There's video of him walking in. There's no video of him walking out. The bar had no other public exit. Two decades later, that simple, impossible fact is still the entire mystery.
A Hard Few Weeks, Before a Disappearance
Brian Randall Shaffer was 27, a second-year medical student at Ohio State University's College of Medicine, raised in nearby Pickerington, Ohio. He'd earned a microbiology degree at OSU before starting medical school in 2004. Just three weeks before he vanished, his mother died of myelodysplasia, a rare blood cancer. Friends told police that while the loss clearly affected him, he didn't seem depressed or suicidal in the time after — he was, by most accounts, looking ahead, with a planned spring break trip to Miami with his girlfriend, fellow medical student Alexis Waggoner, who friends and family believed he might propose to during the trip.
A Night Out to Mark Spring Break
On the evening of March 31, 2006 — the start of spring break — Brian had dinner with his father, Randy, to celebrate the end of the semester. Randy noticed Brian seemed worn out from a stretch of intense studying and silently wondered whether he should still go out that night, but didn't say anything.
At 9 p.m., Brian met his friend William "Clint" Florence at the Ugly Tuna Saloona, a bar in Columbus's South Campus Gateway complex. The two spent the evening bar-hopping through the area, eventually reuniting with another friend, Meredith Reed, around midnight. Around 1:15 a.m., the group returned to the Ugly Tuna Saloona, where security cameras recorded Brian entering.
The Last Frame
Around 1:55 a.m., surveillance footage showed Brian standing just outside the bar's entrance, talking briefly with two women he'd met that night. After a few minutes, he turned and walked back toward the entrance — and disappeared from camera view.
That's the last confirmed sighting of him. The bar, notably, had no other publicly accessible exit at the time besides a nearby service door. When the bar closed around 2 a.m. and the rest of the crowd filed out, Brian wasn't among them. His friends waited outside, assumed he'd left some other way and gone home on his own, and didn't think much more of it that night.
Days Before Anyone Realized
Brian's girlfriend and father tried reaching him repeatedly over the following days without success. When he failed to show up for his scheduled flight to Miami that Monday, they grew seriously concerned and contacted police.
Investigators reviewed all available security footage from the bar and the surrounding area and found nothing showing Brian leaving the building. They interviewed everyone he'd been with that night and asked each of them to take a polygraph. All passed — except Clint Florence, who declined to take one at all, a detail that has remained a persistent point of public speculation in the years since, even though investigators have never named him or anyone else as a suspect.
A Note, and a Hoax
Brian's father, Randy, never stopped searching for his son. In September 2008, while clearing storm debris in his yard, Randy was struck and killed by a falling tree branch. After his obituary was posted online, a message appeared in the condolence book: "To Dad, love Brian (U.S. Virgin Islands)" — raising a brief, painful hope that Brian might have started a new life elsewhere and seen the obituary. Investigators traced the message to a public computer in Franklin County and determined it was a hoax, unconnected to Brian.
Years of Theories, None Confirmed
Brian's case has generated a wide range of theories over the years, none of them proven. Some believe he may have slipped out through the bar's service exit and suffered an accident nearby. Others have speculated he chose to disappear deliberately — friends have said he'd talked, in the weeks before vanishing, about wanting to leave medical school behind and start a different kind of life, even reportedly asking Alexis to run away with him at one point. Given that history of loss in his family, including relatives who had died by suicide, some who've studied the case closely have said they can't rule out the possibility he died by his own hand, though there's no direct evidence either way.
A separate theory has connected Brian's case to the broader, contested "Smiley Face Murders" theory — a controversial idea proposed by a small number of retired investigators suggesting a string of young men's drowning deaths across the Midwest were connected serial killings, marked by smiley-face graffiti found near where bodies were recovered. Most law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, have publicly rejected this theory as unsupported by evidence, and it has never been formally connected to Brian's case by Columbus investigators.
A Case That Refuses to Fade
In 2019, an image of a man resembling Brian, reportedly homeless in Tijuana, Mexico, circulated online and was forwarded to investigators; FBI facial recognition analysis ruled him out. In March 2021, Ohio's Bureau of Criminal Investigation released an age-progressed image showing what Brian might look like in his early forties.
Most recently, in February 2026, surveillance footage from the night Brian disappeared began recirculating widely on social media, drawing renewed national attention to the case nearly twenty years on. Retired FBI agent Harry Trombitas, who has continued advocating for the case to stay in public view, said the renewed attention could be exactly what's needed: "Putting out the video reminding people of the case just may do the trick and lead to the resolution of the case." He's noted that relationships and circumstances change over decades, and that people who once stayed quiet sometimes eventually come forward.
Columbus police have said the case continues to be periodically reviewed, though there's no new evidence in the file as of the most recent reporting.
Where Things Stand
Nearly twenty years after Brian Shaffer walked into a bar and was never seen leaving, the case remains entirely unsolved, with no confirmed sightings, no recovered remains, and no consensus among investigators or those close to the case about what actually happened.
If you have any information about the disappearance of Brian Shaffer, you're encouraged to contact the Columbus Police Department at 614-645-4545 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-8477.
If this story raises concerns about suicide for you or someone you know, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by call or text at 988.
Sources
Disappearance of Brian Shaffer — Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Brian_Shaffer
Unsolved Ohio: Ohio State student who disappeared at bar still missing 18 years later — NBC4 WCMH-TV
https://www.nbc4i.com/news/unsolved-ohio/unsolved-ohio-ohio-state-student-who-disappeared-at-bar-still-missing-18-years-later/
Video reignites interest in 20-year-old Columbus missing persons case — NBC4 WCMH-TV
https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/columbus/video-reignites-interest-in-20-year-old-columbus-missing-persons-case/
What Happened to Brian Shaffer, Who Vanished from Ohio Bar? — A&E
https://www.aetv.com/articles/brian-shaffer-disappearance-2006