page_title: Disappearance of Brian Shaffer
section_title: Death of Randy Shaffer
hierarchical_section_title: Disappearance of Brian Shaffer / Investigation / Death of Randy Shaffer
caption_attribution_description: English: Brian Shaffer disappeared from Columbus, Ohio on April 1, 2006. He was a second year medical student who went out with friends on a Friday evening, never to be seen again. Contact Central Ohio CrimeStoppers at 614.645.TIPS with any information on Brian's disappearance.
context_page_description: Brian Shaffer was a medical student at Ohio State University. On the night of March 31, 2006, Shaffer went out with friends to celebrate the beginning of spring break; later he was separated from them and they assumed he had gone home. However, a security camera near the entrance to a bar recorded him briefly talking to two women just before 2 a.m., April 1, and then apparently re-entering the bar. Shaffer has not been seen or heard from since. The case has received national media attention.
  Shaffer's disappearance has been especially puzzling to investigators since there was no other publicly accessible entrance to the bar at that time. 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 who has refused to take lie detector 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.
context_section_description: In September 2008, during a heavy windstorm in Central Ohio, Randy Shaffer was out in the yard of his Baltimore home clearing debris. A branch blew off from a nearby tree and fatally struck him. Neighbors found his body the next morning and called police.
  After his obituary ran online, a condolence book was posted. One of the signatures in it said "To Dad, love Brian (U.S. Virgin Islands)". This suggested Brian might have left Columbus for a new life elsewhere. However, upon further investigation, the note was found to have been posted from a computer accessible to the public in Franklin County; it was determined to be a hoax.
caption: Brian and Randy Shaffer
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