OH OH - Brian Shaffer, 27, Columbus, 1 April 2006 - #3

Status
Not open for further replies.
I find it so strange that Clint was completely bashed, and these med students weren’t even mentioned. It makes sense to me if you are there with 2 groups of people, and you don’t leave with 1 group you could likely be with the other group. I wonder if the med school worked with the police to keep their names out of the media. It’s odd to me that Clint or Meredith never mentioned this part. I wonder when the med students left the bar.
 
Can I send you a couple of questions ahead of time @Looking4Brian ? I'm in a different time zone, I've just done the math and figured out that I can't possibly make it online at that time. I would have gotten up at any time of the night, but unfortunately it's the one time that I actually have to be somewhere else.

Yes you can. Send them to the Missing in Ohio Podcast Group Page. I will post a picture on there now, you can ask your question in the comment section.
 
Did Brian Shaffer simply walk away? From a beautiful GF, a planned vacay. From a promising career. From his savings account. From his unpaid bills. From his student loan obligations. From his father, who'd just lost his wife. From his bro, who'd just lost his mum. From the insurance money coming his way. From his car. From his clothes. From his billfold and its contents. From his keys. From everything but what he was wearing.

Was this med student that reckless?

Did it bother Brian to know his dear old dad was spending his free time wading the Olentangy, doing everything he could to find his boy? That his GF was hanging at his apartment like a fawn standing roadside next to the body of its mother? That even his idol Eddie Vedder was left hanging?

Was the guy that cruel? That heartless?

And the way he pulled it off, vanishing w/o a trace. Out with friends, drunk, closing time... OK, zero-hour, time to put the plan into effect... Twelve years later, no trace.

Was the guy Houdini?

Please.

Valid points to a degree based on what is known. The problem is not many people know the full story and it's not mine to tell, but I will say this. Having a beautiful girlfriend is not a good enough reason to stay in a relationship you may not want to be in. Brian was not faithful. I'm not judging just stating a fact.

Brian's grades were not all that good at the time he disappeared. He was struggling and rightly so being that his mother was terminally ill. So his once promising career may not have been so promising at least at this time in his life. With possibly having to take classes over the debt may have been a reason to skip out.

This trip to Miami was a gift from his mother. Was it possible that Brian felt too much pressure into proposing to Alexis? Maybe his mother who was a nurse was hoping to live long enough to see her son become a Dr and marry a Dr and have kids. Maybe when she died these things became less important to him.

From all the research that I have done it seems that Brian tried his best to end it with Alexis but she was not having it. Remember when Alexis was interviewed shortly after he went missing and she said that he is handsome sweet loyal and caring. The loyal comment always made me wonder. Why would she chose a word like that? Loyal can also mean faithful. IMO Alexis knew he was cheating and this was her way of letting him know she didn't care. She also made some posts on Brian's Myspace page that I also found unusual.


4/3/2006 10:18 PM

I love you so much and I just want you to come home.

4/8/2006 8:28 AM

To anyone who views this page, we still have not found Brian. It's now been over a week. Please, keep praying keep Brian in your thoughts. And Brian, when you log onto this page yourself, please know how much you are loved and how much we need you to come home. I love you so much.

Both posts that Alexis made she is talking directly to Brian as if she knows or at least suspects he is out there reading her posts. Not once does she say anything about hoping he is safe or that he maybe was mugged or beat up. Again I find this unusual but knowing what I know now it actually makes sense.

Everyone paints this pretty picture of Brian's idyllic life and it was far from it. Like everyone else Brian had his life struggles but it seems a lot of them came crashing down all at once. There is so much more that may come out in the future.

I really feel bad for Randy, Derek and Alexis probably the most. I have no idea if Brian is alive and decided to leave on his own but if that is the case knowing what I know I would not have to ask him why.
 
Last edited:
Did Brian Shaffer simply walk away? From a beautiful GF, a planned vacay. From a promising career. From his savings account. From his unpaid bills. From his student loan obligations. From his father, who'd just lost his wife. From his bro, who'd just lost his mum. From the insurance money coming his way. From his car. From his clothes. From his billfold and its contents. From his keys. From everything but what he was wearing.

Was this med student that reckless?

Did it bother Brian to know his dear old dad was spending his free time wading the Olentangy, doing everything he could to find his boy? That his GF was hanging at his apartment like a fawn standing roadside next to the body of its mother? That even his idol Eddie Vedder was left hanging?

Was the guy that cruel? That heartless?

And the way he pulled it off, vanishing w/o a trace. Out with friends, drunk, closing time... OK, zero-hour, time to put the plan into effect... Twelve years later, no trace.

Was the guy Houdini?

Please.

In the cases where missing people have turned up later (even if presumed dead), those are exactly the kinds of questions that have been asked after they were found... but not factors that negated the possibility them purposely disappearing in the first place. In the case of the girl who went missing in Australia for about 5 years, a case I've mentioned before in this thread (where someone was actually charged with her murder before she was found)... she agreed to an interview, and was asked a couple of the "how could you?" types of questions on national television. There was another case of an Australian man who worked in a bank, and the missing persons search started with him not showing up to work one day. He was found sleeping rough (by choice) many years later. I can't for the life of me find a reference to that case now, but it was featured on Australia's Most Wanted at the time. He was reunited with family, who were more relieved than anything else, but they did express some of the same sentiment that is in your post. In another Australian case a 19 year old man went missing, and was found alive on the other side of the world 16 years later (in 2016)... there were no leads for about 14 of those 16 years, and in that case the death of a family member seemed to be a precipitating factor.

It happens. It's almost like a rare, but not unheard of, psychological phenomenon where some people have this niggling thought saying "I need to disappear and not look back". Then when it gets to the point where that thought is no longer niggling, but screaming out to them... off they go. And it's all so internal that if there had been any signs that the person could disappear, they were subtle not overt. Those of us who have never felt that way, will never "get it".

Possibly one of the reasons that a missing person is reluctant to come forward, is that the whole thing has gotten way too huge. It's no less so when even Eddie Vedder is looking for you.
 
After thinking about it, I don’t understand why Brian would purposely go to the construction area. For what reason? For an illegal drug deal? To duke it out with a rival?
I’m a bit exhausted so if I missed something please forgive me. Other than that, thank you for all for all your information and input.
 
After thinking about it, I don’t understand why Brian would purposely go to the construction area. For what reason? For an illegal drug deal? To duke it out with a rival?
I’m a bit exhausted so if I missed something please forgive me. Other than that, thank you for all for all your information and input.

Looking for a shortcut outside? Irritated with Clint and Meredith, so he was looking for a way out that avoided them? I think some simple reason that made sense to Brian at the time is why he tried to go through the construction area.
 
Looking for a shortcut outside? Irritated with Clint and Meredith, so he was looking for a way out that avoided them? I think some simple reason that made sense to Brian at the time is why he tried to go through the construction area.
That was my initial thought as well, but as I understand it Clint and Meredith were still inside the U Tuna weren’t they? After talking to the two girls, and they left, if he wanted to avoid C and M, I wonder why he didn’t just go down the escalator? Idk, something seems off for such a short timeline.
 
Hundreds of people went into and out of the building housing the UTS on 3/31/06 and into the early morn of 4/1/06. Extensive, detailed police analysis shows that, strangely, one of those persons who entered fails to appear on video exiting. Just one. That person was Brian Shaffer. But, you say, he almost certainly did exit, and somehow evaded cams, or there was a cam glitch. He did exit. Then he appeared on nearby cams. He stopped for some pizza, using his debit card, called his GF, returned to his apartment, apologized to his friend Clint the next more for having lost track of he and Meredith. Went on a vacay on 4/3, went on with his life.

Only none of that happened and he didn't get to go on with his life. In fact, there was never a single legit trace of him outside the building, after 2am on 4/1/06 to the present day in 2019. Long time. He's obviously gone.

He didn't leave the building. He almost certainly died shortly after last seen a few minutes before 2am, unseen and unable to call for aid. And his body absolutely disappeared.

But how could that possibly be?? Was there some set of unusual circumstances that could allow that to happen? Some chain of events, comparable to the chain of unusual events that tend to occur to bring about the rare occurrence of an accidental airliner crash?

Hypothetical circumstances and chain of events:

1) Brian was tired from studies, long day, and intoxicated. Judgement likely impaired.
2) Momentarily separated from the companions he came to UTS with.
3) Last seen standing outside a door that was not a standard exit.
4) Door leads directly to an area under construction. This is the key.
5) Construction area deemed 'completely dug up' and difficult to navigate, even sober. Hmmm.
6) Construction area not adequately secured, easily accessed.
7) Brian passed through the door. No cam to pick this up.
8) Brian stops in dug up area to urinate.
9) Loose fill shifts, Brian tumbles into trench, more fill follows in immobilizing and suffocating him.
10) Cell phone on now hidden body, but dense fill blocks any signal. Calls straight to VM.
11) Days later, unknowing workers fill in rest of trench and other trenches, do grading.
12) Searchers, of a mind that Brian may still turn up alive, run dogs through, inconclusive.
13) Some days later, eight inch concrete floors laid, entombing remains and hiding decomp odor.

IMO, it is no coincidence that the guy who seems not to have left the building that morn is also the guy who at the very same point in time permanently dropped off the face of the Earth. The two events - seeming failure to exit the building and disappearance (and almost certainly, death) are very likely linked, and Brian's remains are likely under the building. No homicide. No suicide. No escape to a new life. No conspiracy. No cover-up. No one to 'spill the beans'. No drug dealing. No trace of Brian at professor's home or in cars. No body for discovery. No cell phone to turn up roadside. No billfold turning up behind a 7-Eleven. A set of circumstances and chain of events that lead to a very unfortunate accidental death.
 

Attachments

  • 14878.jpg
    14878.jpg
    36.8 KB · Views: 36
Last edited:
That was my initial thought as well, but as I understand it Clint and Meredith were still inside the U Tuna weren’t they? After talking to the two girls, and they left, if he wanted to avoid C and M, I wonder why he didn’t just go down the escalator? Idk, something seems off for such a short timeline.

Yeah, the "why's" of it all... excruciatingly impossible to answer. I mean if I was that hellbent on avoiding friends I had walked into a bar with, I'm pretty sure I'd be able to find a moment to slip out exactly the way I came in when they weren't looking. And it does seem like Brian had the opportunity right at that moment if he wanted to take it.
 
Unrelated to Brian's case, posting to show that planned disappearances, can and do happen with unlikely people, fwiw, imo.
Without a trace: New Zealand's most enduring missing persons cases
PETER COOP
petercoop.jpg

Police believe Peter Coop staged his disappearance. SUPPLIED

The 28-year-old Dunedin doctor disappeared in June 1989, seven months after he got married.

Police believed he staged his disappearance, due to pressure from his parents about his career.

It was thought he'd initially gone to his parents' home in Nelson, while they were overseas, as a witness reported seeing the lights on at the house.

From there, his whereabouts were unknown. His siblings believed that if he were still alive, it was likely he'd left New Zealand. His wife, Galina, had him declared legally dead so she could remarry.

In 2003, his mother, Margaret Coop, told police she thought she had spotted him on a Nelson riverbank, prompting a public appeal for sightings."
Started thread..
NZ. Dr. Peter Douglas Coop,28, Invercargill Airport, 6 June 1989
 
Last edited:
Unrelated to Brian's case, posting to show that planned disappearances, can and do happen with unlikely people, fwiw, imo.
Without a trace: New Zealand's most enduring missing persons cases
PETER COOP
petercoop.jpg

Police believe Peter Coop staged his disappearance. SUPPLIED

The 28-year-old Dunedin doctor disappeared in June 1989, seven months after he got married.

Police believed he staged his disappearance, due to pressure from his parents about his career.

It was thought he'd initially gone to his parents' home in Nelson, while they were overseas, as a witness reported seeing the lights on at the house.

From there, his whereabouts were unknown. His siblings believed that if he were still alive, it was likely he'd left New Zealand. His wife, Galina, had him declared legally dead so she could remarry.

In 2003, his mother, Margaret Coop, told police she thought she had spotted him on a Nelson riverbank, prompting a public appeal for sightings."
Started thread..
NZ. Dr. Peter Douglas Coop,28, Invercargill Airport, 6 June 1989

Examples like this get posted every few months and it honestly drives me insane.

You won’t get any argument from me or any reasonably intelligent person that it is possible for someone to run off and start a new life.

Those of us who argue that Brian running away is extremely unlikely aren’t doing so on the basis that no one can do it. We are instead basing it off of the fact that the circumstances we know of that night don’t seem to support it (or at best, would make it a wild coincidence).

I’d repeat those circumstances but I’ve already done so ad nauseam.
 
Examples like this get posted every few months and it honestly drives me insane.

You won’t get any argument from me or any reasonably intelligent person that it is possible for someone to run off and start a new life.

Those of us who argue that Brian running away is extremely unlikely aren’t doing so on the basis that no one can do it. We are instead basing it off of the fact that the circumstances we know of that night don’t seem to support it (or at best, would make it a wild coincidence).

I’d repeat those circumstances but I’ve already done so ad nauseam.

Although i think Brian could well be in the building, keeping an open mind and exploring alternative theories.
 
Although i think Brian could well be in the building, keeping an open mind and exploring alternative theories.

That’s certainly fair and I agree we should all do that. I also agree that learning from other cases is helpful.

But I also just think it’s worth pointing out to readers who may not know the case as well that there aren’t really any similarities in the cases from what I saw other than “they both disappeared.” Many of the regulars on this board realize that immediately, but some of the short term lurkers may not, so I just wanted to point that out.

It is possible for someone to voluntary leave their life, and there are examples.

It is possible for someone to become trapped in a building without anyone noticing for significant time, and there are examples.

IMO, one of these fits Brian’s case much better, but you are right that we should consider all possibilities when analyzing what we know of the circumstances that night.
 
Unrelated to Brian's case, posting to show that planned disappearances, can and do happen with unlikely people, fwiw, imo.
Without a trace: New Zealand's most enduring missing persons cases
PETER COOP
petercoop.jpg

Police believe Peter Coop staged his disappearance. SUPPLIED

The 28-year-old Dunedin doctor disappeared in June 1989, seven months after he got married.

Police believed he staged his disappearance, due to pressure from his parents about his career.

It was thought he'd initially gone to his parents' home in Nelson, while they were overseas, as a witness reported seeing the lights on at the house.

From there, his whereabouts were unknown. His siblings believed that if he were still alive, it was likely he'd left New Zealand. His wife, Galina, had him declared legally dead so she could remarry.

In 2003, his mother, Margaret Coop, told police she thought she had spotted him on a Nelson riverbank, prompting a public appeal for sightings."
Started thread..
NZ. Dr. Peter Douglas Coop,28, Invercargill Airport, 6 June 1989
Interesting.
 
Unrelated to Brian's case, posting to show that planned disappearances, can and do happen with unlikely people, fwiw, imo.
Without a trace: New Zealand's most enduring missing persons cases

Police believe Peter Coop staged his disappearance. SUPPLIED

The 28-year-old Dunedin doctor disappeared in June 1989, seven months after he got married.

Police believed he staged his disappearance, due to pressure from his parents about his career.

It was thought he'd initially gone to his parents' home in Nelson, while they were overseas, as a witness reported seeing the lights on at the house.

From there, his whereabouts were unknown. His siblings believed that if he were still alive, it was likely he'd left New Zealand. His wife, Galina, had him declared legally dead so she could remarry.

In 2003, his mother, Margaret Coop, told police she thought she had spotted him on a Nelson riverbank, prompting a public appeal for sightings."
Started thread..
NZ. Dr. Peter Douglas Coop,28, Invercargill Airport, 6 June 1989

With all due respect, dotr, since Coop still has not been proven to be alive, it also cannot be proven that his disappearance was planned.

Just because police believe he staged his disappearance does not necessarily mean that is what happened. And the article does not elaborate on why LE believes that scenario over foul play or accidental death.

Or am I missing your point?
 
With all due respect, dotr, since Coop still has not been proven to be alive, it also cannot be proven that his disappearance was planned.

Just because police believe he staged his disappearance does not necessarily mean that is what happened. And the article does not elaborate on why LE believes that scenario over foul play or accidental death.

Or am I missing your point?

They don’t mention any proof, but there is some additional info in this article on a sighting about eight years after his disappearance.
Police still on trail of missing man
 
Unusual subject, a snippet..

I Am Brian
by William Keckler
"I Am Brian"
"You study my face. You study my face with the intensity that you study a lover’s face. You memorize the curve of my dark eyebrows. You study how my eyebrows arch, how they bend down to the inner canthus of each eye. How my smile is half-given in most photographs. You might meet me on the street, might see my face, aged ten or twenty or thirty years, on the internet. Some of you study the faces of dead young men in online repositories of images. Networks of Does. Late into the night. Looking at faces harvested years ago from woods, from water, from snow. Looking to return me where I belong. Thank you for your care."

 
Considering how much we don't know, due LE's public disclosure of case details being minimal... if ground penetrating radar were to be used to search the former construction site, would we even know about that?
 
My issues with the whole getting concrete put over him are 1). The area was searched multiple times. If fresh concrete was noticed by anyone searching, I’m sure it would have raised a red flag. Especially to Mr. Shaffer. If it were my family, I would raise holy hell to get it investigated and further looked into to. In the new podcast, it was stated that no one searching saw fresh concrete laid. 2). If concrete was laid after the area was searched, the workers would likely know Brian was missing from the building. They would have had to not only accidentally pour it on him, but they would have had to accidentally pour it on him while knowing it was a possibility he was there. I just find it hard to believe they would be that careless. 3). It makes sense to me that CPD was likely in contact with the construction company about what construction happened when, etc. Construction may have even been halted early on in the investigation. 4). Completely dug up is very subjective. It could mean simply dirt floors or it could mean hazardous conditions. It has been clarified that businesses were walking through the area to take out the trash, so I can’t see there being holes big enough for someone Brian’s size just to fall into. I’m not ruling the possibility out, but those issues give me pause. The most likely scenario in my mind is that he got in a car somewhere by the Wendys and was killed or died accidentally at a separate location. The other person(s) involved disposed of any evidence at a site that has never been investigated. I hope one day all of the answers come out. My hope, as unlikely as it seems, is that he is still alive somewhere.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
93
Guests online
749
Total visitors
842

Forum statistics

Threads
589,927
Messages
17,927,743
Members
228,002
Latest member
zipperoni
Back
Top