Disappearance of Brian Shaffer

Brian Randall Shaffer, born February 11, 1979, was a 27-year-old second-year medical student at the Ohio State University College of Medicine when he disappeared in Columbus, Ohio. He grew up in Pickerington, Ohio, earned an undergraduate degree in microbiology from OSU, and began medical school in 2004. His mother died of myelodysplasia in March 2006, shortly before his disappearance. He was romantically involved with fellow medical student Alexis Waggoner, and friends and family believed he intended to propose to her during a planned spring-break trip to Miami.

On the night of March 31, 2006, Shaffer met his friend William "Clint" Florence at the Ugly Tuna Saloona, a bar in the South Campus Gateway complex, to mark the start of spring break. The two went bar-hopping through several establishments before being joined after midnight by Meredith Reed, a friend of Florence's, who drove them back to the Ugly Tuna Saloona for a final round. Shaffer became separated from Florence and Reed inside the bar. Security footage showed him outside the bar's second-floor entrance around 1:55 a.m., briefly speaking with two women before walking out of camera range. No footage recorded him exiting the building, and this remains the last confirmed sighting of him. When Florence and Reed left with the crowd at the 2 a.m. closing time and did not see Shaffer, they assumed he had gone home on his own. He was reported missing after failing to answer calls over the weekend and missing his scheduled flight to Miami with Waggoner on Monday.

Police investigated extensively, reviewing footage from the Ugly Tuna Saloona and nearby bars, searching the building's service corridors and construction areas, inspecting dumpsters, and searching the sewer system, all without result. Shaffer's car remained parked at his apartment, with nothing inside appearing disturbed. Investigators administered polygraph tests to those who had been with Shaffer that night; Florence declined to take one, drawing scrutiny from investigators and criticism from Shaffer's family, though his attorney maintained Florence had nothing to hide. A cell tower ping in Hilliard, Ohio, months after the disappearance, and a MySpace account of a phone ringing multiple times, were reported by Waggoner but attributed by the carrier to a possible technical glitch. Speculation linking the case to the disputed "Smiley Face" theory of serial killings was examined and rejected by Columbus police, consistent with the FBI's position.

Shaffer's father, Randy, continued searching for his son, including river searches based on a psychic's tip, until Randy's own death in September 2008, when a falling tree branch struck him during a storm. A purported message from "Brian" on his father's online condolence book was later determined to be a hoax originating from a public computer. As of 2014, Columbus police reported ongoing tips but no breakthroughs, and one original investigator stated with certainty that Shaffer had not left via the bar's escalator. A 2019 image of a homeless man in Tijuana resembling Shaffer was ruled out by FBI facial recognition analysis in 2020. In 2021, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation released an age-progressed photograph depicting Shaffer at age 42. The case remains unsolved, and Randy Shaffer's advocacy contributed to Ohio legislation establishing a statewide protocol for missing-adult investigations.