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.
