I am not sure. But it does strike me as unlikely that someone killed him and then refrigerated him quickly.
I agree he did say it was dug up, but I am just encouraging people to refer back to the original articles for the context that might help us understand what he meant by that. Or even to follow up with him and ask exactly what he meant by dug up and exactly why they felt confident Brian hadn’t been buried there.
I agree that it is useful to study the early days of the case. Have done such studying myself. A few thoughts:I agree he did say it was dug up, but I am just encouraging people to refer back to the original articles for the context that might help us understand what he meant by that. Or even to follow up with him and ask exactly what he meant by dug up and exactly why they felt confident Brian hadn’t been buried there.
If he now believes it’s likely Brian was in the building, that would definitely impact my feelings. At the time, however, tho they acknowledged it was dug up, it wasn’t “dug up” to a depth that would conceal a body.
I’m open to him evolving my position on that tho if you or anyone else determine he is saying something different now.
Hey, yes, I listened to Detective Hurst’s interview on that podcast when it came out. It was helpful and interesting. And I appreciate your comments. To me, on the podcast, it seems like he was acknowledging anything is possible, more than suggesting he himself believes Brian is buried there. Do you agree? I would have to go back and check the transcript to be sure.
I’ve wondered about that as well. Also about his phone records, i.e., his communications before and around the time he disappeared . I don’t recall any information ever released about that.
Thanks embufum. Do we know if he had text messaging? Also wouldn’t LE have been able to access his actual phone call records to see who he was in contact with before he disappeared?
Missing Pieces Episode 64 Archive
Guest: Randy Shaffer
Father of missing "Brian Randall Shaffer"
Aired: October 23, 2007
RANDY: Both bars told both told all their employees, which I never understood. Do not talk to anybody about this situation. If you do, you will be fired.
TODD: That would almost make you believe, ok, they are trying to hide something. It leads to that.
RANDY: That's actually what I kind of thought of the Ugly Tuna and I will tell you, when Texas EquuSearch came just recently to search, they wanted to see the bar. So we went down to the bar. They had heard rumors there was going to be lots of people here, like 3,000-4,000. And I think they heard that from they did a search in Canton, the one girl that had been murdered. And there were like, a ton of people, maybe 4 or 5,000 people that showed up to help with that. That's all they heard. Tim Miller just looked at them. He's the guy that handles the stuff for Texas EquuSearch. No, we're just here having lunch. We just wanted to see the place where Brian disappeared. There is not going to be 4,000 people. They were all nervous, and then all of a sudden there comes the Gateway Campus people. We weren't' told about this, what's going on here? What's to tell?? We're not doing anything, we're having lunch. (Laughing) So I don't know. Those people from the start, Gateway Campus Security, I mean when Brian disappeared and I went down there with fliers, Kevin Miles eventually got us more fliers, he's the president of CrimeStoppers. They came out. I wasn't there at the time. They came out and told my son Derek they could not put up fliers on the poles right out in front of the courtyard area where this all occurred at. That was against their policy. I called Kevin Miles up and he's such a great guy. He said don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. He goes down there and says this guy is missing his son and he wants to put up fliers to try and find his son but that's ok, if you guys don't let him do it, I'll have Channel 10 down here and you can tell them why you won't let this guy who lost his son put up fliers. Naturally, that immediately changed their minds and everything and then they were cooperating fully, which is a bunch of ******** and it still is. They left his fliers up for quite a while after that, maybe a month but even with Texas Equusearch, I asked if I could put a few fliers up. Do you think they could leave them up in the bar? No. They are down already because I went down there last weekend. I haven't done this for a while. I just got a thought in my head that I wanted to go down for whatever reason. It was late. It was like 12:30 at night. I went down there and walked out on the courtyard. The same people, you know, beautiful girls with skirts up to their *advertiser censored*. Excuse me, but that's the way it was and I don't understand that sometimes. And I went up to the bar it's kind of crowded up there and everything you know and no fliers. I wanted to check and see if they were up but they weren't.
TODD: You know, I guess a bar doesn't want to be known for the last place someone was seen but that takes away the humanity of things as well. You see that they should.
RANDY: Unfortunately, the bottom line is it's all about money...
TODD: Uh huh.
RANDY: We don't want people to know about this. We want to push this under the carpet because that will hurt our business and everything, as far as people coming in there... As for rumors, they don't have a very good reputation. They say a lot of things say bad things happen at the Ugly Tuna Saloona.
TODD: They don't want to be under a microscope, is the way it sounds.
RANDY: Yeah, actually the guy that has been putting Brian on the side of racing cars for me and everything. He's a super guy. His name is Martin Ray. He just came out of the blue and wanted to help. In fact he's going to have Brian on a truck in the race in Georgia this coming weekend, this Friday I think. It's the NASCAR Craftsmanship Truck Race, which should be super. But he also plays in a band, he plays drums and he called and wanted to see if they would let me do a fundraiser there, bring some bands. He calls them up and do you know what the first thing he said to them, "we cooperated with the police as much as we can, wait a minute!" I just wanted to talk to you about getting a couple bands there to perform for Brian. I don't care what the police have done or what you've done with the police. The guy got all wound up, like you know, I don't know. I mean, there are several people because of the area and I'm not going to say too much about who, other than the bar. They would kind of like this pushed under the rug. More than Brian that has disappeared in that area from Ohio State as a matter of fact. So it's not just one, it's about 3 people I think.
TODD: Really?
RANDY: And it continues to happen. Seems like there is always stuff going on. There was a girl that was raped not too long about. One thing, when I went down there that night there were 5 policemen there and one I knew very well because he was the one that was there the night, when I've been down there several times. I've been down there at 3 o'clock in the morning several times and talk to a lot of people. He told me that the Sky Bar, which is the one directly across from the courtyard from the Ugly Tuna, that a lot of bad things were happening there now. Said it wasn't too long ago there was a shooting in the parking garage right behind there where someone was killed. It's not a nice area. It looks all pretty on High Street but just to the east, it's not very pretty. There are drugs and all kinds of stuff just east of there. It's a low income area. There's a lot of bad things happen over there. In fact, when I did a search over there, High Street is where the bar is but if you head east, I think the next street is, I was going to say it was Summit but that might not be right; two streets over, no, the first street, take that back I think that was Summit. We went to that street, there were people driving back, some black people said do NOT cross over there. Stay where you are at because you might get killed.
TODD: Wow!
RANDY: And you go to the West and it's the Ohio State Campus. You will lose your life if you go over there, good chance of it."
"TODD: its good thing the college didn't take the same stand as the bar. A lot of colleges don't want to be known as a good place to go missing
RANDY: I know. I'll tell you something else a lot of people don't know. There is a, I'm trying to think how to put this. There is a law against being over served but the only problem is with that if somebody is there and somebody is being over served; if the bartender continually serves that person and it's obvious the person is stone drunk, they have to call somebody to call that in. Or in other wards, nothing happens. That's what happens. There is a handful of people that handle stuff like that. It's way too large of a problem for the detective departments to handle. There's only like 5 or 6 detectives that handle this. It's all over the place. How can 5 or 6 detectives handle bars all over Columbus? They can't."
Missing Pieces Episode 64 Archive
Guest: Randy Shaffer
Father of missing "Brian Randall Shaffer"
Aired: October 23, 2007
RANDY: Both bars told both told all their employees, which I never understood. Do not talk to anybody about this situation. If you do, you will be fired.
TODD: That would almost make you believe, ok, they are trying to hide something. It leads to that.
RANDY: That's actually what I kind of thought of the Ugly Tuna and I will tell you, when Texas EquuSearch came just recently to search, they wanted to see the bar. So we went down to the bar. They had heard rumors there was going to be lots of people here, like 3,000-4,000. And I think they heard that from they did a search in Canton, the one girl that had been murdered. And there were like, a ton of people, maybe 4 or 5,000 people that showed up to help with that. That's all they heard. Tim Miller just looked at them. He's the guy that handles the stuff for Texas EquuSearch. No, we're just here having lunch. We just wanted to see the place where Brian disappeared. There is not going to be 4,000 people. They were all nervous, and then all of a sudden there comes the Gateway Campus people. We weren't' told about this, what's going on here? What's to tell?? We're not doing anything, we're having lunch. (Laughing) So I don't know. Those people from the start, Gateway Campus Security, I mean when Brian disappeared and I went down there with fliers, Kevin Miles eventually got us more fliers, he's the president of CrimeStoppers. They came out. I wasn't there at the time. They came out and told my son Derek they could not put up fliers on the poles right out in front of the courtyard area where this all occurred at. That was against their policy. I called Kevin Miles up and he's such a great guy. He said don't worry about it. I'll take care of it. He goes down there and says this guy is missing his son and he wants to put up fliers to try and find his son but that's ok, if you guys don't let him do it, I'll have Channel 10 down here and you can tell them why you won't let this guy who lost his son put up fliers. Naturally, that immediately changed their minds and everything and then they were cooperating fully, which is a bunch of ******** and it still is. They left his fliers up for quite a while after that, maybe a month but even with Texas Equusearch, I asked if I could put a few fliers up. Do you think they could leave them up in the bar? No. They are down already because I went down there last weekend. I haven't done this for a while. I just got a thought in my head that I wanted to go down for whatever reason. It was late. It was like 12:30 at night. I went down there and walked out on the courtyard. The same people, you know, beautiful girls with skirts up to their *advertiser censored*. Excuse me, but that's the way it was and I don't understand that sometimes. And I went up to the bar it's kind of crowded up there and everything you know and no fliers. I wanted to check and see if they were up but they weren't.
TODD: You know, I guess a bar doesn't want to be known for the last place someone was seen but that takes away the humanity of things as well. You see that they should.
RANDY: Unfortunately, the bottom line is it's all about money...
TODD: Uh huh.
RANDY: We don't want people to know about this. We want to push this under the carpet because that will hurt our business and everything, as far as people coming in there... As for rumors, they don't have a very good reputation. They say a lot of things say bad things happen at the Ugly Tuna Saloona.
TODD: They don't want to be under a microscope, is the way it sounds.
RANDY: Yeah, actually the guy that has been putting Brian on the side of racing cars for me and everything. He's a super guy. His name is Martin Ray. He just came out of the blue and wanted to help. In fact he's going to have Brian on a truck in the race in Georgia this coming weekend, this Friday I think. It's the NASCAR Craftsmanship Truck Race, which should be super. But he also plays in a band, he plays drums and he called and wanted to see if they would let me do a fundraiser there, bring some bands. He calls them up and do you know what the first thing he said to them, "we cooperated with the police as much as we can, wait a minute!" I just wanted to talk to you about getting a couple bands there to perform for Brian. I don't care what the police have done or what you've done with the police. The guy got all wound up, like you know, I don't know. I mean, there are several people because of the area and I'm not going to say too much about who, other than the bar. They would kind of like this pushed under the rug. More than Brian that has disappeared in that area from Ohio State as a matter of fact. So it's not just one, it's about 3 people I think.
TODD: Really?
RANDY: And it continues to happen. Seems like there is always stuff going on. There was a girl that was raped not too long about. One thing, when I went down there that night there were 5 policemen there and one I knew very well because he was the one that was there the night, when I've been down there several times. I've been down there at 3 o'clock in the morning several times and talk to a lot of people. He told me that the Sky Bar, which is the one directly across from the courtyard from the Ugly Tuna, that a lot of bad things were happening there now. Said it wasn't too long ago there was a shooting in the parking garage right behind there where someone was killed. It's not a nice area. It looks all pretty on High Street but just to the east, it's not very pretty. There are drugs and all kinds of stuff just east of there. It's a low income area. There's a lot of bad things happen over there. In fact, when I did a search over there, High Street is where the bar is but if you head east, I think the next street is, I was going to say it was Summit but that might not be right; two streets over, no, the first street, take that back I think that was Summit. We went to that street, there were people driving back, some black people said do NOT cross over there. Stay where you are at because you might get killed.
TODD: Wow!
RANDY: And you go to the West and it's the Ohio State Campus. You will lose your life if you go over there, good chance of it."
"TODD: its good thing the college didn't take the same stand as the bar. A lot of colleges don't want to be known as a good place to go missing
RANDY: I know. I'll tell you something else a lot of people don't know. There is a, I'm trying to think how to put this. There is a law against being over served but the only problem is with that if somebody is there and somebody is being over served; if the bartender continually serves that person and it's obvious the person is stone drunk, they have to call somebody to call that in. Or in other wards, nothing happens. That's what happens. There is a handful of people that handle stuff like that. It's way too large of a problem for the detective departments to handle. There's only like 5 or 6 detectives that handle this. It's all over the place. How can 5 or 6 detectives handle bars all over Columbus? They can't."
