday more than likely he was sleeping off a hangover and the stress of medical school, before enjoying a trip to sunny Florida. By Monday when Brian missed his flight, everyone knew something was wrong and Randy reported Brian missing. Police would go to Brian’s apartment where his car was also located. There was no evidence Brian had been back there and nothing looked out of place. Alexis would try to call Brian’s cell phone every night before she went to bed, always going to voicemail. Then one night in September it would ring three times before hanging up. This would bring up the ping service on Brian’s phone, it had pinged 14 miles northwest in Hillard, Ohio. The phone company has said that this could have been a glitch, however the phone would have had to have been turned on for a location to ping. This gave Alexis hope that Brian was still out there.
Many people helped in the search for Brian. His dad passed away from a freak accident in 2008, when a storm hit hard, afterwards Randy was assessing the damage on his property when a large tree branch fell on him and killed him. A neighbor would find him the next morning. When Randy’s obituary was placed online, a comment was made that said I Love you dad, love Brian (US Virgin Islands). The odd part is that this was not a geo tag it was like someone was saying that is where they were. The police would trace this back to being written on a public computer at a Franklin County, Ohio library. Police determined this was a hoax however they never found who wrote the comment. Just a thought not proven, what if when Brian heard his dad passed away he came back to Ohio went to a library maybe in disguise, visited his mom and dad’s grave site before heading back to the new life he started? Just a possibility.
According to the unfounded podcast there was a sighting of Brian in the US Virgin islands very shortly after he went missing. A couple on their honeymoon were having dinner one night when the waiter a man who went by Brian Lookum (could be spelling last name wrong) waited on them, who looked just like Brian Shaffer, however they did not know this until they got back home to the United States and would see Brian’s story on the news. They would then contact the Columbus police department with this information. By the time an agent could get down to the island of St. Croix the restaurant had been shut down. The couple felt strongly this was Brian as they kept calling to check if they had located the man they saw yet. That man was never located and no one knows if it was Brian.
There have been many theories on what happened to Brian over the years from, he started a new life to his body still being in the Ugly Tuna somewhere. No matter what theory you believe Brian is still missing without a trace. As always if you have any information on this case contact the number below.
DISCLAIMER: The Certified Roarikle would like to thank all sites that the information came from and state that in no way is copyright infringement intended.
Big Thank You to the The Unfound Podcast for covering his case so completely. Go and check them out.
The Certified Roarikle 
Very interesting read.
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If you found mine interesting, you should check out the Unfound podcast. Dives into so much more. Links are at the end of the blog. As always thank you for being a dedicated Roaikon.
The Roarikle.
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