By April Johnston Posted Apr 22, 2019
From the Archives: What Happened to Brian Shaffer?
"Randy Shaffer died in a freak accident in 2008 before he could unravel the mystery that had consumed his life for nearly three years—the disappearance of his son.
Editor’s note: As friends and family of Brian Shaffer continue to focus attention on his 2006 disappearance, Columbus Monthly
is republishing former associate editor April Johnston’s 2009 deep dive into the case.
"The poster is still taped to the window in the sixth-floor lobby, where all who have business with the Special Victims Bureau can see it. In one photograph, Brian Shaffer is bearded. In another, cleanshaven. Detectives change the pictures every once in a while because, if Brian is still alive, it’s likely he’s changed, too."
"The details of that Friday night in 2006 have been reported and repeated, sifted and scrutinized, examined and re-examined by the family, the police and the web-based sleuths who love a good mystery.
But what hasn’t changed, not in three long years, are the words:
Missing. OSU medical student. Last seen at the Ugly Tuna Saloona on April 1, 2006. Reward. If the poster could speak, its pleas would be getting desperate, its voice higher pitched."
"Hurst and his detectives began their investigation where they believe Brian ended his night at the Ugly Tuna. It’s one of those quintessential college bars, with a spring break attitude, plenty of drink specials and constant entertainment (think “Naughty School Girl” night). But it also was trendy enough to be located in Gateway, the city and Ohio State’s upscale answer to the increasingly dangerous and deteriorating south end of campus. That meant one thing to detectives: surveillance cameras. They are indispensable to investigations. The silent and often incontrovertible witnesses to crime can crack a case open faster and more reliably than humans, who are prone to faulty memories and misled loyalties.
But the cameras at Ugly Tuna only caused more confusion, because while they caught Brian entering the bar that night, they never caught him actually leaving. Detectives were perplexed: If Brian left the way he arrived—on the escalator—he surely would have been taped by one of the cameras. But they soon learned there were other ways out. He might have changed his clothes or donned a hat and kept his head down and face obscured. He could have left through an exit that led directly to a construction site. It would have been difficult to navigate, especially if Brian were intoxicated, but not impossible. Or, the worst scenario of all—maybe the cameras simply missed him. One panned the area constantly; another operated manually. What if Brian had slipped out in the anonymous space between them?
In those first few days, and on the heels of that theory, as many as 50 police officers searched for Brian at a time, scouring the streets, pawing through dumpsters and knocking on doors. They moved in an orderly, concentric pattern, beginning at the Ugly Tuna or Brian’s campus-area apartment and working their way out, marking distance in blocks and then miles. They questioned Brian’s friends and family and asked them all the hard questions you do when someone disappears, questions about drugs and enemies and difficult times. They checked hospitals and homeless shelters. They followed tips and hunches to landfills and riverbanks. They even persuaded the city to check nearby sewer lines. But no one found anything, not even the K-9 units.
Police began to wonder if Brian’s disappearance was a crime or a setup."
