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foreign [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome everybody to the Columbus
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podcast Festival remember tonight that photos and videos you're welcome to take them just please no flash photography
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this is a live recording Okay so act alive all right feel free to to laugh if something's funny or to cheer
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or yupp it up it's always helpful to hear the audience so don't feel like you have to be quiet go ahead and join with
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with these guys and and we'll have a good time so next up we have a true crime garage and they are Hometown
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favorite [Applause] this podcast usually discusses real life cases our our host Tim Fulton he's not a
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host he's a moderator Tim Fulton will be interviewing Nick and Captain good to have you guys with us tonight
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and they might even be taking some questions if you have a good question okay I say there are no stupid questions
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but they're going to make that judgment call on their own okay there are so many
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answers right so at this time I'm going to turn it over to Tim and True Crime garage
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thank you Bob thank you so much Bob's uh I believe I think joining us throughout the
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weekend for uh announcing as as much as much as you're available um guys first of all Captain nick uh
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tell us how you started doing True Crime garage you tell the story better than I do
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because this is my part of this way so um well about three years ago we were I've known this guy I've had the
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pleasure of knowing him for over 30 years now so I'm the winner um no anyway we've been friends grown up
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together and we've always had a love for talk shows and then podcasts came along
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and he was listening to some podcasts I was listening to some podcast and we would jokingly say over the phone you
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know we could do that that's something we could do that doesn't seem so hard um I never thought we could do it
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we both got laid off from jobs that we had for a long time didn't know really what to do with ourselves for a while
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while we were out looking for work we decided to hang out drink beer and just try to
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do a little talk show and we started recording them in my garage and then one day we released them
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and somebody started listening and then they told a friend and they started listening and he's missing something
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three years later so we recorded like five episodes five or six episodes then we almost got into a fist fight
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and then we didn't talk for about three months and then we released the shows I think he missed me a lot because we
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didn't talk for like three weeks no it was like three months and he called and begging
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well in all fairness though he was really drunk when we almost got in the fist fight
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that'll happen that'll happen why why the subject matter for you guys I understand the talk show aspect and sort
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of having the itch to get up in front of people while you're not actually in front of people but why the the true
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crime or crime format well he's he's always been into it I mean I think I've told the story on the show
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before second grade riding on the bus to school and he'd be behind me talking with some
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other guy about Unsolved Mysteries and I'm sorry like Robert Stack unsolved mystery yeah okay every day
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and um and so through our friendship because we were in a band together in high school and a little bit into
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college and then we would talk about music and other things but we'd always kind of end up
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talking about crime it just always went that way so he's the one that said uh let's try a podcast and let's talk True
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Crime and I think my first thought was wait we're going to talk about True Crime every week
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so well well and the funny thing is this is hard to believe because now there's like
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300 000 True Crime podcasts right but back one to be to be fair sort of in the the context of this Festival uh True
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Crime sort of made a whole lot of people aware of podcasts yeah right as well and at the time there was not that many
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when we when we first started talking about this idea and started working on it there wasn't it wasn't you know as
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I hate to say watered down but there wasn't so many so many kids in the swimming pool back then and so it was
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kind of looking at something that that I enjoyed listening to and thinking of okay well what can we do that's
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this but different right now there's a lot of pee in the pool and so what was sort of the talked me
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through the model of how you guys said okay we're going to start talking about this and what's the structure and what
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information do we need to have how do we choose things and you know how you're going to do it
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uh well that's been a learning process I mean how did it start so well the funny
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thing was so uh Nick decided we're going to talk about a phantom killer where that's gonna be the first case we talk
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about and so we both went and he did his research and I did my research and then
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we decided well we'll call each other and if we can talk for an hour on the phone then we know that we're able to do
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a podcast and so for whatever reason he didn't research the case at all and I did and so we still talked for an
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hour because I won't shut up and and then I think he realized oh I I'm because to say that he's an expert is probably
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an understatement I mean we were talking to one of the comedians downstairs and he's like I love True Crime
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novels I'm reading one right now I can't remember what it's called I don't know the guy's name and he gives like two or
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three facts about the case and Nick's going oh that's so and so and the guy's like you're right
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and then he talks about another book that he can't remember the name can't remember the perpetrator
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and he's going all right so he's just been an expert from before we started recording and then on
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top of that then he's had to say okay you know you can't just rely on the information that you used to know to get
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through two hours a week so he does tons of research does that answer the question it
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absolutely does I guess I what I wonder about is what were the early mistakes like what
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you came up and you started talking about things and listeners would be like yeah but you didn't truly describe what
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the pro like you know you forgot to say that guy got murdered right we've always
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said that guy got murdered okay good but you have that built into the format right and we built that into the unless
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the guy didn't get murdered and then we don't said no but I think it's weird because we we didn't we haven't talked
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about it a lot it's just kind of been something that we've grown into doing where it's like
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you know I'm the audio guy and I'm the musician of the group so oh we need the theme song I just created one and played
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it for him one day and he was like oh that works and then we you know had an intro that we did differently and then
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over time we're like well that kind of sucks but we didn't really talk about it we just kind of was like oh let's try to
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make this better this is how we'll make it better so you get to poke them a little bit well but the other thing
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though too is when we first started and still to this day we've encouraged whoever is uh kind enough to listen to
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us we we want it to be it's a community you know we want it to be a you know a group
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thing so we do get a lot of critiquing from the audience yeah mainly they want to kick me off and we've used
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we've you know and but I mean we're going to be true to who we are and what we want to do in the first place but we
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do allow that to steer us a little bit because we all can get better at what we do we all can learn
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and uh and based on that feedback you you're like oh maybe we should talk about oh yeah yeah right yeah you
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you're and you and you listen and you go oh yeah you know what I we didn't touch
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upon that or maybe we maybe we stayed too long on this one thing that was not so important
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um but yeah we we've allowed the the listeners to help us get better and I want to touch on two points then
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before we sort of get into what in my head is the bulk of our conversation tonight first of all what what was that
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transition like from hey we're just recording and uh we're not making any money doing this how did
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you first this is your jobs now is that right yeah yeah so how how did that this
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sound shitty but how did that monetization happen slow [Music] long well but how like when someone said
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I want to give you money or well we're you soliciting people we were so what happened was we started so what
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happened officer was uh we started the podcast when we're both laid off I never got a job
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he got a job but and I'm sorry Nick what's your field I've worked in Property Management okay
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I don't know how long okay so he gets a job we're doing the show now mind you the
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bulk of the research comes from him so he's working the property management job he's like
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dude this job is going to be great I only have to work like 35 hours a week I could spend a bunch of time on the show
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like two weeks into this job he's working you know 50 60 hours a week and we're still trying to put out a show
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and making no money but uh I I was actually interning at a Library Columbus library and they had
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this program that I was trying to get involved and when I went in for my interview the first thing they asked me
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about was true crime garage and I just they knew about it yeah they knew you did it yeah okay and the reason
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why that I don't use my name is because I was teaching kids guitar lessons music
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lessons I didn't want to be given a lesson to a kid and then their parents find out about the show and go well this
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is kind of weird we don't want to have our kid go to this guy can I can I poke you on that a little bit sure why
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what's it it is an adult show I mean we're well you're talking about gruesome things right but you're not inserting
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your you are not part of the story right like it's like saying Robert Stack can't
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teach my kid guitar right right right yeah it's not any farther than that um I'm sorry for the sorry I'm old
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Robert Stack was the host of all the industries yeah but he just like you know walked
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slow in a trench coat and spoke really well with a great voice right where us we might be like a part of our show
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where we're announcing that we're drinking dortmunder Gold by Great Lakes Brewing Company
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and Nick's favorite beer and the you know this this perpetrator broke into a home murdered this person and
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masturbated on the bed and then left right right like I don't wanna and that's not every show that
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just happens once in a while and I'm sorry last week's show okay Captain I got you off so you were at a point where
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uh Nick was employed you were uh interning also doing uh garage or excuse me guitar lessons
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yeah well I mean you played in a band yeah I was playing cover band gigs and and that's the other thing too is as I
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was getting older and and my buddies were playing they're going hey I'm I'm starting a new band
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next year and I kept on thinking this is getting really old and these the the crowd stayed the same age uh and some
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guys like that I don't like that um and it it got to the point where I was like what the heck am I going to do with
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my life and I just have this gut feeling well when I left my interview for the library job I had a gut feeling that I
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got the job and I did not get the job and then I was just and I don't know if Nick can talk about this too much or not
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or how much he remembers but I just had this feeling that it was all go going to
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work out and I started emailing ad agents like every day sometimes twice a day and right I got so angry that I was
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trying to do the right thing and trying to help these kids in need at the library and that that they want to give
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me a job and I just I mean I seriously emailed our agent probably a hundred times so literally
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you said I didn't get that job I know that this other thing can work out I'll make it happen yeah
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and that's and that'll be where we are yeah and I used to like write stuff on on this board of what I thought was
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going to happen like oh we're gonna get this let's go division board yeah I called him my Conor McGregor
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board because yeah I watched some video on his like power of belief and all this stuff and I
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was just like that's that [ __ ] must work so and then I'd write stuff on the board
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and it would come true and Nick would be like hey you should write bigger numbers
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on the board yeah I started believing in this board thing after I saw work a few
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times right he'd say something like you know I'm hoping one day that we do could
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do this and I'm like idiot bored put it on the board well I have to see it in my head first
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I don't know the process I don't claim to understand the process well and it's funny to me that because
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that Nick you started out as the brains and then Captain sort of became the brains of it in terms of sharing one
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brain the business of it what's the what's the work look like now obviously you guys are still producing
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the podcast and still doing research and we're going to talk about sort of that the research process of it in a minute
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but um Captain I know I reached out to you a couple of weeks ago and I said hey I
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just want to do a pre-interview and talk to you for like an hour and you were like I'm sorry I can't that day because
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I'm doing merch all day right what what else what are the things that you guys have to deal with
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well that's another thing that's weird is we we just haven't we don't have like a lot of meetings like hey let's have a
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meeting um so the the kind of the workload just kind of happen the way it happened you know
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um I know how to build websites so I built one I run the social media he hates social media and
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and so Nick is nodding yes yeah things just kind of got um divvied up that way and but it's our strengths too so I mean
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Nick I mean there's I mean I'm sure if you listen to the show there's weeks that I
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don't know a lot about the case but I know that Nick will know whatever we're supposed you can provide
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commentary then and sometimes I think sometimes there's value to not knowing yeah because then you get to ask the
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questions that I think a listener may be like wait hold on what up what about that right well and there have been
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it's not often but there's been a few times where I've told you like hey don't look into this one too much
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yeah and it's not it's not so that I can sit there and talk about it it's so that
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if he knows everything that I know has nothing to talk how organically will the questions come about that we can get
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into some kind of discussion right because there's some that I know as well as he does and he starts talking and I'm
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bored out of my mind because I'm just sitting there going yeah we know this already well and
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you're not you're not gonna engage and you're not and and frankly I think those are the risky moments for the audience
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because you may forget something because you guys just know it inherently you know we always create you know so he
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goes off and does his research and I go off and do mine but we normally will text back and forth to create
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some kind of loose outline of how we want to play something out another thing that I think Nick has learned is in the
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beginning he he wanna sometimes report on certain things that they didn't go anywhere you know
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there was it was part of the investigation but it didn't go anywhere so it would get done with the episode of
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be going hey you didn't even talk about this other guy or this other suspect and
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he was like well it didn't go anywhere so it really doesn't have any relevance in the case and that's true a lot of
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times but sometimes that's the most interesting thing about the case so I think I think he's learned over time to
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you know this really doesn't have anything to do with an investigation but it's interesting and so it's that
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balance between giving them information but also being entertaining as well right well and I think and here's where
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the flip happens in this conversation I want to talk about you guys this research process and I think that
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correct me if I'm wrong a lot of the well listened to most feedback given episodes have been
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on things where you sort of continue to pursue what the things that didn't go anywhere or the things that weren't
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necessarily paid attention to given the nature of the case uh I think the folks in the audience
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know because it was it was put out there that we're going to talk sort of through
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a little bit uh the Brian Shaffer case uh and talk through sort of it was one of the earliest uh cases that
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you guys pursued is that correct yeah okay give us first of all just sort of the Baseline here is who Brian Schaefer
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was and here is is what we know from a from a public perspective about that case who here knows about the Brian
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Shafer case so most you do you don't know nothing um so Nick will just do a little
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reminder yeah okay so for those of you that don't know uh Brian Shaffer was a medical student at OSU he went missing
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technically on April 1st of 2006 from the Ugly Tuna saluna here in Columbus Ohio
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he has classified as endangered missing still to this day now Brian was born February 25th 1979 he was 27 years old
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at the time that he went missing six foot two 165 pounds Caucasian light brown hair Hazel now hazel eyes now one
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thing about Brian an identifier for him is he had a Pearl Jam tattoo on his arm he was last seen like we said at the
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Ugly Tuna saluna and that's at the Ohio State University campus which is only a couple miles from here and the times on
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these could be up for debate but for the sake of this uh purpose it was roughly between 1 30 and 2 A.M in the morning he
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was out there celebrating it was the beginning of Spring Break so he's out partying it up for the night
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he's seen on surveillance going into the bar there was an escalator that took you upstairs if
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anybody's familiar with it it's on the second floor so he's seen going into the bar and he's not seen leaving the bar
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and we don't know what happened to him after that he went there with a couple of friends This was um Clint and
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Meredith and I believe he knew Clint for quite some time they were close the friends did leave without him that night
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they stated that he at some point said he was going to there's a little debate on this but
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either use the restroom or go talk to the band go talk to the band seems to be the majority the belief here
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Brian was a musician he played the guitar so that makes sense uh he goes off on his own thing
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they have his friends have a little information other than now the bar is closing and we don't know where our
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friend is they wait around for a little bit and eventually they leave without him
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they probably assume like anybody else that's gone out with their friends you get separated especially if you have if
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your friend is Brian wasn't single but you know if you go out with your friends and your your
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buddy's single or your girlfriend is single and yeah you don't always end up at the same place at the end of the
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night even though you went to the same bar so um the crazy thing about him though and
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the the many interesting things about his case and we've only found this to be the case with a handful of other cases
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and typically it works out with these missing persons cases is that you can take one thing that happened
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that night and you can analyze it and you can really put together a good argument for
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many different reasons why that happened because you don't know the conclusion we
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don't know the the result of what happened so and and the reason why Brian falls into
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this category for us is because there is some thought that maybe he would have left on his own maybe he just walked
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away from his life maybe something terrible happened to him and I want to cut you off there and just sort of talk
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before before we get into the the study that you guys have done is talk about how
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impactful this case was to the Columbus Community as a whole this was a uh and I apologize if I'm stepping on any
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toes uh there was a whole lot of conjecture surrounding the fact that the um the Gateway complex where this bar
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was was not finished in its construction hence there was not uh first of all nothing was finished there was a whole
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lot of security cameras that could have been there but were not there but we're simply there right surrounding that bar
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this was a a frankly this was a white guy in his mid-20s that that was in medical school
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that had nothing but success ahead of him a girlfriend and it was like what a terrible loss
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let me go for a second not because I want to address the the first part of it as far as you know
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the thought of how impactful this was to the area to to our city and that was the
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main reason why we wanted to cover this case yeah so nowadays we typically we don't pick I mean we pick the cases we
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cover but we have a long list that's been presented to us by by the listeners and so we just cherry-picked from that
00:25:04
list but back then when we covered this case we we were more in control of that because we didn't have so many
00:25:09
suggestions we get 20 30 40 suggestions a week now yeah and so back then the reason why we wanted to cover it is both
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the captain and I like to go out and you said I'd go and sit in a bar and I would
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overhear some people next to me and somebody go you would hear this from time to time
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you go hey you remember that that dude that went missing from some place on campus so what was that like two years
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ago right and then you know and and then other times I would hear people having a
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similar discussion and somebody going oh yeah yeah they found that guy he was in
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the sciota river and then another time I'd hear the story and it was oh they found that guy he was living on an
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island somewhere he's perfectly fine right and so he and I kept having this conversation we're like this was a story
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that was very impactful for literally two weeks or a month to the point where kind of everybody was
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paying attention to it if you walked around in the area you saw Brian's picture somewhere
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but after that month went away people kind of came up with their own conclusions people started listening to
00:26:12
the rumors that were going around and they became truths to these people just as a point of matter there's been a
00:26:19
story in the dispatch on the around about April 1st every year since it happened right
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and then we're coming up on 12 years right and they just had a March for him the narrative becomes well this happened
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and then we just make up what happened you know well and who gets to because it's not a murder it is a and
00:26:45
I'm sorry there's a a term of art it's a it's not a missing person but a missing
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person in danger they have him listed on on some places is endangered missing got
00:26:57
it endangered missing and that's a term of art for for the police what who gets to
00:27:04
Define that narrative in my head it's it's a lot the Press right uh because that's they're trying to Define things
00:27:12
that are interesting but also that narrative I imagine gets defined within the police the existing family it should
00:27:21
be noted that the the father has now passed away how did that narrative when you guys
00:27:27
explored the case get defined well well it seems like and we're talking about backstage about that if you have a
00:27:34
murder victim right The Narrative becomes from the victim's family and friends oh and we hear it all
00:27:43
the time she was you know a great mother and she was this and but then we have another thing that comes out is that we
00:27:50
have a bunch of evidence and once we have the evidence come out that's a part of the narrative as well and so if
00:27:57
there's you know there's been plenty of cases that they're saying oh well she's happily married and she's this and she's
00:28:03
that and then you find out well she had a boyfriend on the side and that because that becomes part of
00:28:09
the narrative well in this case or any missing person case we don't have evidence
00:28:16
so the only narrative that we have normally is the the missing person's family but in this case it's even
00:28:25
stranger because we actually have two narratives so we have you know his mother passed away
00:28:31
and so we have a surviving father and we have a surviving brother and to be clear
00:28:35
she passed away before he he went missing like three weeks yeah very shortly three
00:28:42
weeks later okay she passed away with cancer yeah so we have the the newspaper saying hey we're willing to write
00:28:48
stories so who's this narrative coming from it's going to come from the father and of course you're not going to kick
00:28:54
back on anything on the father because his son went missing but in this case it's a little more
00:29:01
interesting because it was covered a little bit by like Dateline and it was on some other shows and then now we have
00:29:09
the internet and if you really look into this case that's where the second narrative comes in it's man walks into a
00:29:16
bar man disappears and that's the second narrative yeah it's like a yes if anybody saw the um I
00:29:24
think it was a dateline right yeah they basically made it like a like a nine ten
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minute ghost story right you know this guy walks into a bar boom disappears Into Thin Air never seen again when
00:29:35
really there's so much more going on here there's things that happen before there's things going on in this young
00:29:42
man's life before uh and maybe after too I mean right and now a word from our sponsor
00:29:56
from this point forward I want to as when you introduce we're not going to talk about how you
00:30:05
guys sort of research the facts we we will but this is this is a a fantastic example of how you research them now
00:30:16
and so uh please be courteous to the audience about what you guys have presented before and what is a a known
00:30:27
fact and what is uh something that was not known before let me jump in real quick here go ahead you don't have to
00:30:34
ask permission well you got you looked excited I always look excited okay so when you say how we present how
00:30:43
we research the cases now um this because you're not just presenting here's something we saw on
00:30:51
Wikipedia that was cool let us tell you a story about this case so with this particular situation and this has
00:30:59
happened with several other cases that we've done so what we will talk about here tonight will be
00:31:07
significantly different than what you will hear on the show because of one one fact it's this sometimes when we cover a
00:31:14
case we get someone will reach out to us after the shows are released these aren't
00:31:21
people we would have known to talk to not people that we would would have known wanted to talk right before we
00:31:27
covered a case but sometimes we will someone will reach out to us it might be somebody that knew the victim it might
00:31:33
be a family member we've had many family members reach out to us with with good responses and with bad responses
00:31:42
um mostly they're like me so with this case in particular we since we covered this one back in 2016 and the
00:31:52
early part of 2016 we've had two years for people to decide to reach out to us so we'll talk about some things tonight
00:32:01
that we didn't talk about when we covered this case back then but keep in mind some of this information that we
00:32:07
covered is stuff we went looking for or went looking for something else and found this along the way and other
00:32:15
things that we talk about are things that were brought to us that were presented to us so I want everybody to
00:32:21
take most of this with a grain of salt it was you know some of these are second or third-hand stories
00:32:28
um but yeah so when we're actually doing this show we don't we don't if we're speculating on something we'd say we're
00:32:34
speculating right right and in this case it was missing person cases are actually
00:32:39
easy to cover on some level because there's so much speculation if there is no evidence that there was a
00:32:48
crime then did they go missing because they wanted to go missing did they start a
00:32:53
new life were they killed are they kept captured you know did somebody have them
00:32:59
locked in the basement somewhere you know and you can just kind of dive into what evidence you know beforehand
00:33:05
on how we think that might have happened so this one with Brian's mother passing
00:33:11
away so recent the thought is that maybe he would leave and start a new life somewhere and then
00:33:18
so when we covered this case we dive into all these little bits and pieces we I don't think we're going to go over all
00:33:25
that again right no we don't need to do yeah we don't need to do that for two hours so
00:33:30
this beer got to me uh I had a thought this is why we edit I'm sorry I have a oh where am I at I
00:33:40
lost my train all right well how about I set it up a little bit for you because there is some stuff that we do know that
00:33:45
are facts okay so as he was telling us that Brian's father passed away it was a freak accident remember the Windstorm
00:33:54
that we had um I think this was um what's that yes so during the Windstorm Randy which is Brian's father he was a
00:34:06
falling tree hit him and killed him so one strange Twist on this story is that when it came time to have Randy's
00:34:16
funeral now mind you Brian is missing at this time and who was leading the charge
00:34:21
looking for Brian it was Randy his father right so The Columbus Dispatch they set it up so that people could go
00:34:31
online and you could sign into the guest book for Randy Schaefer's funeral for his memorial
00:34:39
and during the course of this Somebody went online and they signed in as Brian Schaefer
00:34:46
stating something very simple you know like I miss you Dad I love you Dad something to that effect
00:34:53
well in a claim that it was coming from the Virgin Islands well remember we've already covered that there's some
00:35:00
thought that maybe Brian would have taken off on his own to start all over again so people were going oh this was
00:35:06
the one thing that was powerful enough to bring this young man back even if it was just for a little
00:35:12
blurp on a on a website just on the internet yeah and so the Columbus Police Department got a hold of this
00:35:19
information very quickly and they filed the proper subpoenas they went and they tried to track down where did this come
00:35:27
from did this come from the Virgin Islands they reached out to media and law enforcement in the Virgin Islands
00:35:35
no tips ever came from the Virgin Islands nobody's claimed to have seen Brian nothing was reported to law
00:35:42
enforcement now back home what happened was they discovered that and I wish we could
00:35:49
pinpoint this a little better but the best that we can say is that they discovered that that came from a public
00:35:56
computer in Columbus proper somebody used a public computer so there again like we discussed there's an
00:36:06
argument for either side did Brian go to a public computer after all these years of hiding and leave a
00:36:12
message for his father or was some jackass out there playing a bad taste you know tasteless joke and just a
00:36:21
point of order that is a established fact that has been that's yeah I wanted to set it up with some
00:36:27
facts so you can kind of see how these things can steer you in either direction and neither is wrong but it's it's
00:36:36
interesting to ponder these these different items okay we're going to be talking about stuff if you don't know
00:36:41
the case super well I'm sorry if we lose you because some of this information is
00:36:45
new and I'll ask some clarifying questions but so like we said we have this missing college student
00:36:53
um we were actually contacted by this guy named Nicholas West that guy right there
00:37:00
I hate his guts you can clap for him if you want so but you don't have to so Nicholas contacts the show and he
00:37:09
says you know I'm we're looking in I'm looking to do a series on Brian Shafer uh which he has put out it's called come
00:37:17
back the The Disappearance of Brian Shafer so we would communicate back and forth
00:37:24
quite a bit to see if we could because basically he called saying I'd like to get you on the show and we're doing a
00:37:32
series and then we're like oh well that's a case that we keep looking into maybe we can team up and do something
00:37:40
together um unfortunately because Nicholas is stupid he just no no no but so it was mainly
00:37:51
we're so busy with our show and he's trying to push his show forward that we couldn't
00:37:57
you know for us I mean we're already doing a case every week so for us to take on a series
00:38:04
would take a lot of time and effort and stuff so we were basically we basically became um BFFs and texting and calling
00:38:12
and all this new information is coming out years later and what what the interesting thing to me was is that when
00:38:22
we covered the case we talked about it for two hours but we're talking about it from The Narrative of his father
00:38:28
and we're talking about The Narrative of Dateline and all these other people and what we've really realized is that
00:38:36
narrative was very false so what was the just to give a general idea of what the
00:38:43
narrative would be coming from Randy and from what we've all been told early on in this case was
00:38:49
that Brian his loved ones described his disappearance as highly unusual because he was a second year medical student at
00:38:57
OSU at the time of his disappearance he made excellent grades he had a girlfriend
00:39:02
they were planning a vacation in Miami Florida for that spring break and we're scheduled to fly there on April 3rd just
00:39:10
two days after his disappearance his family reported him missing after he missed the airplane flight to Miami
00:39:18
Florida now Schaefer was in love with his girlfriend and reportedly please note he is giving air quotes in
00:39:28
love plan to marry her and as we stated his mother had recently passed away from
00:39:34
cancer however his family and friends stated that he was not depressed nor suicidal at the time of his
00:39:41
disappearance um there there is another weird couple more facts before we get into some of the the
00:39:49
more out of the box stuff but in May of 2006 someone broke into Brian shaffer's apartment the burglar returned out to be
00:39:58
unrelated to his disappearance and at the time of his disappearance Schaefer's father
00:40:05
um they they searched the Olentangy River for his remains and this search obviously turned up nothing so that's
00:40:15
the narrative and based off that we did two hour show and that's not really the correct
00:40:22
narrative as what we came to find well we shouldn't say correct because that's the what we've come to learn is
00:40:32
that is not the narrative that is shared by everyone right and I kind of wondered this too because
00:40:40
you know when I think about my parents um if I would go missing I believe that my father would tell
00:40:49
the truth and I think my mother would paint a great picture of what kind of man I was and all this crap that
00:40:58
probably is not true and so in this situation it's Unique because Brian's mother has passed
00:41:06
so now we only have one family member that's creating the narrative and to later learn that Brian and his father's
00:41:14
relationship it wasn't even good at that time that they went missing they were barely speaking
00:41:22
so now you have this parent that you are upset with that is controlling the narrative and so
00:41:30
I'm sorry that's not a point of fact uh is that a new fact or is that a is it something that you guys have posited
00:41:37
before no I I mean there anything that we're giving in this is there are sources
00:41:44
we're not going to State the sources and I'm sorry so you can speculate it all to
00:41:49
be clear what I'm asking is that something that you guys have said before no okay no so we we always took it from
00:41:57
the approach of what was in the papers that he's close you know we knew that he was close with his mother but we also
00:42:03
thought he was close with his father because the night he went missing he had dinner with his father do you have uh
00:42:10
can you either talk about what leads you to believe that uh Brian Shaffer was not
00:42:16
close to his father as supporting evidence or talk about the nature of the source that told you that Brian Shafer
00:42:27
was not close with his father or semi-estranged or whatever language you want to use yeah so the loose story is
00:42:34
that Brian's mother was sick um that his father was have an affair on the mother and Brian knew about this
00:42:44
Brian was more a mama's boy and um had issues with his father doing this and wasn't speaking to him
00:42:55
and basically the dinner that night before he went out drinking was to and again this was April 1st
00:43:12
thank you so the dinner with his father we always wondered I mean we talked to I
00:43:17
mean I've talked to thousands of people about this case and they'd say I think he met with the dad before he went
00:43:25
drinking because he knew he was going missing and it was his way to say goodbye yeah so the the story that that
00:43:31
comes out after he disappears is that he was meeting with his father for dinner because he's getting ready to go out on
00:43:38
this trip to Miami so hey Dad let's get together for dinner before I leave on this trip in a day or so and that's
00:43:44
verified that they did indeed have they did in fact have dinner together and then once the the young man goes missing
00:43:50
then you have this speculation of well maybe that was his way of you know sometimes when people and I'm
00:43:58
not saying that Brian committed suicide but the thought would be if he disappeared of his own will or if he was
00:44:05
planning to take his life there are some people that will secretly say goodbye to their close love
00:44:12
loved ones uh and the the person that they're saying goodbye to may not understand what that meeting is about
00:44:18
until after the fact and so the thought was that Brian was very close to his father Randy and this was the final meal
00:44:28
together this was the the goodbye dinner right but it changes the narrative and like like I want to talk about we have
00:44:35
two narratives here we have The Narrative of the father and we have Narrative of the media and the internet
00:44:41
saying a man walks into a bar and the man disappears never seen again so I just want to point out that just
00:44:48
that information alone that if it's fact which we believe it is fact that that narrative that Randy is
00:44:57
creating is then false right not saying that there's any he's not being delicious about well and
00:45:05
it brings but what it does is it brings a new argument into the room it brings a new
00:45:11
possibility so where it wasn't a let's have dinner before I go on vacation because I love you Dad or
00:45:20
dad I love you and I want to say goodbye to you before I do whatever I'm planning
00:45:24
to do without you knowing but now it brings in the argument of was the was this dinner more of uh we're
00:45:31
either going to try to mend our relationship right or we're never going to have a relationship right
00:45:42
and I think so here's the thing that keeps tripping me up is there are four scenarios here there is uh a man was
00:45:51
murdered uh a man accidentally died a man committed suicide and a man's self-disappeared right right no other
00:46:02
than those four I don't think anything well what else is it yeah right right those are what are what what are
00:46:12
the additional facts that could steer you other ways well well let's stay on the
00:46:21
narrative though okay so so all I want to bring up and there's going to be more information that comes out later and we
00:46:27
don't want to we don't want to give too much away because the podcast is still being recorded
00:46:34
but that I I bring up that conversation about Brian and his father his relationship because you once you find
00:46:43
out that his father is cheating on his mother that that is dying allegedly allegedly
00:46:49
that just puts a a damper on that narrative so the next narrative that we have to figure out is man walks into a
00:46:58
bar seen on video footage and is never seen again right so it really becomes could he got out of
00:47:08
the bar is everybody that was actually my next Point okay regardless of those four
00:47:15
there is still not footage of him leaving the bar right so when I when I was in communication with uh Nicholas West uh
00:47:27
one of the big questions on the Internet is so before Brian goes to leave he's either going to the restroom
00:47:36
or he's gone to talk to the band so everybody believes that he actually said to Clint Meredith
00:47:44
I'm going to go talk to the van I'll be right back and the band's name was never released
00:47:50
I know what the band is just for our listening audience a man in the audience not the name of a band so
00:48:00
I mean we're talking 10 years it was 10 years when we covered the case and we didn't know who the band was I'm
00:48:08
a local musician I was going well [ __ ] if we can figure and a lot of people's idea was if we can figure out
00:48:15
who the band was then we can talk to the band did he ever talk to Brian so you know I'm really invested into this
00:48:24
case and I'm talking with Nicholas West on the phone and he says to me and his awful
00:48:32
OU accent Athens it's Athens not oh yeah well come on yeah he says this is going to be a bad impersonation
00:48:42
but he says I know I know what the band's name is I literally I think I I [ __ ] my pants
00:48:50
and uh and I go who's the band and he said Rock House so that probably means nothing to
00:48:59
anybody in the room but I [ __ ] my pants again because I know every single guy in the band
00:49:06
and so rock house was uh at one point was a four piece cover band then turned into a three-piece cover band and they
00:49:15
were playing at The Ugly Tuna saluna because they were a very popular cover band
00:49:20
so Brian played guitar my thought was let me talk to the guitar player I end up calling him up I'm just going
00:49:28
to call him Chris S so I don't use his real name I haven't talked to the guy in about
00:49:34
three years and I and I say to him hey got this police report that says you played the ugly Tunis Luna the night
00:49:43
Brian Shaffer went missing he was like yep that was me and I haven't talked to him for a while
00:49:51
so he had no clue why I was calling to ask him this and he and so I don't know we've talked
00:49:59
about all this other nonsense I had to explain to him uh what a podcast was what true crime was why the hell I was
00:50:08
calling him but there this is a guy that I played with for years and years and years and
00:50:14
um he remembers it really well because they only played there twice and they played so many places hundreds
00:50:21
and hundreds of times but they only played there twice because it was a new bar new bars would spend a bunch of
00:50:27
money on getting the really good bands and then once they didn't have the money they'd start bringing in the shitty
00:50:31
bands so this was the second time he believes the second time that they played there he even named some people
00:50:38
that he was there with uh which I won't say their names on on them I just texted him again yeah we
00:50:46
keep texting them to get more information so they play that night he does not remember talking to Brian
00:50:55
I said does you know Brian played guitar so chances are he would talk to you and he said well you know you know man
00:51:03
uh if you don't have tits I don't have time that's what he said can't make that [ __ ]
00:51:09
up but he was talking to you yeah but I mean but at the gig if you don't have tits I
00:51:19
don't get time okay it's the after after you're done with the shell if you're a musician if there's a chance to meet a
00:51:25
girl it's going to happen within a five to ten minute window because you gotta pack your [ __ ] up so anyways he
00:51:31
remembers going into the bar and he remembers that it was roped off pretty well like you couldn't just go wandering into
00:51:39
construction sites there were parts of this building that were very skeleton yeah it was a new new build
00:51:49
um but he remembers a lot of dirt which I thought was really interesting because you wouldn't think
00:51:54
dirt on the second floor of a building being built but he remembers a lot of dirt but there was a path so he could
00:52:01
wheel his guitar amps too now this is where I'm getting into information if you don't know about the
00:52:07
case I'm sorry if this is going to bore the crap out of you but so staying on the on the idea of did he leave the bar
00:52:15
and not having video footage of him leaving the bar I'm getting to that okay so so like I said I wanted to just talk
00:52:23
about the two narratives we kind of blurred the Randy narrative now we want to blur this idea that he couldn't have
00:52:29
left the bar so Chris asks remembers Wheeling into the bar playing the gig it's done
00:52:38
he is there with we'll say Q we'll call the guy Q and we're going to call the girl
00:52:45
stripper Sarah now that's the name that he gave her not me he remembers that there was some kind of
00:52:54
uh confrontation not a fight but stripper Sarah got mad at somebody doesn't he can't remember if it's a guy
00:53:03
or a girl doesn't know but knows that there was somewhat of a confrontation and he remembers that Q
00:53:09
was there because Q had it in for stripper Sarah right now we have this story confirmed by Q as
00:53:17
well saying yes I was there yes I was watching Rock House blah blah blah I would just like it to be known I'd left
00:53:25
the room yes to pee but also to confirm this story specifically right and it has
00:53:31
been confirmed oh see so after the gig what's weird is I played with Chris S a long time and he
00:53:38
would pack up he'd load in and load out the same way every time and he was a little bit older than I was so when I
00:53:45
played the gigs with him I learned oh there's like this method to his Madness that's why he remembers all this crap so
00:53:52
he remembers that behind the Ugly Tuna there was this um it's kind of a pathway that you could
00:53:58
pull your car into it's not really so much an alley because like people could walk on it
00:54:05
it's really kind of hard to explain but anyways he Parks his Explorer in the back and there's a door
00:54:14
and if you see the door today there's camera well he claims there was no camera he claims there was no camera both times
00:54:22
and where it gets more interesting is there was some kind of disagreement with a guy or a girl with stripper Sarah
00:54:30
but why they were leaving and this would be after closing or right around this is
00:54:36
right around closing so he is packing up his stuff and the ban is going to hang out with
00:54:43
stripper Sarah a couple other other friends not because of her name and well maybe who knows uh and Q they're going
00:54:51
to all hang out somewhere afterwards because it started spring break all this stuff but what he can say definitively
00:54:58
was every there was a lot of people leaving you know so I'm on the phone with this
00:55:05
guy that I haven't talked to in years getting information about a case that we've worked for years
00:55:12
and to have somebody confirm that not only did people that worked at the bar leave the
00:55:21
same way that he left he also confirmed that there was other people that weren't working the bar
00:55:26
almost like they corralled a bunch of people like anybody that was still hanging out around the band or talking
00:55:33
the band was corralled through this exit so what we've been able to do is to like
00:55:39
I said it's the two narratives that I think are the most important and the one was that he couldn't leave the bar
00:55:45
without being on camera and I think that we've been able to prove that and we only have we could have left the bar
00:55:52
without being on camera right and then the other narrative being that not everything that Randy was saying made a
00:56:00
lot of sense well and the thing though just to do expand on what you just talked about
00:56:06
there with the band saying that other people were using this other exit that evening right even we went down there
00:56:14
now he's played at the Ugly Tuna and across the street at what World of Beers right
00:56:20
a bazillion times so he knew the area real well well but also at the time that was the only establishment that was open
00:56:27
in this large complex yeah and and so we covered the story 10 years after he disappeared so I had never been inside
00:56:35
the Ugly Tuna so I thought well I'll go down there this was a couple months before we decided to record the show and
00:56:43
so I went in there to see what it would look like um but the the quick thing that I spoke
00:56:48
to him about almost immediately was now mind you this is 10 years it's not so much it's not a skeleton building
00:56:54
anymore but what I did notice immediately was there were a lot of doors that seemed to go in and out of
00:57:02
that building on the ground level and a handful of them didn't have cameras 10 years after he went missing so I called
00:57:10
him up and I said you know I don't know how many of these doors were here 10 years ago but if but
00:57:16
from somebody looking at it you know usually you don't build a concrete building and then decide later
00:57:22
let's put a bunch of doors in right so it occurred to me you know this Dateline Narrative of a guy that walks into a bar
00:57:30
and vanishes into thin air doesn't hold a whole lot of weight here because there there were other options
00:57:37
there were other ways to leave that building right but like like we said I mean that's that's what's sad about this case
00:57:45
is because you have the two narratives I think it stopped a lot of people from doing research that they could have done
00:57:51
to maybe bring some closure to this case I want to wrap you guys up a little bit
00:57:57
and I want to open it up to questions but before anybody else has the opportunity to ask the question
00:58:04
what do you think happened to Brian Shafer Captain's on you first Well mine's not going to be a
00:58:12
Pleasant ending um and I said this on the show and I still you know I've been pulled a few
00:58:19
different ways since we've covered it and looked into some different things but I still kind of think this is the
00:58:26
most likely scenario is that I I believe that somehow he left that building that night whether it was
00:58:34
through the exit that the captain just explained was a very likely option or one of those other doors I think he was
00:58:43
one thing we can see on the video before you know there's not just him going into
00:58:49
the bar but there's a part where he comes out and he engages these two young ladies in conversation and either he's
00:58:57
super happy and dancing while he's talking to him or he's super intoxicated right because he's not standing still
00:59:03
very well he he looks like he's been out partying a lot because for the first time in a long time he
00:59:09
ain't got nothing to do in the morning staggering and his mom died right yeah so I think he probably made it out and
00:59:18
we we're very lucky that they've done a a very good job of cleaning up that area
00:59:24
in the past 10 years my guess would be that a couple of guys were driving or walking somewhere he
00:59:32
decided to walk home the his apartment was what six blocks from the bar so I'm thinking he was heavily
00:59:39
intoxicated these guys see a clean-cut dude walking in at three in the morning by himself visibly
00:59:48
intoxicated that's a great guy to Rob where was this apartment it was I don't I don't have the it was a
00:59:56
king Avenue so six blocks from the Ugly Tuna that's an easy target for a group of guys to Rob and sometimes
01:00:05
sometimes people Rob people they they have the intention of committing one crime and they end up committing another
01:00:11
a completely different crime in the process um those dumpsters in the area were checked
01:00:17
yeah but some of them weren't checked right away they weren't checked some of them weren't checked until after he
01:00:22
missed that flight on Sunday so when were the when were those dumps yeah when were those dumpsters checked could
01:00:29
he have been put in one of those dumpsters um one in the dumpsters were only checked in a small radius I didn't you
01:00:37
know they probably didn't check every single one from the Ugly Tuna to King Avenue yeah so I unfortunately I I I I
01:00:44
and I hope that I'm wrong but I think that that Brian was probably robbed and killed that night placed in a dumpster
01:00:51
and he's probably in the landfill Captain do you have any different thoughts on that well that's
01:00:59
horribly depressing um I think this case I think any case that sticks with you it's because you changed
01:01:08
your opinion of what happened and so I think the Ugly Tuna saluna is closing so I'm hoping that we were able
01:01:17
to at some point run some tests and try to definitively answer the question is he still in the building did
01:01:27
he fall into some kind of construction or anything like that I don't think he did I think he left with the band I
01:01:34
don't think he went anywhere with the ban um but I also think that there's going
01:01:39
to be more evidence that I mean there's ton of stuff that we could talk about tonight but would be here for like 10
01:01:45
hours and he'd be like wow this guy knows way too much about Brian Shaffer he well I think there's going to be
01:01:51
evidence that comes out that there's reason for the police to believe that he's still alive and which is which is
01:01:58
interesting because when we first covered the case Nick came to me and said I think he's possibly still alive
01:02:04
and I remember thinking uh you're you're a dope you know but now after researching it more and looking into
01:02:12
more things I think there's a very good possibility that he at least was alive for a time period
01:02:20
after that night so I think you're both hedging I'll say that but I do want to open it up for
01:02:30
questions um we do have a microphone this is a podcast Festival does anyone have any
01:02:36
questions for Nick or the captain there's zero questions that that makes a man feel please one at a time one at a
01:02:46
time coming up and just grab the microphone that's here on the table oh this one right here
01:02:52
fantastic um after work what I wear on them okay normal but um why was the band's name not released or
01:03:11
why what was that all about well I think why was it important well I don't know if it was that I don't
01:03:19
know if it's that important I think it's more the idea that they interviewed the
01:03:24
band the band was cooperative they told them everything they knew and they then they didn't think that there was any
01:03:30
reason to release the band name because we know that Brian went to talk to the band so then you'd have how many people
01:03:37
researching this band and then trying to figure out who was in the band and then
01:03:41
harassing them well there's more information well the most likely situation is that
01:03:47
they're here the reporters reporting on this are hearing this story from the two
01:03:52
friends that he was with that night or people that knew he was going there that night or had spoken to Clinton Meredith
01:03:58
right and so in the course of of natural storytelling what happened that night I
01:04:04
don't know he went and he spoke to the band in the moment the name of the band doesn't seem important to the person
01:04:09
telling the story or the person hearing the story right so then you report on it
01:04:13
and then years later somebody goes should somebody check with that band to see if he actually spoke to him because
01:04:20
if we can trace it's all about tracing one person's steps right kind of the nature of what you guys are
01:04:27
doing right so if we can trace his steps 10 steps further or 30 steps further or a block
01:04:35
further we can get closer to the truth and then years later when somebody has that great idea it's been lost for so
01:04:43
long it takes some sifting to find right but like he said I mean the cops had that great idea that's why they talked
01:04:49
to the band so I think the cops didn't release it because they already went down that rabbit hole and they and like
01:04:55
I said and they don't care about selling newspapers right if that makes sense well I have another
01:04:59
just comment I do like I of course totally appreciate facts and all your research but
01:05:08
anyone that listens to you is also I mean we have our own opinions and I do appreciate your opinions too so
01:05:16
that was the question I have no question comment comment on me okay I love you okay oh thank you well thank you
01:05:25
I think she was trying to say that we like your opinions as well we actually have a Blog we have on our
01:05:32
website truecrimegarage.com hello that you can go to and we encourage people hey if you've got a
01:05:38
theory on a case or a question on a case you can go there click on that specific
01:05:42
case and join in the conversation so when you talk about opinions we love to hear them
01:05:48
all right hey guys I want to say that I really appreciate the cases the the ones
01:05:53
that really bother me are Brian Shafer right Brendan Lawson right the guy in Texas who you did a great episode on
01:05:59
that by the way with the audience really how can I forget the Brandon Lawson really quick just for the
01:06:04
the future listeners Brendan Lawson uh so super sentences well it's pretty simple so Brandon Lawson calls 9-1-1 and
01:06:12
he goes missing period that's pretty much it and so we went to cover the case and we got to talk about
01:06:19
it for two hours and what I kept on seeing on the Internet is that if you listen to the 9-1-1 call you will be
01:06:26
convinced that you can make out what he says and so at midnight I listen to it I'm convinced I can figure it out and
01:06:36
I'm an audio engineer so I'm gonna slow down and speed it up and I was up till about seven eight o'clock in the morning
01:06:44
couldn't figure it out and and so we did two hours of me playing clip by clip slowing it down speeding it up and it's
01:06:53
it's kind of like what did he say I don't know because I want to get to the question no I don't know but that's
01:07:00
the Brandon Lawson all right yeah and also the Maura Marie case is another one that so you're just a missing person
01:07:04
well no but those are the ones that just bother the hell out of me I'm a missing
01:07:08
person too but the Brian Schaefer case the reason it's so close to me is one of the girls that last talked to him was a
01:07:13
friend of mine right and I saw Pearl Jam in 2010 and I had no idea that she was there yeah and so I mentioned her I'm
01:07:21
like oh they played comeback tonight did you ever hear the story about Brian and
01:07:24
she's like I was the one that talked to him before I went missing right and it was kind of probably like a [ __ ] your
01:07:28
pants moment when you when you got the band name it was like what yes like this has been something that's been on my
01:07:33
mind for years you know and I actually know somebody that was there but I wanted to touch on the thing that you
01:07:37
mentioned earlier about the people that were being corralled now I've read so much on this over the years and I don't
01:07:42
know where I heard this but I know that they mentioned that they were able to account for every person that went into
01:07:48
the bar that left the bar now if people were being crowd out of the back as they possible you think
01:07:54
that's a lie yes because I don't think they know how many people left the back because that's one of the things because
01:07:58
they have that camera in the on the outside of the ugly well I think you're partially right and and it's not
01:08:05
necessarily you being right or wrong it's the story that we are all being told right the story that we're being
01:08:11
told is that and and especially when you watch the Dateline version and there's other versions as well they're going to
01:08:17
show you a parade of people and characters coming up this escalator to go into this bar and get drunk right and
01:08:24
it's a little grainy and it's almost black and white um and you look at this and while
01:08:30
they're showing you this they say everybody that went into that bar that night's accounted for except for Brian
01:08:35
Shaffer what the truth is is and what's what's much more closer to the truth and
01:08:42
maybe not the exact truth but what's closer to the truth is everybody that everybody that is seen in
01:08:49
that particular footage everybody seen in that particular footage is accounted for okay with the
01:08:58
exception of Brian Shaffer now who does that leave out well that leaves out employees and banned security it leads
01:09:06
it leaves out more than a dozen people okay so they're just referring to the outside of the of the ugly possibly but
01:09:13
it's why everybody kept asking who's the band yeah because that is can be considered staff right and then
01:09:22
obviously the band is not going to be on the video footage of leaving the escalator
01:09:27
okay awesome thank you guys thank you hello hi I just recently graduated from OSU so
01:09:37
congratulations thank you so much please thank you hey Don't Clap too loud you got like a 1.8 the future of America
01:09:45
she was high the whole time no not at all a little bit my boss is in the audience so I'm sorry oh hello it was
01:09:53
just a joke he doesn't know her is this a joke yeah um but yeah so the theory that I was most obsessed with was that
01:10:02
he left and went through the construction zone and I was wondering um I read some stuff speculation of course
01:10:10
that the father company to the construction site um they were known for getting into
01:10:18
lawsuits and stuff like that every every construction company gets in the lawsuit
01:10:22
that is not true about every construction most construction companies get into lawsuits
01:10:29
but well um so I was talking to a friend who is a forensic scientist and she had
01:10:35
the theory that he was buried in the floor because it wouldn't change the structure of the building had he
01:10:41
decomposed so I was just wondering I believe all the floors were poured at that point okay I mean
01:10:49
the problem is when they say construction zone that's so blurry and it's so like well what it I mean we're
01:10:57
talking about people are going into a bar and going out of a bar it was a working bar uh based off of the band's
01:11:04
reports that yes there was some construction going on but it wasn't like crazy major construction well and the
01:11:12
other thing too sorry Nick the the other thing too though in in what makes that theory interesting is then after the
01:11:19
fact you have people who walk it and then they go I had a hard time navigating through there to get out when
01:11:26
I was sober right now keep in mind we just described the the area that was most under
01:11:33
construction is mainly being used by the band to get in and out now let's keep in
01:11:39
mind there's not a lot of sober bands one and two they're carrying equipment with them
01:11:46
as well so if if a drunken Soldier playing guitar can navigate his way through there now yes was Brian pretty
01:11:55
intoxicated 100 there's no arguing that um could something have happened there's
01:12:00
also the thought though which is a similar Theory to yours is that something went down inside that building
01:12:07
that night and someone chose to dispose of him in that construction area yeah and I think we're look
01:12:16
ugly tuna is closing and I think it's up to Columbus and people that actually care about this to to have a voice to
01:12:24
say hey we need we need these tests done to see if that that's a possibility because to go a little bit further on
01:12:32
your theory the what she's talking about is that the theory is that even if he was drunk
01:12:39
and that that the construction workers came back and they found him drunk in a thing that they covered them up it was
01:12:46
simply easier too right right but listen to this though so you're a foreman you work for a company
01:12:55
you probably don't really give a [ __ ] if they get sued and you find a dead kid
01:13:01
27 year old kid are you going to be a horrible piece of [ __ ] I'm just not saying anything
01:13:08
so you can save your company's ass it's not it's probably not your company it's something that doesn't hold a lot of
01:13:16
weight when you think about it that way I mean but on top of that though too is it's been 12 years and one thing that we
01:13:25
have learned is that okay this is there's no easy way of putting this but law enforcement would much prefer if I
01:13:33
were to be murdered tonight that three people kill me rather than one because on a long enough timeline one of those
01:13:40
people out of the three are very likely to tell somebody or to talk about it and
01:13:45
so if you have a situation where three you know one or two or three guys decide to pour concrete over some remains
01:13:51
somewhere of a person that they had nothing to do with their demise how easier is it for them to tell
01:13:58
somebody 10 12 years later yeah and and I think if that did happen I think it would have to be a
01:14:07
complete accident that he got wherever that he was covered up but I still think that they have an obligation to do a
01:14:15
better search because I don't think the searches were enough and all that search
01:14:19
I think would do is prove that he's still not in there and if they could prove that that at least eliminates one
01:14:26
Theory do you not believe that that that a sufficient search has been done for that I don't think so I don't think so
01:14:33
Captain how old are you 37. Nick 38 did you live in Columbus at the time yeah yeah yeah we were both born and
01:14:45
raised in Columbus okay if someone were to ask the lottery thank you what they thought happened to Brian Shafer what do
01:14:53
you think happened moderator there are the back hallways of that building are built the way the back
01:15:01
hallways of any University Building are they are very nondescript and there is no way finding signage
01:15:08
and it is very possible and also that building there was no Film Center it was not done literally that
01:15:18
there was a bar and a bar that is all that was done of the Gateway at that point
01:15:25
it is entirely possible that a person walks down that hallway and walks literally into a shaft
01:15:35
and I believe it's negligence I don't believe there is any um I don't think anybody covered anybody
01:15:44
up on purpose but I believe that a particular set of circumstances could have lent themselves to that guy being
01:15:52
The Bottom Of An Elevator Shaft which is which is possible but depending on how he was found I mean
01:16:01
a decomposing body is is an awful smell so not when he's covered in concrete yeah it depends if he was covered in
01:16:09
Cotton but it was like at the end that's what that's what I'm saying is that you
01:16:12
have the the people that are tenants in this in the space they're leaving and it's going to be open and I think it's
01:16:18
the it's campus Partners it's everybody's responsibility to do a actual search like an actual search that
01:16:28
I I just don't think they did one and if they just did if they just did cadaver dogs and he's in concrete the kid I
01:16:36
don't think there's any way that the cadaver dogs would know he's in the concrete
01:16:40
next question my question is if you believe he was robbed where do you think his body is
01:16:51
I think that they would have if if he were robbed by one or more person and it didn't go well
01:17:00
um I think they would have put him in a dumpster and just dumped him in the dumpster and then it could have been a
01:17:06
nearby one it could have been one not nearby yeah the college campus is interesting because there's big
01:17:11
dumpsters like on every corner right and I'm the mother of a soon-to-be sophomore
01:17:17
at Ohio State so and my husband used to work at Sky Bar which is relatively across from Ugly Tuna so this is you
01:17:23
know definitely has a meaning to us and I'm very you know very curious on your thoughts of where you think you know
01:17:30
every time I see that or every time I walk by I think where is where is this young man where is this child yeah I
01:17:36
think there's I mean there's no there's no evidence to suggest that he made it home that night so
01:17:43
if something happened to him it happened either at that location in my opinion or
01:17:48
or on his way home from there so you think he may have just dumped him in a dumpster and that was never leave him in
01:17:55
a dumpster they're emptied at some point right you got to remember though they're
01:17:59
not they're not really starting the search you know until they know for a fact that
01:18:05
he is he wasn't reported missing to police uh until he didn't show up for that for
01:18:11
that flight and actually what had happened was uh if I if I understand it correctly they called the police and
01:18:19
said look this dude's missing our loved one is missing and I believe that there was a police officer that was stationed
01:18:25
at the uh the boarding area for that flight because you know the police said well look he's an adult he can he can
01:18:32
leave if he wants to leave but we want to help you out with this because there's concern here
01:18:38
um if he doesn't show up to this flight then he's missing missing right endangered missing so okay
01:18:46
[Music] this is why we have a podcast because we talk and talk and talk so just swallow the bug probably did my
01:18:58
question is actually not about this case but just what has been your favorite case to cover is thus far
01:19:05
so we I mean we do so many that they actually it's the strange thing is that sometimes I
01:19:13
forget I forget the case we did last week because we we've covered so many of them we've covered about a hundred now
01:19:19
at this point so for me I it's more of what is my most recent favorite case that we've covered and and favorite
01:19:27
sounds strange to say uh but what held my interest longest recently would be the Lane Bryant shooting which came up
01:19:37
it was from Tinley Park Illinois we just passed the uh a little over the 10-year
01:19:43
anniversary of it where where several women were taken hostage at that lane bright during the course of a
01:19:50
robbery and and killed execution stop yeah and mine mine are always just going to be those cases that
01:19:57
some weirdo you know sends me an email saying I know some stuff about Brian Shaffer
01:20:07
and I mean I get asked you know women that listen to the show they ask for my number a lot on social media and I'll
01:20:12
never give it out it's because of that voice but but a guy that I don't know says hey I know some stuff about Brian
01:20:19
shaver I'm like here's my number so let me ask you do you get like do folks contact you and like it's just
01:20:28
like total [ __ ] yeah I mean there's been some emails that you just you know they don't feel right you know
01:20:38
like if they're giving you well they're trying to like hey I heard that you said
01:20:41
this and because of this I think this yeah and don't have actual information yeah or sometimes they'll say that they
01:20:49
were involved somehow in some way shape or form not not that they actually hurt anybody but they were friends of a
01:20:57
friend or whatever actually have a little bit of a follow-up I actually I really enjoy the
01:21:01
fact that you guys will give history of locations like uh the Lane Bryant case you gave a history of the Lane Bryant I
01:21:07
like that it's different and I really appreciate it and I also just want to know what side of town are you guys from
01:21:13
um well I live in North Columbus but I'm South California but we but we both both grew up in Grove
01:21:21
City all right so as a longtime fan I always really wanted pick one episode to introduce a new fan
01:21:29
to what would you pick because I feel like the person who introduced me to your show picked the most perfect
01:21:34
episode can I wait till you answer to tell you yeah yeah oh yeah we gotta answer yeah now you
01:21:41
have to answer it well I've been drinking so I've I was kind I was half listening what
01:21:48
were you talking about no I know okay come on get with it um I don't know I think there's there's a
01:22:00
handful of cases that that have always interest me I think they're pretty big in the True Crime
01:22:06
world I mean West Memphis Three is a big one there was a lot of documentaries on
01:22:11
it I think if you watch every single documentary and then you listen to our three-parter I think maybe you'd realize
01:22:18
that we kind of know some stuff about some stuff so I I would say a case like that or a case like Brian Schaefer
01:22:25
because the interesting thing with Brian Schaefer or any missing person case for me is that there's all these what uh
01:22:35
what if some and so many possibilities that I think it becomes a thinking game and I think those draw people in so I
01:22:43
think one of those uh Brian Schaefer West Memphis Three um missing maramari so uh Brian Schaefer is an interesting one
01:22:57
because the captain and I are roughly the same age I mean within months of his age so
01:23:04
um and being a Columbus case we you know our heart is there and and we try to be
01:23:11
with every case but some sometimes you know when you're reading something and you're reporting on something that
01:23:16
happened in the 60s in a far away place it it almost feels like a story rather than something that was real where Brian
01:23:23
seems very real because it's close for me I would say it's a similar situation to uh probably there was a case from
01:23:31
here in Columbus in the early 80s a young man of by the name of Anthony Muncie was murdered he was 15 years old
01:23:37
you can't but you couldn't tell a new listener to listen to that one because it's a bonus episode I can tell them
01:23:43
whatever I want hey you should check out this podcast but you're gonna have to pay for the first one so the drug
01:23:50
dealers give it out for free and then they charge you so Tony Muncie would be my case that's the one that that I
01:23:59
dragged behind me everywhere I go and um the other case would be Amy maholovic from up in Bay Village Ohio from 1989.
01:24:08
those would be the two which one was yours well I I learned to love you guys in Texas and she was a Texas native as
01:24:14
well so the Ohio ones were perhaps so personal but she told me Casey Anthony yeah and I was like that and she loves
01:24:21
the captain well Casey Anthony too I mean she she was she was caught wearing Ohio State shirt so that drives me nuts
01:24:31
over there yeah that's true I want to wrap up with one thing and a uh thank you so much you can
01:24:38
tell me I'm an [ __ ] for doing it but when we first asked you guys the podcast Festival you said we don't want to do an
01:24:46
episode he said it's it's not appropriate for us to do a live show about a case um and we ended up settling on sort of a
01:24:56
a mixture of it yeah um I sort of want to know how you why you made that choice and why what
01:25:09
what sort of ownership and responsibility do you guys feel about what you're doing
01:25:19
well there's a lot there's popular uh True Crime shows that are in the category of Comedy
01:25:26
I think that's okay that I mean that they can do whatever they want uh we do sometimes have jokes on the show but
01:25:33
none of this stuff is funny you know this happened to real people and we just felt like if you do a live
01:25:41
show and there's some really popular um True Crime shows doing tours and um sometimes I will say something as Nick
01:25:54
is presenting the case and sometimes it's just some something stupid that popped
01:25:59
into my head at the time and sometimes it's not against the victim so we leave it in
01:26:06
and it just lightens the air a little bit while we discuss this case and sometimes we'll say something that
01:26:13
crosses line and so we have the way one the ability to edit that out but also I think it
01:26:19
would be really I wouldn't feel comfortable having a room full of people laugh about
01:26:27
somebody's tragedy or death or disappearance if that makes any sense well and the
01:26:34
other part of that too is that we do spend a ton of time on the show and we put a lot of thought and a lot of
01:26:43
effort into it and we're able to do that in the safety of the garage and here we're not able to do that so that's kind
01:26:53
of the the bar that we've set for ourselves and here we're out of our element a little bit
01:26:59
um it's a little more free for you have your notes you don't have like your reference you can't just hit pause right
01:27:05
that's right this is not how we sit in the garage no so a lot of people think we face each other
01:27:12
yeah that's that's the you don't no actually that's what most people think that that it's like are you back happens
01:27:20
there and then I'm here wow I don't want this is it just weird like especially when there's no audience it's even more
01:27:25
weird like these are there's two guys why would we sit this close and just stare at each other while we're talking
01:27:32
usually he's staring at a computer because he's recording and editing as we I don't even look at him go and I'm I
01:27:40
sit near the refrigerator and the window back here and I have my hole set up yeah I don't even know what he looks
01:27:48
like no but yeah it's just I think there's a you you do look and like I said I'm not bashing on
01:27:57
any of the other shows that are that are comp they're comedy based shows that's however that showed up that's what their
01:28:04
um that's what they're how they're choosing to do it I just think that it's for us to do it
01:28:12
be disrespectful to the victim so ladies and gentlemen Round of Applause thank you guys
01:28:21
thank you everybody coming out here tonight thank you guys so much for coming out of the Columbus podcast
01:28:26
Festival [Music] [Applause]