Vanishing Shadows: The Unsolved Disappearance of Brian Shaffer
Brian Shaffer, an American medical student at the Ohio State University College of Medicine, was last seen on March 31, 2006.
He had gone out with friends to celebrate the start of spring break, but they got separated, and assumed he had returned home. An intriguing security camera footage captured a brief interaction between Shaffer and two women near the entrance of a Columbus bar just before 2 a.m. on April 1. Surprisingly, the footage showed him re-entering the bar without evidence of him leaving the vicinity.
Since then, Shaffer has remained missing, garnering significant national media coverage. The circumstances surrounding his disappearance have perplexed investigators, primarily due to the absence of any other public entry or exit points at the bar during that time. The Columbus police have formulated various theories, including a focus on one of Shaffer’s friends who accompanied him that evening but declined to undergo polygraph tests pertaining to the incident. While suspicions of foul play persist, with the potential involvement of the alleged Smiley Face serial killer, there is also speculation that Shaffer might be alive and residing elsewhere under a new identity.