By: Shane Lambert
Originally Published: December 4th, 2020
Updated: January 19th, 2025; again April 27th, 2025
Brian Shaffer is a missing person who has not been heard from since 2006. Shaffer disappeared in the wee hours of April 1st, 2006. According to NamUs, he remains missing as the website has his profile active as of April 2025.
Shaffer was last seen at the Ugly Tuna Saloona in Columbus, Ohio. There is surveillance of him speaking to two women at some time between 1am and 2am. This conversation took place outside of the bar.
His case perplexes many, and while there are several possibilities, I will review what I think is the most likely scenario regarding his disappearance.In this post, I’ll explore the case, consider a remote possibility that he remains unfound in the building where he was last seen, but argue that it’s more probable he did not re-enter the bar, potentially meeting a different fate nearby. I’ll also compare his case to two solved cases as food for thought.
Did Shaffer Re-enter the Ugly Tuna Saloona?
After Shaffer spoke to the women outside of the Ugly Tuna Saloona, it’s uncertain whether he re-entered the bar. Despite video surveillance monitoring the entrances, he has never been seen again.
The police paid close attention to the surveillance videos on the exits and some attention to cameras in surrounding businesses, but Shaffer has not been captured on any footage leaving the area.
At first, I thought there was a chance that Brian had re-entered the building and his remains would eventually be found there. But as more time passes—nearly two decades by 2025—the idea that he remained in the building becomes increasingly remote. Instead, it’s far more likely that he did not re-enter the bar at all and left the vicinity, possibly encountering a different fate.
Here’s an excerpt from early journalism on this missing person’s case.
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April 11, 2006.
Lancaster Eagle-Gazette. |
If you are reading about this case in 2025 or later, there is one detail that I think you should be aware of. According to the early journalism, the police did not have the utmost confidence that Shaffer re-entered the building after speaking to the women on the sidewalk. I think that can be gleaned from the press clippings.
For instance, in the April 11th, 2006 edition of the Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, it’s stated that police “believe” (my emphasis) that Shaffer went back inside the building. Believing something is more passive than knowing it for fact. With nearly 19 years having passed, the likelihood that he remained in the building diminishes, and the greater probability is that he did not re-enter and instead left the area entirely.
Yet, it’s a remote possibility that Shaffer entered a crawl space or hidden area within the Ugly Tuna Saloona. I think many will scoff at this idea, but the unequivocal response is that such things have happened before.
I want to compare his case to the solved case of Eduardo Sanchez as food for thought. This comparison explores the slim chance he remained in the building but highlights why it’s more likely he left the area.
Shaffer wasn’t the type who could have ducked under a camera recording that easily. According to NamUs, he was 6’2” and about 165 pounds. That’s not a heavy-set build for body fat, but he was still a tall guy (imo: the weight estimate seems low for the height, age, and sex). He would have been very thin and could fit into tight spaces, I think, which makes the crawl space theory a possibility, albeit a remote one, given the time elapsed.
Can someone disappear within a building and remain there deceased for a long time, even when efforts are made to find the person? Many would say “no, if he were in the building, the police would have found him by now.” However, the answer is yes, and the case of Eduardo Sanchez is worth examining to understand this remote possibility.
Eduardo Sanchez: Last Seen in a Night Club -- Found Deceased There Much Later
Sanchez was a disc jockey in Winnipeg, Canada in the early years of this century. One night in 2002, he disappeared in the wee hours of the morning. He was found in late 2003 wedged behind a nightclub wall in the vicinity of where he was last seen. Importantly, police believe that he put himself there somehow, and foul play was not really expected.
That he was wedged and decomposing in a tight space for over a year in a building is a little perplexing. With people looking for him, you would think that he would have been found in the building where he was last seen. Furthermore, you would think that the scent of his decomposing body would have attracted some attention. Even people who do not have sensitive noses can’t stand the scents associated with putrefaction. However, in this case, it’s believed that the foul scents in the neighborhood might have covered up the scent of Sanchez’s decomposition.
“Sometimes it reeked of sewage when you came in in the morning,” said Kerrie Drine, a business owner familiar with the area (Drine qtd. by The Globe and Mail).
“No drugs were found in his clothing or behind the wall," the same article said, "however it’s believed he was using drugs before he went missing.”
Could drugs make you crawl into a tight space? If they did, then you might get stuck and perish. Sanchez’s cause of death was positional asphyxiation—death caused when your positioning in a tight space prevents you from expanding your diaphragm and/or middle-body area enough to breathe.
How could drug use lead to such a predicament? Surely, we all agree that drugs can make you do strange things. They can make you paranoid, and this might make you feel like you need to find a good hiding spot—such as one in a crawl space. Additionally, drugs might make you feel like you need to be hugged (search Google keywords “ecstasy hug drug”). Perhaps, the confined space of two walls might satisfy this craving for someone who is under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
Two important points to take away from the Sanchez case are that he was under the influence of drugs/alcohol when he seemingly voluntarily entered a tight crawl space, and getting into that space and getting out of it are not the same matter.
These considerations raise questions about Brian Shaffer. Both Shaffer and Sanchez disappeared in the wee hours of the morning after partaking in substance abuse. With Shaffer, he was bar-hopping and definitely drinking. Whether he was doing drugs or not is unclear from my research on the case, but it should be questioned. Alcohol isn’t good for clarity of mind, but drugs are more likely to produce the kind of bizarre and unpredictable behavior that might make you do something incredibly strange.
While it’s remotely possible that Shaffer, in a similar state of mind to Sanchez, put himself somewhere confined in the building, the passage of nearly 19 years makes this less likely. If death ensued, the question remains: would the microregion have scents that could cover up the smell of decomposition, or could he have died in a well-ventilated area? This scenario, though possible, becomes increasingly improbable with time.
According to an article at Fox8, “An entrance camera showed Shaffer entering the Ugly Tuna Saloona around 1:15am, but not leaving. Another camera showed he hadn’t slipped out an emergency exit, either” (November 8th, 2016). Their headline for the year-2016 article, “Man who disappeared 10 years ago might have never left bar,” reflects a hypothesis that is worth considering but seems less plausible as years pass.
While Sanchez was found in the building over a year after his disappearance, Shaffer’s case has stretched far longer, making it more likely that he did not remain in the bar but instead left the area entirely, possibly meeting a different fate.
A Different Fate in a High-Crime Area
If Shaffer did not re-enter the Ugly Tuna Saloona, as seems more probable given the lack of definitive footage and the passage of time, he likely left the bar’s vicinity entirely. The South Campus Gateway area, where the bar was located, was known for high crime rates in 2006, including robberies, assaults, and other violent incidents. This raises the chilling possibility that Shaffer, possibly intoxicated after a night of bar-hopping, met a tragic fate in this dangerous environment.
The area around the bar was not a safe haven in the early hours of April 1st, 2006. Columbus police reports from that era indicate that the university district had elevated crime, particularly late at night when bars closed and crowds dispersed.
Shaffer, standing 6’2” but thin at 165 pounds, may have been an easy target if he wandered away from the bar alone. If he lingered outside after speaking to the two women or walked toward his nearby apartment, he could have been targeted for a robbery gone wrong or a random act of violence. The two women he spoke to were cleared by police, but an unknown assailant in the area remains a plausible scenario.
Alternatively, Shaffer’s intoxication could have led to an accident. The Olentangy River, not far from the bar, or a nearby construction site accessible via unmonitored routes, posed hazards. He might have fallen into the river or a construction pit, with his body missed during initial searches due to water currents or debris. His state of mind—grieving his mother’s recent death and exhausted from medical school—may have compounded his vulnerability, making him less aware of his surroundings.
The absence of footage showing Shaffer leaving the area doesn’t rule out this theory. The bar’s cameras focused on the main entrance, and external coverage in the South Campus Gateway was limited. A quick departure via the escalator or side streets could have gone unrecorded. As nearly 19 years have passed without a trace, the likelihood of an external fate—whether foul play or accident—grows stronger than the remote chance he remained in the bar.
Comparison to the Solved Case of Larry Murillo-Moncada
Those who find it hard to believe that someone might die in a building and not be detected for a long time should consider the case of Larry Murillo-Moncada. This individual went missing in 2009 and was not found until 2019. He died in a grocery store, one that closed in 2016. Importantly, the exact location where he died in 2009 was just meters away from where customers walked in the aisles of the grocery store.
For seven years, Larry Murillo-Moncada lay dead and decomposing behind a row of grocery-store coolers. He was never found while the store remained in business. It was only in 2019, three years after the store went out of business, that contractors were hired to remove the coolers. They found his body, and DNA confirmed that it was Larry Murillo-Moncada.
Certainly, building walls have held their secrets—even for gargantuanly long times. Offhand, the best example I can think of for dead bodies staying secret in a wall or enclosed space is nearly 200 years (read about The Princes in the Tower).
Nineteen years and counting is nothing compared to some historical cases, but in Shaffer’s case, the passage of time points away from him being in the Ugly Tuna Saloona. I would break this missing person’s case down to two scenarios. The remote possibility is that Shaffer’s lean body is dead in a tight space in the building, undetected despite searches. The far more likely scenario, given the police’s lack of certainty that he re-entered and the absence of any trace for nearly two decades, is that he left the area after speaking to the women on the sidewalk and met a different fate in the high-crime environment nearby.
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