Where Is Brian Shaffer?
Updated: Jul 17
On the morning of April 3, 2006, Brian Shaffer was supposed to board a flight to Miami with his girlfriend, Alexis Waggoner. The trip would mark the beginning of spring break after an exhausting stretch of medical school exams, and Alexis had spoken with him only days earlier about how much he was looking forward to getting away. However, Brian never arrived at the airport.
By then, his family and friends had already spent much of the weekend trying to reach him. His telephone went directly to voicemail, his car remained outside his apartment and nothing inside appeared disturbed. His bed was made, and his medical books were reportedly still arranged on the shelves.
The last confirmed images of Brian had been recorded shortly before 2:00 a.m. on April 1. A surveillance camera outside the Ugly Tuna Saloona in Columbus showed him speaking with two women near the bar’s second-floor entrance. He then moved out of the camera’s view in the direction of the bar.
Twenty years later, no confirmed evidence has established where Brian went next.
The Life Waiting Beyond Spring Break
Brian Randall Shaffer was born on February 11, 1979, and grew up in Pickerington, Ohio, with his parents, Randy and Renee, and his younger brother.
After graduating from Pickerington High School in 1997, Brian attended The Ohio State University and earned a degree in microbiology in 2003. He entered the university’s College of Medicine the following year and was completing his second year when he disappeared.
Medicine was the professional path Brian had chosen, but it was not his only interest. He played guitar, loved Pearl Jam and had spoken about starting a band. Friends recalled that he was drawn to warm, coastal places and imagined a more relaxed life similar to the one celebrated in Jimmy Buffett’s music. One of Brian’s identifying features reflected that interest. On his upper right arm, he had a tattoo of the stick-figure design associated with Pearl Jam’s song “Alive.” The FBI also notes a small dot on the iris of his left eye. At the time of his disappearance, Brian was 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighed approximately 160 to 165 pounds.
Brian was also in a relationship with fellow medical student Alexis Waggoner. The couple planned to spend spring break in Miami, and people close to them believed their relationship was serious. Later accounts claimed that Brian intended to propose during the trip, although that detail has never been firmly established.
The weeks before the vacation had been difficult. Brian’s mother, Renee, died from myelodysplasia in March 2006, only a few weeks before he disappeared. Those close to Brian acknowledged that the loss affected him, but later reporting attributed to investigators said his friends had not considered him suicidal.
At the same time, Brian was under the pressure of medical school and had reportedly spent several nights studying with little sleep. When he met his father for dinner on March 31, Randy noticed that his son appeared exhausted, but Brian still planned to go out that night.
The Last Evening
March 31 was the final Friday before spring break. Earlier in the evening, Brian had dinner with his father at a Columbus steakhouse. He also called Derek and invited him to join the night out, but his brother was unable to come.
Brian later met his friend and former roommate, William “Clint” Florence. The two began the evening at the Ugly Tuna Saloona, a second-floor bar in the South Campus Gateway complex on North High Street near Ohio State.
During the evening, Brian called Alexis, who was visiting family in Toledo before their trip. She later recalled that he sounded excited to see her and was looking forward to their vacation.
Brian and Florence left the Ugly Tuna and visited several other bars as they moved through Columbus. After midnight, they met Florence’s friend Meredith Reed, who eventually drove the group back to the Ugly Tuna for one final stop.
Surveillance cameras recorded Brian, Florence and Reed arriving at approximately 1:15 a.m. on April 1 and traveling up an escalator toward the bar.
During the next 40 minutes, Brian became separated from his companions. Shortly before closing, he was recorded outside the bar’s entrance speaking with two women. Investigators later identified and interviewed both of them.
At approximately 1:55 a.m., Brian said goodbye to the women and moved out of the camera’s view toward the entrance. That is the last confirmed sighting of him.
When the bar closed at 2:00 a.m., Florence and Reed tried to locate Brian. They called his telephone and waited with the departing crowd, but he did not appear. Eventually, they concluded that he had left without telling them and returned home.
Brian’s tendency to separate from friends may have made that explanation seem reasonable in the moment. By the following afternoon, however, Alexis could not reach him. When another day passed without contact, she called Randy.
Randy went to his son’s apartment on King Avenue. Brian was not there, but his car was still outside and the apartment showed no obvious sign of a sudden departure. When Brian missed the flight to Miami on Monday morning, a missing-person report was filed.
What the Cameras Actually Show
The surveillance footage is the detail most closely associated with Brian’s disappearance, but its limitations are frequently lost when the case is retold.
Brian was not filmed walking through a single controlled doorway into a sealed building. The Ugly Tuna occupied part of a larger commercial development, and the final footage showed him in the area outside the bar’s entrance. After speaking with the two women, he moved out of the camera’s view in the direction of the bar, but the recording did not establish exactly where he went from there.
Investigators carefully reviewed footage of patrons leaving through the main route and did not identify Brian among them. One investigator later said he was confident that Brian had not descended by the escalator in view of the primary camera.
That does not mean every possible route was continuously recorded.
A service door near the bar led toward a first-floor hallway and an area of the development that was still under construction. Reports described this as a difficult route to navigate, particularly for someone who had been drinking, but it remained physically possible. Cameras covering portions of the surrounding area did not provide an uninterrupted view.
Brian could also have been obscured in the departing crowd or appeared differently enough that reviewers failed to recognize him. Investigators considered whether a hat, jacket or change in posture might have prevented identification, but extensive reviews did not locate a convincing image of him leaving.
The footage therefore establishes Brian’s presence near the Ugly Tuna entrance at approximately 1:55 a.m. It does not prove that he remained inside the bar, and it cannot establish which route he took afterward.
That distinction makes the disappearance less impossible than the popular version suggests, but no less unresolved.
Searching Beyond the Bar
Police, relatives, friends and volunteers searched the area surrounding South Campus Gateway. They checked nearby streets, hospitals, homeless shelters, dumpsters and other locations where Brian might have gone or been taken.
The construction area connected to the building was examined, and search dogs were used, but no conclusive trace of Brian was found. Searches also extended to the banks of the Olentangy River and into portions of the city’s sewer system.
Investigators collected video from other businesses in the area, hoping another camera had recorded Brian after he left the Gateway complex. Footage from nearby establishments did not provide a confirmed sighting.
More than 100 people were reportedly interviewed, including bar employees, members of the band performing that night, patrons, Brian’s companions and the two women seen with him shortly before he disappeared. None of those interviews produced a publicly confirmed explanation.
Police considered the possibility that Brian had been injured, died accidentally, encountered another person after leaving or intentionally walked away from his life. No physical evidence has established any of those scenarios.
Florence initially provided information to investigators but later retained an attorney, who advised him not to take a polygraph examination. That decision has generated years of public suspicion, particularly because others connected to the evening agreed to testing. However, polygraph results are not proof of truthfulness or guilt, and no publicly disclosed evidence has connected Florence to Brian’s disappearance.
The available record also does not support the frequently repeated suggestion that Brian was a victim of a so-called “Smiley Face Killer.” Columbus investigators did not establish such a connection, and the broader theory has been rejected by the FBI and numerous law-enforcement agencies.
Telephone Activity and Unconfirmed Leads
For months after Brian disappeared, Alexis continued calling his telephone. Most calls went directly to voicemail, but in September 2006, the telephone reportedly rang several times. The wireless carrier indicated that the activity may have resulted from a technical issue. A connection was associated with a cellular tower near Hilliard, northwest of Columbus, but it did not lead investigators to Brian or his telephone.
Additional information reported in 2026 complicated that history. According to local outlet 614NOW, Cingular tracked activity associated with Brian’s telephone through several areas during the month after his disappearance, including locations near Kenny and Lane avenues, North High Street and Hilliard. The tracking was reportedly not precise enough to identify a specific address.
The same report stated that police obtained a warrant to search beneath the basement floor of a house near Lane Avenue after considering the telephone information and a person whose name had been provided to investigators. An apparently disturbed section of flooring was excavated, but the search uncovered an old heating-oil tank rather than evidence connected to Brian.
In 2026, two people also reportedly supplied the same name to researchers and police as a possible person of interest. The name has not been publicly released, and Columbus police declined to discuss the investigation with the outlet. No arrest, charge or official finding has connected that unnamed person to Brian’s disappearance.
Loss, Hoaxes and Continuing Searches
Brian’s father continued looking for him while also grieving the recent death of his wife. Randy and Derek searched areas along the Olentangy River, and Randy joined other Ohio families in advocating for stronger procedures in missing-adult cases.
In September 2008, Randy was killed when a tree limb fell during a severe windstorm.
After his death, someone signed an online condolence book with a message claiming to be from Brian in the United States Virgin Islands. Investigators traced the post to a publicly accessible computer in Franklin County and determined that it was a hoax.
Other reported sightings have been investigated in the United States and abroad without producing a confirmation. In 2019, a photograph of a man in Tijuana, Mexico, circulated online because some believed he resembled Brian. The image was later submitted for FBI facial comparison, which excluded Brian as the man pictured.
In 2021, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation released an age-progressed image showing how Brian might appear at 42. His information also remains listed through the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System.
As of 2026, Brian has not been located.
The Question Left by the Footage
The cameras explain why Brian’s case became widely known, but they have never explained his disappearance. They show him outside the Ugly Tuna at 1:55 a.m., speaking with two women and moving out of view. They show other patrons leaving as the bar closed. They do not show Brian’s next confirmed movement.
No verified record places him at another bar, on a nearby street, at his apartment or traveling out of Columbus. His car remained behind, his planned trip passed without him and no confirmed communication came from him afterward.
The possibility that Brian left through an inadequately recorded route resolves only the mechanical question of how he could have escaped the cameras. It does not explain where he went, whether he encountered someone after leaving or why two decades of searches and investigation have produced no confirmed trace.
On April 3, 2006, Brian was supposed to begin spring break with Alexis. Instead, the missed flight became one of the first clear signs that his absence was not a simple misunderstanding.
The vacation was never taken. His medical education remained unfinished, and the family that searched for him endured further loss without learning what happened after 1:55 that morning.
The footage ends as Brian turns away from the two women near the entrance. The public record still ends in nearly the same place.
Sources:
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