Disappearance of Brian Shaffer

Brian Randall Shaffer (born February 25, 1979) was a medical student at the Ohio State University College of Medicine who has been missing since the early hours of April 1, 2006, after security cameras recorded him just outside a bar in Columbus. He had gone out with friends earlier in the evening of March 31 to celebrate the beginning of spring break; later, he was separated from them, and they assumed he had gone home. The security camera outside the entrance to the second-floor bar recorded him briefly talking to two women just before 2 a.m. and then walking off-screen without any further evidence of him leaving the area. Shaffer has not been seen or heard from since. The case received national media attention.

Shaffer's disappearance has been especially puzzling to investigators since there was no other publicly accessible entrance or exit to the bar at that time (though there was a service exit near where he was last seen). Columbus police have several theories about what happened; some interest and suspicion has been directed at a friend of Shaffer's who accompanied him that night, but he has refused to take polygraph tests regarding the incident. While foul play has been suspected, including the possible involvement of the purported Smiley Face serial killer, it has also been speculated that he might be alive and living somewhere else under a new identity. Provided by Wikipedia