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A medical student walks into a crowded Columbus, Ohio bar
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at the start of spring break. Cameras show him near
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the entrance just before closing time. Then Brian Schaefer turns
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away and vanishes into one of Ohio's most haunted unsolved mysteries.
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What you were about to pick youspur to be based
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on witness accounts, testimonies, and public record. This is terrifying
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and April first, two thousand and six, Columbus o High,
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the bars near Ohio State are closing, the sidewalks are crowded,
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and spring break has just begun. Among the students and
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strangers is twenty seven year old Brian Schaeffer, a medical
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student with a future waiting for him. He's seen on
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surveillance near the entrance of the Ugly Tuna Saluna shortly
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before two am. He talks, he smiles, he turns away,
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and then somehow he disappears. The cameras do not clearly
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show him leaving. His phone goes silent, His plans are abandoned.
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His family searches, his girlfriend waits investigator's return again and
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again to the same few minutes of footage, looking for
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the answer hidden just beyond the frame. Did Brian Shaefer
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leave the bar unseen, did he meet with foul play,
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did an accident steal him from the world, or does
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someone still know what happened that night? Tonight, we investigate
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the disappearance of Brian Schaefer, the Ohio State mystery, where
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the camera captured the last known moment before a man
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vanished completely. The lights of North High Street are still
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burning like a second moon over the Ohio State campus.
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It's the first breath of spring break, that strange hour
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when Friday night has technically become Saturday morning, but no
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one has agreed to go home yet. Music leaks from bars,
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Traffic slides past, in pulses. Young people spill into the
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cold air, laughing, shouting, searching for friends, rides for one
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last place to stand before the night ends. Inside the
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South Campus Gateway complex, above the sidewalk, the ugly Tuna
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Saluna is winding down. The bar is crowded, noisy, and alive.
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In the way college bars are just before closing, half celebration,
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half confusion. Somewhere in that crush is twenty seven year
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old Brian Schaeffer, a second year medical student at Ohio
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State He's tall, handsome, exhausted, grieving, brilliant, and about to
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disappear so completely that twenty years later, investigators will still
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be studying the same few minutes of surveillance footage. Just
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before two a m. Brian appears outside the bar entrance,
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near the top of the escalator. He talks briefly with
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two young women. Nothing about it looks dramatic, Nothing looks
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like an ending. It looks like a normal late night moment,
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a smile, a few words, a goodbye. Then Brian turns
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and moves back toward the bar, and then he's gone.
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Not gone in the cinematic sense, not dragged away on camera,
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not seen stumbling into traffic, not captured leaving through the
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main entrance, or spotted at another bar, or found wandering home.
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Not found in the morning or the week after, or
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the year after or the decade after. He simply vanishes
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from the record. His friends think he must have left
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without them. His girlfriend waits for the Miami trip they're
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supposed to take. His father expects a call. His apartment waits,
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along with his car, His wallet, phone activity, and future
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all fall silent. The cameras show Brian Schaeffer near the
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end of the night. What they don't show the is
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where the night took him, And from that tiny gap
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between sight and absence and entire mystery grows. Brian Randall
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Schaeffer was not the sort of person people expected to
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vanish into myth. He was not a drifter or a
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man living off the grid. He wasn't someone known for
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disappearing for days at a time. He was a medical student,
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a son, a brother, a boyfriend, A tall man with
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brown hair, hazel eyes, and a distinctive tattoo on his
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upper right arm. The official Ohio missing person listing says
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he was last seen around two a m. Near the
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fifteen hundred block of North High Street in Columbus, wearing jeans,
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a blue or green striped shirt, and tennis shoes. He
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was twenty seven years old when he disappeared. As of
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twenty twenty six, he would be forty seven years old.
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Those details are important because missing people are often flattened
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into one haunting photograph. Brian's case has one of those
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photographs too, the smiling young man, the medical future, the
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face that keeps appearing in news stories and posters. But
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before he became a case, Brian had momentum. He had plans.
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He had grown up in Pickerington, Ohio, just outside Columbus.
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He studied at Ohio State then entered medical school there.
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People close to him described him as bright and social,
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a guy who could move easily through a room, someone
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who loved music, and had the sort of future that
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made sense when you explained it out loud. He wasn't
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just drifting through school. He was becoming something. But the
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weeks before his disappearance had been hard. Brian's mother, Renee Schaeffer,
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had died only weeks earlier after a battle with cancer.
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That loss weighed heavily on the family. Brian's father, Randy,
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was grieving as well, and he spent time with his son.
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On the evening of March thirty first, two thousand and six,
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they went to dinner at a steakhouse. Randy later said
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Brian seemed exhausted. He had been studying, pushing through medical school,
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carrying grief, and standing at the edge of spring break.
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After dinner, Brian went out. The plan was ordinary. He
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would meet his friend and former roommate, Clint Florence. They
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would have drinks around campus. Later they would end up
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at the Ugly Tuna Saluna, a bar in the South
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Campus Gateway development near Ohio State. Brian's girlfriend, Alexis Wagoner,
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was out of town visiting family, and the two were
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supposed to leave soon for a spring break trip to Miami.
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There was even talk in the air that Brian might propose.
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That's one reason this story stings in retrospect. Every normal
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detail feels loaded. Dinner with his father becomes the last dinner,
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a night out becomes the last night. A spring break
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trip becomes a future waiting at the gate that Brian
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will never reach. The Ugly Tuna Salouna sat on the
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second floor of a mixed use campus complex. Patrons used
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an escalator to reach the bar entrance. Surveillance cameras watched
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the area. In theory, that should have made Brian's last
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known movements easier to comprehend. In practice, it created one
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of the strangest missing person puzzles in modern American true crime.
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The general timeline is familiar now. Brian and Clint began
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the night at the Ugly Tuna, then moved through other
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nearby bars, then returned after one a m with another friend,
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Meredith Read Cameras captured them entering the gateway complex and
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going up toward the bar. Inside, the crowd was thick,
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the music was loud. People moved in and out, and
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at some point Brian became separated from Clint and Meredith.
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Around one point fifty five am, Brian appears on surveillance
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near the Ugly Tuna entrance. He's outside the bar area
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speaking with two women. The moment appeared casual. He doesn't
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seem to be running, hiding, struggling, or signaling for help.
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He appears to be a man at the end of
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a long night, pausing in conversation. Then he turns away.
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Some descriptions said he appears to move back toward the
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bar entrance. Some viewers focus on the exact angle, the
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blind spots, the timing, and the fact that the camera
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does not follow him continuously, but the essential fact remains.
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After that point, there is no confirmed sighting of Brian Schaeffer.
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When the bar closed, Clint and Meredith waited for him.
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They didn't see him come down the escalator. They called,
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they looked. Eventually they left, assuming he had gone home
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without them. That assumption was not strange. In the moment,
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it was late, people were drinking, groups split up, friends
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sometimes vanish for the night and research the next day
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with sheepish explanation. But Brian didn't resurface the next day.
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Worry sharpened. He hadn't come home, he wasn't answering his phone,
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He didn't appear where he was supposed to. The Miami
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trip with Alexis came and went. The life waiting for
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him remained untouched. Police reviewed the surveillance footage, expecting it
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to provide an answer, and it didn't. The cameras showed
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Brian entering the complex and standing near the bar shortly
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before closing, but they did not show him leaving the
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way everyone expected him to leave. The absence became the
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black hole at the center of the case For family
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and friends. The early search had a desperate rhythm. Posters
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went up, buttons were worn. Students, relatives and police combed
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the campus area. They checked dumpsters and streets, hospitals and shelters,
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construction zones and riverbanks. The Olentangy River was searched. Dogs
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were used. The area around the bar was picked over
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again and again. Nothing no body, no confirmed sighting, no
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credit card trail, no digital footprint, no goodbye, and because
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the human mind hates a blank space. Theories rushed in
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to fill it. Maybe Brian had slipped out through another exit.
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Maybe he had fallen somewhere in the building. Maybe he
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had been attacked after leaving through a blind spot. Maybe
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he had chosen to vanish. Maybe someone close to him
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knew more than they were saying. Maybe the cameras missed
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something simple and the Internet made it impossible. In the beginning,
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though the mystery was still raw, it wasn't yet a legend.
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It was a missing son, boyfriend and brother. Randy Shaeffer
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still believed he would find his boy Alexis still waited
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for a call and somewhere inside the last recorded images
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of Brian near the Ugly Tuna Saluna, investigators kept staring
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at the same question. How does a man walk into
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a bar surrounded by cameras and never appear to walk out.
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The first searches focused on the obvious place, the building.
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If Brian had gone into the Ugly Tuna Saluna and
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never appeared on camera leaving, then maybe he had never
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left at all. That possibility sounds absurd until you remember
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the setting. This wasn't a tiny one room tavern on
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a quiet street. It was a second floor bar inside
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a larger commercial complex, one with service corridors, construction areas, rooftops,
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and places that might not register in the public imagination
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when someone says simply the bar. Investigators searched the Ugly
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Tuna and the surrounding gateway complex in ten Ny. They
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looked in hidden places, They checked crawl spaces. They searched
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the roof. They examined service areas and nearby construction zones.
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Retired Columbus Police detective John Hurst, who worked the case,
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said in a twenty twenty six interview that he believes
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Brian did leave the bar, even though he was not
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captured on camera doing so. Hurst said the building was
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searched thoroughly enough that he had no doubt Brian exited. Somehow,
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that conclusion only moves the mystery from one room to another.
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If Brian left, where did he go. Investigators have considered
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blind spots, service doors, alternate roots, clothing changes, crowd confusion,
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and camera limitations. The most grounded reading is not impossible
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disappearance so much as unconfirmed exit. While that feels less
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supernatural in some ways, that makes it even more unsettling.
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Once police accepted that Brian might have exited unseen. The
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search widened. Campus neighborhoods at night are liminal places. By day,
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there are classrooms, coffee shops, bookstores, apartments, and bike racks.
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At two am, they become something else. Alley's wet with
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spilled beer, dumpsters behind restaurants, construction fences, rattling in the
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wind side streets where laughter turns a corner and vanishes.
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Brian could have walked north, south, east, or west. He
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could have gone toward home. He could have followed someone.
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He could have been followed. His apartment wasn't far away,
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His car remained there inside. Nothing appeared to suggest a
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planned disappearance. People who intentionally vanish usually need resources, money, documents, transportation,
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or at least some sign of a transition. Brian left
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behind a life still in motion. He had a girlfriend, school, family,
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and belongings from there. Investigators had to hold several possibilities
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at once. Brian could have left voluntarily, though his abandoned
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plans and silent financial trail made that difficult to square.
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He could have offered an accident after leaving, though searches
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failed to find a body or a scene. He could
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have met with foul play within minutes of exiting, though
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no blood trail, eyewitness accounts, confessions, or recovered remains ever
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broke the case open. The people around Brian were interviewed. Family, friends, acquaintances,
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and those who saw him that night became part of
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the investigative web. His father and others reportedly took polygraph tests.
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Clint Florence, the friend who had been with him that night,
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became a focus of public suspicion over time because he
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declined to take one after reportedly being advised by counsel.
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That detail has fueled years of speculation, but suspicion is
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not proof. That's where true crime can become dangerous. A
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person who declines a polygraph may be hiding something, or
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they may also be following legal advice. Because polygraphs themselves
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are not magical truth machines, their controversial tools, to say
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the least, and definitely not courtroom certainty. In Brian's case,
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the public's hunger for an answer attached itself to every
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odd choice, every silence, and every inconsistency. However, no one
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has been charged in Brian Schaeffer's disappearance. Police have acknowledged
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persons of interest and theories, but they have not publicly
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proven a suspect. It's important to separate suspicion, rumor, and
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investigative interest from established fact. As months turned into years,
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the case began to accumulate folklore. There were allegedly sightings.
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There were rumors that Brian had started over somewhere else.
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There were claims about homeless men resembling him. There were
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stories about a phone ping about islands, about messages that
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seemed promising and then collapsed. After Randy Shaeffer died in
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a tragic accident during a windstorm in two thousand and eight,
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a message appeared in an online condolence book, signed as
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if it was from Brian in the US Virgin Islands.
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For a brief, cruel moment, it suggested the impossible that
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Brian was alive and had reached out after his father's death.
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Investigators later determined it was a hoax, and that hoax
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is one of the most hurtful details in the case.
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A missing person creates a wound that cannot close. Every
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tip is hope, Every hope can be another cut. By
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twenty twenty one, the Ohio Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal
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Investigation and Columbus Police released an age progressed image of
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Brian showing what he might look like at forty two.
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The announcement asked the public to keep looking. It emphasized
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that one tip can revive a cold case. It also
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quietly acknowledged the unbearable passage of time. A young man
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last seen in two thousand and six had become, in
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00:24:06.720 --> 00:24:13.240
official imagination, a middle aged man who might still be somewhere.
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That is the strange purgatory of Brian Schaefer's case. He's
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the missing medical student walking back toward a crowded bar.
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He's the man in the surveillance still and the man
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00:24:29.359 --> 00:24:34.240
in the age progressed image. And he is the unanswered question,
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moving farther away from the camera every year. Over time,
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the mystery of Brian Schaefer became famous for one image,
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the man who went into the bar and was never
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seen leaving. That phrase is irresistible. It's clean and spooky.
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It has it's the shape of an urban legend. You
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00:25:03.880 --> 00:25:07.200
can tell it in one sentence and watch the room
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00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:12.079
lean in. But the truth of a disappearance is not
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00:25:12.759 --> 00:25:19.880
one sentence. Its hours of footage, flawed memories, alcohol, grief,
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00:25:20.599 --> 00:25:27.440
investigative limitations and time. It's also family members trying to
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survive the transformation of someone they love into internet lore.
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For Alexis Wagoner, Brian's girlfriend, the aftermath was devastating. She
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had expected a vacation, she expected phone calls, she expected
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a future. Instead, she entered the strange ritual of the missing, calling, searching, waiting,
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answering questions, repeating details, and learning that the world can
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keep moving while your life remains stopped at two a m.
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For Randy Schaeffer, the loss was a second catastrophe following
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00:26:20.079 --> 00:26:25.079
his wife's death. He searched for Brian publicly and emotionally.
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00:26:26.200 --> 00:26:30.079
News footage and interviews from the period show a father
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00:26:30.799 --> 00:26:36.240
clinging to hope, wearing Brian's photo, saying in different ways
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that his son had to be out there somewhere. Then,
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00:26:42.160 --> 00:26:46.359
in two thousand eight, Randy was killed when a falling
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00:26:46.519 --> 00:26:51.920
tree limb struck him during a windstorm. The family had
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already been split open by absence and was now struck
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00:26:56.400 --> 00:27:02.720
again by sudden death. Brian's brother Derek became one of
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the people left to carry the case forward. In two
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thousand and twenty six, as the twentieth anniversary approached, he
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00:27:13.519 --> 00:27:16.960
issued a statement saying that not a day went by
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without thinking of Brian, and that he believed someone out
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there knew what happened. That's not a conspiracy theory. It's
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the exhausted hope of a family that has waited two
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decades for some one to speak. Meanwhile, the public kept
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building stories around the case. The building theory had the
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cleanest hook. If cameras didn't catch Brian leaving, maybe the
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answer was still inside the walls. But investigators searched the
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bar and the larger complex repeatedly, and hearsts twenty twenty
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six comments pushed hard against that idea. In his view,
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Brian exited. The more useful question is not whether he
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vanished inside a haunted box, it's what happened after the
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00:28:18.519 --> 00:28:24.759
building stopped recording him. The accident theory requires no villain.
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00:28:25.480 --> 00:28:32.720
It requires bad luck, intoxication, the dark, and one fatal
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00:28:32.839 --> 00:28:39.519
wrong turn, a dangerous construction area, water, a concealed fall,
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00:28:39.799 --> 00:28:45.680
or some overlooked space, But the lack of physical evidence
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keeps it unresolved. The foul play theory is the one
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many investigators and observers find difficult to dismiss. In twenty
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twenty six, retire detective Hurst said Brian was probably deceased
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and that foul play was likely. That doesn't identify a killer,
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but it reflects the grim instinct of someone who spent
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00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:21.079
years looking at the case. The voluntary disappearance theory lingers
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00:29:21.599 --> 00:29:26.640
because Brian had grief and stress, but it struggles against
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the evidence of his attachments. He had plans with his girlfriend,
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he had medical school. He left behind the ordinary structure
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of life. No confirmed post disappearance trail emerged. Then come
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the wilder theories. Some have tried to connect Brian's disappearance
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00:29:50.480 --> 00:29:55.400
to the so called smiley face killer theory, a disputed
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00:29:55.480 --> 00:30:00.359
idea linking the deaths and disappearances of young men near
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00:30:00.559 --> 00:30:06.119
water in different cities. Law enforcement and the FBI have
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generally rejected the broader theory, and there's no confirmed evidence
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00:30:12.039 --> 00:30:16.480
tying Brian's case to a serial killer. It's easy to
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00:30:16.599 --> 00:30:21.480
see why people reach for a pattern. Patterns feel better
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00:30:21.799 --> 00:30:29.160
than randomness, but not every cluster is a conspiracy, not
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every mystery belongs to a master narrative. None of these
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00:30:35.759 --> 00:30:41.640
have been proven. The serial killer theories remain speculative and
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00:30:42.279 --> 00:30:48.240
unsupported by confirmed case evidence. The most honest answer is
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00:30:48.319 --> 00:30:54.359
also the hardest one for an audience. Investigators still don't
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00:30:54.480 --> 00:30:59.839
know what happened. The architecture of the disappearance keeps pulling
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00:31:00.039 --> 00:31:06.759
people back. The escalator, the second floor entrance, the camera angle,
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00:31:07.799 --> 00:31:13.200
the two women, the final turn, the missing exit shot.
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There's something almost theatrical about it, like Brian stepped behind
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00:31:20.039 --> 00:31:24.079
a curtain and the stage hands forgot to bring him back.
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But real disappearances are not stage tricks. The curtain is
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00:31:30.680 --> 00:31:37.759
made of missing data. The ugly Tuna Saluna itself eventually closed,
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and the physical landscape changed. Businesses come and go, campus
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districts reinvent themselves. The people who were students that night
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became adults with careers and children. A disappearance that happened
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00:31:56.880 --> 00:32:00.799
at the edge of the modern digital age now feels
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00:32:00.920 --> 00:32:06.480
both recent and ancient. Enough technology to show us the
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00:32:06.599 --> 00:32:11.640
beginning of the vanishing, not enough to show us the end,
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00:32:13.119 --> 00:32:25.799
and so the case lives in the gap. Tips came
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00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:31.319
from around the world. Some were checked and dismissed, Some
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00:32:31.680 --> 00:32:36.559
led nowhere. A homeless man in Mexico who resembled Brian
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00:32:36.759 --> 00:32:42.119
was analyzed and ruled out. The online condolence message was
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00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:46.920
traced as a hoax. Each false lead added another layer
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00:32:47.200 --> 00:32:53.680
of scar tissue for investigators. A cold case is not frozen,
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00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:58.799
but it is slow. It waits for a witness to talk,
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00:32:59.519 --> 00:33:05.440
for technology to improve, for a forgotten detail to become meaningful,
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00:33:06.960 --> 00:33:12.160
for someone to clear their conscience. The Ohio Attorney General's
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00:33:12.200 --> 00:33:17.079
twenty twenty one age progressed image was a reminder that
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00:33:17.640 --> 00:33:23.039
official hope still existed. It was also a reminder that
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00:33:23.240 --> 00:33:28.599
every passing year changes the face people are supposed to recognize.
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00:33:29.519 --> 00:33:32.400
Imagine being asked to look for a man who is
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00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:36.640
two people at once. The Brian of two thousand and
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00:33:36.839 --> 00:33:43.400
six twenty seven, smiling, tall, walking into spring break, the
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00:33:43.480 --> 00:33:49.559
Brian of now older, if alive, his face altered by time,
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00:33:50.279 --> 00:33:55.799
his life either hidden beyond belief or cut short long ago.
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00:33:57.279 --> 00:34:01.920
That duality is what makes the case so haunting. Missing
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00:34:02.039 --> 00:34:05.920
persons do not remain still for the people who love them.
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00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:11.960
They age in imagination, They appear in crowds, pass in
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00:34:12.039 --> 00:34:16.920
the face of a stranger at an airport. Brian Schaefer's
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00:34:16.960 --> 00:34:21.000
story is not only about the night he disappeared. It's
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about the years after, when everyone else had to keep
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00:34:25.599 --> 00:34:31.440
living inside the question so what happened to Brian Shaeffer?
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00:34:32.599 --> 00:34:37.440
The most honest answer is really the one no storyteller
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00:34:37.599 --> 00:34:42.960
wants to give. We don't know, but we don't know
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00:34:43.320 --> 00:34:48.280
does not mean every theory is equal. Some possibilities fit
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00:34:48.400 --> 00:34:53.760
the known facts better than others. Some are dramatic but weak,
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Some are boring but plausible. Many depend on one central
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00:34:59.599 --> 00:35:06.079
assumption that Brian left the bar unseen. Once you accept
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00:35:06.239 --> 00:35:12.920
that possibility, the mystery changes. It becomes less about magic
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00:35:13.639 --> 00:35:18.679
and more about minutes, A few minutes after two am,
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00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:26.559
a street, a stranger, a shortcut, a fall, a decision,
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00:35:27.400 --> 00:35:33.760
a car door, a riverbank, a construction fence, a person
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00:35:34.239 --> 00:35:39.760
who has managed to stay silent for twenty years. Retired
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00:35:39.840 --> 00:35:45.199
detective Hearsts twenty twenty six. Comments are significant because they
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00:35:45.320 --> 00:35:50.679
cut through the most popular myth. He believes Brian indeed
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00:35:51.320 --> 00:35:56.679
exited the building. He believes the search is inside or thorough.
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00:35:57.519 --> 00:36:02.199
He believes Brian is likely deceased, and that foul play
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00:36:03.119 --> 00:36:08.000
is most probable. This isn't a solved case, but it
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00:36:08.280 --> 00:36:13.480
is a grounded investigative instinct. It suggests the answers may
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00:36:13.599 --> 00:36:17.679
not be hidden in the bar at all. It may
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00:36:17.760 --> 00:36:23.719
have been waiting just beyond the camera. If foul play occurred,
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00:36:24.239 --> 00:36:29.880
the window may have been brutally small. Brian leaves unseen,
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00:36:30.719 --> 00:36:36.519
he encounters someone, something happens quickly. The body is moved
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00:36:36.719 --> 00:36:43.719
or concealed before anyone realizes he's missing. That scenario does
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00:36:43.800 --> 00:36:51.119
not require a criminal genius. It requires timing, opportunity, and luck,
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00:36:52.320 --> 00:36:57.119
the ugly luck offenders sometimes get when a victim's last
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00:36:57.239 --> 00:37:03.559
confirmed movements are confused by alcohol, crowds, and closing time.
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00:37:04.239 --> 00:37:09.400
If an accident occurred, the same small window applies. Brian
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00:37:09.559 --> 00:37:14.920
exits disoriented or tired, he takes a wrong path, enters
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00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:20.840
an unsafe area, falls, becomes trapped, or ends up in water.
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00:37:21.920 --> 00:37:26.239
The reason this theory persists is because accidents can look
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00:37:26.440 --> 00:37:31.800
like disappearances when the body is never found. The reason
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00:37:31.880 --> 00:37:36.800
it frustrates people is because so much searching produces nothing.
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00:37:38.079 --> 00:37:41.880
If voluntary disappearance occurred, it would be one of the
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00:37:41.960 --> 00:37:48.239
most complete examples imaginable. He would have had to leave family, behind,
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00:37:48.719 --> 00:37:54.000
a girlfriend, school, all of his belongings and identity while
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00:37:54.079 --> 00:37:59.760
avoiding confirmed detection for decades. Grief can make people flee,
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00:38:00.000 --> 00:38:05.599
but total silence is harder to explain, and if someone
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00:38:05.760 --> 00:38:10.599
close to Brian knew more. The case remains locked behind
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00:38:10.760 --> 00:38:17.639
human silence. That is the hardest possibility for families, because
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00:38:17.679 --> 00:38:21.079
it means the answer is not in a river, not
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00:38:21.360 --> 00:38:25.559
in a wall, not in a camera frame. It's in
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00:38:25.800 --> 00:38:32.159
a person. The absence of an answer creates temptation. It
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00:38:32.360 --> 00:38:35.639
tempts us to make the mystery prettier than it is,
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00:38:36.519 --> 00:38:41.559
cleaner than it is, stranger than it needs to be.
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00:38:42.679 --> 00:38:46.800
We want the bar to become a haunted box. We
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00:38:46.920 --> 00:38:50.039
want the camera to be a doorway. We want the
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00:38:50.239 --> 00:38:56.400
final footage to contain a hidden clue visible only to
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00:38:56.559 --> 00:39:02.480
the clever. But the most frightening version may be the simplest.
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00:39:03.719 --> 00:39:09.280
Brian Schaeffer left the frame and something happened in the
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00:39:09.400 --> 00:39:14.440
world outside it. That's all it takes. A frame is
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00:39:14.960 --> 00:39:20.039
not protection, A camera is not a guardian angel. A
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00:39:20.159 --> 00:39:25.239
crowded street can become empty in the wrong direction. A
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00:39:25.400 --> 00:39:29.840
night full of people can leave one person alone at
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00:39:29.920 --> 00:39:36.480
exactly the wrong moment. There's another reason the case endures,
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00:39:36.880 --> 00:39:42.639
especially in Ohio. Brian was not abstract. He was local.
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00:39:43.320 --> 00:39:48.440
He was someone's classmate. His disappearance sits in the geography
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00:39:48.920 --> 00:39:54.199
of a real place. North High Street campus bars, the
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00:39:54.280 --> 00:39:59.840
Olin tangy, the shifting face of Columbus. People who know
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00:40:00.119 --> 00:40:06.320
those streets can imagine the walk. That familiarity makes the
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00:40:06.440 --> 00:40:12.960
vanishing feel personal, And maybe that's why Brian Schaefer's disappearance
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00:40:13.119 --> 00:40:17.760
feels less like a puzzle box and more like a warning.
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00:40:18.719 --> 00:40:23.039
We like to believe modern life captures everything. We like
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00:40:23.159 --> 00:40:27.639
to believe that cameras, phones, friends, and cities create a
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00:40:27.760 --> 00:40:32.559
net strong enough to catch us. But nets have holes,
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00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:37.400
and on April first, two thousand and six, Brian Schaefer
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slipped through. One. Terrifying and True is narrated by Enrique Kuto.
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00:40:44.360 --> 00:40:47.760
It's executive produced by Rob Fields and bobble Topia dot
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00:40:47.880 --> 00:40:51.480
com and produced by Dan Wilder, with original theme music
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00:40:51.599 --> 00:40:54.199
by Ray Mattis. If you have a story you think
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00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:57.000
we should cover on Terrifying and True, send us an
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00:40:57.039 --> 00:41:00.679
email at Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com, and if
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00:41:00.679 --> 00:41:02.199
you want to support us for as little as one
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dollar a month, go to Weeklyspooky dot com slash join.
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Your support for as little as one dollar a month
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keeps the show going. And speaking of I want to
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say an extra special thank you to our Patreon podcast boosters,
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00:41:13.760 --> 00:41:15.559
folks who pay a little bit more to hear their
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name at the end of the show, and they are
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Johnny Nicks, Kate and Lulu, Jessica Fuller, Mike Escuey, Jenny Green,
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Amber Hansford, Karen Wee, Met Jack Ker and Craig Cohen.
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00:41:26.199 --> 00:41:28.400
Thank you all so much, and thank you for listening.
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We'll see you all right here next time on Terrifying
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and True
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