In 2006, a second-year medical student disappeared mysteriously in Columbus, Ohio, United States. His name is Brian Schaffer and his disappearance remains a case that intrigues the police and has not been solved. Brian went to a bar one night while out partying with his friends… but he never came out. Or at least, that’s what is believed: cameras show him entering, but he was never captured again.
Brian Randall Schaffer was born on February 25, 1979, in Pickerington, Ohio. In 2006, he was 27 years old and studying medicine, but his true dream, according to his posts on MySpace (yes, MySpace was one of the most popular social networks in the mid-2000s), was to live on a tropical island, lead a peaceful life, and drink margaritas. He was also a big fan of Pearl Jam.
Brian’s mother, Renee Schaffer, had recently passed away from cancer, and his father, Randy Schaffer, had a very close relationship with him and his brother Derek. He had a girlfriend named Alexis Waggoner, and it was rumored that he would soon propose to her on a trip they would take together.
What Happened to Brian Schaffer?
On Friday, March 31, 2006, at the start of spring break, Brian went out to dinner with his father and shortly afterward moved on to visit several bars in the area with his friend Clint, whose real name is William Florence. Randy Schaffer didn’t think it was a good idea for his son to go out as he saw him worn out and exhausted from studying so much for the end of the semester. He had a bad feeling that he would later regret not taking more seriously. That was the last time he saw Brian.
Brian met up with Clint at the Ugly Tuna Saloona, a bar that will become relevant later in the story. He invited his brother Derek and his wife, but they already had plans to go to a stand-up comedy night. So, the two friends visited other bars, arrived at a place called Arena District, and then to The Short North, where they met up with one of their college friends, Meredith Reed. The three of them decided to go back to the bar where they started the night: the Ugly Tuna.
That night, Brian called his girlfriend Alexis to tell her that he was out with his friends and would return home later. She, who was visiting her family and was in Toledo, Ohio, wished him a good time and asked him to please let her know the next day when he woke up. However, she also did not suspect that it would be the last conversation she would have with her boyfriend.
Later on at the Ugly Tuna, Brian separated from Clint and Meredith. They looked for him for a while among the crowd and called him several times, but there was no response. They assumed he had gone back home on his own, as it wouldn’t be the first time, and in the end they decided to go home at two in the morning, which was the closing time of the bar.
Alexis waited for her boyfriend’s call the next day, but it never came. She called him repeatedly over the weekend and all calls went to voicemail. The last hope was that Brian would arrive on Monday morning to take a flight to Miami with her: they had planned a couple’s trip months in advance. However, he didn’t show up and they missed the flight. That’s when his family really became worried about him. If he didn’t show up for such an important flight, what had happened to him?
The Mystery of the Security Cameras
Columbus was, at that time, one of the Ohio cities with the most security cameras placed throughout the city. When the police went to the Ugly Tuna to investigate Brian’s disappearance, they reviewed the recordings from Friday, March 31 and observed the moment when Brian, Clint, and Meredith rode an escalator to reach the main entrance of the bar. That happened at 1:15 in the morning.
Five minutes before two o’clock in the morning, Brian appeared on the recordings, near the exit, talking amiably with two women, whom he said goodbye to. Then he returned towards the escalator to re-enter the bar, and strangely, that was the last time he was seen on the videos.
That was the only entrance to the bar.
However, when the Ugly Tuna closed, Brian did not reappear: he does not appear on the recordings, which made the police think that he was probably still inside. They also considered the possibility that the missing young man had changed clothes inside the bar and left with his head down (but after years of exhaustively reviewing the recordings, every single person who appeared in them was identified and none of them was Brian). Maybe he had gone through another exit, but the only available door was closed and could only be used in case of emergencies. That exit, moreover, led to a construction site where it would be very difficult to walk at night and in a drunken state. Or so the officers concluded.
So where was Brian? The cameras of nearby businesses also did not capture him at any time after the Ugly Tuna closed. That was when the search expanded to the rest of the city.
Pearl Jam and the Polygraph Tests
Posters were put up all over Columbus to find Brian. One of his distinctive features was a Pearl Jam tattoo, his favorite band, with the outstretched arms character from the song “Alive”. Meanwhile, his apartment remained intact: his car was still parked where he left it, and it didn’t seem like he had returned to his apartment at any point.
As part of the investigation, the police asked people close to Brian to take polygraph tests: his father, Randy, passed the test successfully. His friend Meredith did too. However, Clint refused. His lawyer later stated that his client had refused at his suggestion and that he had cooperated with the authorities from the beginning. The two women Brian greeted that night were later identified, but they stated that they were not asked to take such a test.
In addition to having a trip to Miami planned, Brian and his girlfriend Alexis had tickets to a Pearl Jam concert. He also did not show up to see the band live, and she, who did not want to go to the concert in the midst of her grief over her boyfriend’s disappearance, decided to auction them off and donate the money to the investigation.
When Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jam’s vocalist, learned of the case, he asked the audience at his Cincinnati concert to help find Brian Schaffer. And although sightings were reported in different parts of the world, none were deemed plausible enough.
For her part, Alexis continued to call him constantly, even if it was just to hear his voice on the voicemail. But one day something different happened: instead of going straight to voicemail, the call went through and his phone rang three times. The provider, Cingular, later said it was likely a computer error.
The Death of Randy Schaffer
Brian’s father continued investigating the case on his own for years to come. Along with Derek Schaffer, he even consulted psychics and conducted a search that covered the nearby channels of the Olentangy River in search of his son’s body. But it was fruitless. Sadly, Randy did not live to know the whereabouts of his son: he died in 2008 in his backyard when the wind knocked down a tree and it struck him.
Among the messages of condolences that Brian’s father received online, there was one that caught the attention of the family, as it came from someone claiming to be Brian, stating that he was in the US Virgin Islands and signing off with “To dad, with love, Brian.” But the police later concluded that it had been a prank by someone who was playing with the family’s pain, who were going through the tragedy once again, and the message had been sent by someone else from Franklin County.
Possible Explanations for his Disappearance
It is still unknown whether Brian Schaffer is still alive or died that night in 2006. Some people believe that Clint, his friend, knows more than he is saying: it is known that Brian had a dream of living on an island, so it is believed that Clint may have helped him “escape” and has kept the secret of his disappearance to this day, as a promise he made to his friend.
However, some say that this does not make sense for several reasons: he had a trip planned with his girlfriend and tickets for a Pearl Jam concert, and she is almost certain that he was about to propose to her. He also had a close relationship with his father and his family members believe that he would not have been capable of abandoning him, especially after his mother’s death.
Another even more macabre hypothesis considers that Brian never left the bar. He could have been murdered inside, consumed some drug voluntarily or involuntarily, and those responsible got rid of his body right there. However, this would require absolutely all the employees of the Ugly Tuna bar to agree to keep the secret without breaking, even though years have passed since the disappearance. Some also say that Brian’s body could still be within the walls of the place to this day.
