Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Unexplained with Me your host, Richard
Speaker 1: mclin smith, where each week we explore another true tale
Speaker 1: of high strangeness. But first, a quick update on some
Speaker 1: things before we begin. As some of you may know, ironically,
Speaker 1: the biggest thing in podcasting right now is making videos.
Speaker 1: So I've finally bittened the bullet. As you will see
Speaker 1: if you're watching this here, I am for those listening
Speaker 1: and who will always prefer to listen. Don't worry, absolutely
Speaker 1: nothing will change from your perspective. Unexplained will always be
Speaker 1: available to listen to as a podcast, only now it
Speaker 1: will come with an accompanying video. If you do want
Speaker 1: to watch, you can find the podcast at YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com forward slash Unexplained pod. The video versions will also
Speaker 1: be available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts once my hosting
Speaker 1: company updates their system, so listen out for any announcements
Speaker 1: regarding that. If you're new here and you're a fan
Speaker 1: of expertly told, atmospheric stories about the strange and unexplained,
Speaker 1: then you've come to the right place, and please subscribe
Speaker 1: to the show if you haven't already done so. This
Speaker 1: is Unexplained, Season nine, episode twenty six in through the
Speaker 1: Outdoor The Brian Shaefer Mystery. Early on Friday evening in
Speaker 1: March of two thousand and six, there was a celebratory
Speaker 1: mood on the campus of Ohio State University. Classes had
Speaker 1: just finished for spring break, and the quad was packed
Speaker 1: with students ready to let loose. Twenty seven year old
Speaker 1: Brian Shaefer wove his way through the crowds, keeping his
Speaker 1: eyes fixed on the ground ahead of him. He heard
Speaker 1: a friend calling his name, trying to summon him over
Speaker 1: to join the celebrations, but he didn't look up. Brian
Speaker 1: was tired. He was midway through his second year of
Speaker 1: medical school, and the workload was crushing. He'd pulled multiple
Speaker 1: all night as that week ahead of his exams, trying
Speaker 1: to retain impossible volumes of information about the human endocrene
Speaker 1: and reproductive systems, and that was only the tip of
Speaker 1: the iceberg. The past month had been the hardest of
Speaker 1: Brian's life, and right then he was trying not to
Speaker 1: think about the deeper reason for his exhaustion. He'd locked
Speaker 1: that away firmly in a mental box, which he didn't
Speaker 1: plan to reopen until he was ready, definitely not until
Speaker 1: he'd passed his end of year board exams. Brian made
Speaker 1: it to the parking lot on the edge of the
Speaker 1: campus and got into his car. He'd barely used it
Speaker 1: in weeks. One of the perks of life at OSU
Speaker 1: was how walkable the university neighborhood was. He drove about
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes east to a nearby outback steakhouse, where he'd
Speaker 1: agreed to meet his father for dinner. Randy Shaeffer was
Speaker 1: already inside, waiting at a corner table. Brandy stood up
Speaker 1: to greet his son, immediately noticing the dark shadows under
Speaker 1: Brian's eyes, his pale complexion, and the way he wouldn't
Speaker 1: quite make eye contact. He looked absolutely exhausted. That wasn't
Speaker 1: a surprise, of course, the entire family was still in shock.
Speaker 1: Less than a month ago, Brandy's wife and Brian's mother, Renee,
Speaker 1: had died from an aggressive, fast moving cancer. Although Brian
Speaker 1: had been stoical about it on the surface, Randy knew
Speaker 1: his son was in pain. He tried to convince Brian
Speaker 1: to take some time off school. Surely the college would understand,
Speaker 1: he thought, but Brian wouldn't hear of it. He insisted
Speaker 1: that missing his exams would just derail his whole med
Speaker 1: school career and stress him out even more. Clearly, Brian
Speaker 1: needed to keep things as normal as possible in order
Speaker 1: to cope. That's why Randy had insisted on taking him
Speaker 1: out to dinner to celebrate the end of the semester.
Speaker 1: It was their tradition, after all. But they were here
Speaker 1: in their favorite steakhouse, Renee's absence felt all the more glaring,
Speaker 1: but neither of them wanted to acknowledge it. Instead, they
Speaker 1: just made small talk about the exams, which Brian said
Speaker 1: had gone pretty well all things considered, and they talked
Speaker 1: about Brian's vacation plans for spring break. At the end
Speaker 1: of their dinner, Randy was surprised when Brian said he
Speaker 1: was going to meet some friends for drinks at a
Speaker 1: local bar, considering how tired he clearly was. What he
Speaker 1: really needed was an early night, and Randy almost said so,
Speaker 1: but decided better of it. After all, maybe a night
Speaker 1: out with friends to blow off some steam was exactly
Speaker 1: what he needed. He couldn't possibly have known then it
Speaker 1: was the last time he'd ever see his son. Brian
Speaker 1: Schaeffer was born and raised in Pickerington, a suburb just
Speaker 1: outside of Columbus, Ohio. He was a bright, energetic kid
Speaker 1: who made friends easily and was good at almost everything
Speaker 1: he tried. He was a model student, played multiple sports,
Speaker 1: and as a teenager, had even taught himself how to
Speaker 1: play the guitar. He loved it so much that he
Speaker 1: had dreams of starting his own alternative rock band one day,
Speaker 1: but it was never more than a passing fantasy. In truth,
Speaker 1: Brian was far too disciplined and sensible to do that.
Speaker 1: As the older of two brothers, he also had a
Speaker 1: strong sense of responsibility. Being the first child, he felt
Speaker 1: it was important to set a good example for his
Speaker 1: younger brother. His father, Randy, an electrician, and his mother, Renee,
Speaker 1: who was a nurse, had always encouraged him to choose
Speaker 1: a stable career path, and medicine seemed about as solid
Speaker 1: as they come. In two thousand and three, Brian earned
Speaker 1: his undergraduate degree in microbiology from Ohio State University before
Speaker 1: taking a place at their medical school. It seemed like
Speaker 1: a natural fit to his friends and family. He had
Speaker 1: the right mix of smarts and social skills to become
Speaker 1: an excellent doctor. Despite the grueling pace of that first
Speaker 1: year at med school, Brian adapted well. He kept up
Speaker 1: with all of his course work while still carving out
Speaker 1: some time for a social life and the occasional guitar
Speaker 1: jam session. In the fall of two thousand and five,
Speaker 1: right at the beginning of his second year, Brian started
Speaker 1: dating fellow medical student Alexis Wagoner. Things quickly got serious
Speaker 1: between them, in part because soon after they met, Brian
Speaker 1: was shaken by some devastating news from home. His mother, Renee,
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer.
Speaker 1: Brian had always been close to his mum. She was
Speaker 1: his closest confidante, and the idea of life without her
Speaker 1: was unthinkable. But Renee didn't want Brian to worry, so
Speaker 1: she did what she could to play down her condition.
Speaker 1: But with Brian now a med student, he couldn't be fooled.
Speaker 1: He understood the prognosis too well. Even so, the speed
Speaker 1: of his mother's decline still stunned him. In early March
Speaker 1: of two thousand and six, only six months after her diagnosis,
Speaker 1: Renee passed away in hospital, surrounded by her family. Brian
Speaker 1: was shattered by the loss, but he was also determined
Speaker 1: not to let it derail him, so rather than take
Speaker 1: any time off school, he doubled down in his studies
Speaker 1: in his mum's honor, trying to do what he thought
Speaker 1: she would want, or, as he put it on his
Speaker 1: MySpace page, she will always inspire me to do my best,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to let her down. As Brian's
Speaker 1: friends could tell, he was handling the loss of his
Speaker 1: mother about as well as could be expected. He planned
Speaker 1: to just stay focused until his exams were out of
Speaker 1: the way, and then he could take some much needed
Speaker 1: time to try and process it all during spring break,
Speaker 1: when he and Alexis had booked a vacation to Florida.
Speaker 1: By then, the couple's friends and family were pretty sure
Speaker 1: that Brian was planning to propose during that trip. Between
Speaker 1: grief and the pressures of med school, it seemed that
Speaker 1: Brian had grown up a lot in the past year,
Speaker 1: and maybe the idea of settling down appealed to him,
Speaker 1: being a chance to get some stability and control back
Speaker 1: into his life. Besides, as some of them figured, it
Speaker 1: was probably what his mum would have wanted for him.
Speaker 1: On March thirty first, the final day of classes before
Speaker 1: spring break, back in Brian's home, his father Randy Shaeffer
Speaker 1: stood in the doorway of his bedroom, still utterly devastated
Speaker 1: by his wife's death. He hadn't been able to bring
Speaker 1: himself to touch any of her belongings. Her clothes were
Speaker 1: still draped over a chair, her jewelry still out on
Speaker 1: her make up table. Even the books she'd been reading
Speaker 1: when she died was still on her nightstand. Randy took
Speaker 1: it all in and then switched off the light and
Speaker 1: headed out to meet his son. That night, he drove
Speaker 1: over to the Outback steakhouse in the city of Reyneldsburg,
Speaker 1: Situated almost exactly half way between the shaef A home
Speaker 1: and the Ohio State University campus. It had become the
Speaker 1: family's favorite meeting spot ever since Brian started his undergrad studies.
Speaker 1: That night, Randy was determined to put on a brave
Speaker 1: face for Brian, and the reverse was also true, so
Speaker 1: they both made an effort to keep things light as
Speaker 1: they ate their rebbied steaks. At some point, Randy asked
Speaker 1: Brian about his upcoming trip to Miami with Elector. Brian
Speaker 1: had always loved Florida. In fact, he loved anywhere with
Speaker 1: a beach and a tropical climate. Before he'd committed to
Speaker 1: medical school. It sometimes joked about leaving it all behind
Speaker 1: and moving to an island where he could make music
Speaker 1: and drink margarita's all day. This vacation, he thought, would
Speaker 1: give him at least a taste of that dream. Then,
Speaker 1: when the night was over, Randy paid the bill and
Speaker 1: said goodbye to his son. He gave him a quick
Speaker 1: hug and jokingly told him, don't do anything I wouldn't do.
Speaker 1: And in that moment, as he watched his son walk
Speaker 1: away into the night, Randy would later say that he
Speaker 1: suddenly felt an all consuming sense of foreboding and had
Speaker 1: the sudden urge to run after Brian and hold him back,
Speaker 1: as if he somehow saw the city for what it
Speaker 1: was in that moment, a gaping, snarling mouth about to
Speaker 1: swallow his son whole. Whether that was true or just
Speaker 1: the distorted way that he remembered that night in the
Speaker 1: aftermath of what was to come. Either way, if it
Speaker 1: had been true, it would have been with good reason.
Speaker 1: After dinner, Brian drove back home to his apartment on
Speaker 1: campus where he lived alone, to park his car, and
Speaker 1: then walked a few blocks to OSU's South campus gateway,
Speaker 1: A sprawling shopping and entertainment complex for students. There, he
Speaker 1: met up with his former roommate William Florence, also known
Speaker 1: as Clint, at the Ugly Tuna saloona a busy college bar.
Speaker 1: The place was packed with students celebrating the start of
Speaker 1: spring break, and there was a restless kind of excitement
Speaker 1: in the air, laughter and chatter almost drowning out the music.
Speaker 1: Brian and Clint both drank a beer and had a shot,
Speaker 1: taking advantage of that night's special offer, and talked about
Speaker 1: how their exams had gone. A bit before ten pm,
Speaker 1: Brian stepped outside to make a phone call, and he
Speaker 1: dialed Alexis, who was visiting her family in Toledo that weekend.
Speaker 1: The pair finalized their travel plants and agreed to meet
Speaker 1: at Columbus Airport on Monday morning to catch their flight
Speaker 1: to Miami. Brian told Alexis he loved her and told
Speaker 1: her to say hi to her parents from him. Just
Speaker 1: as Brian was finishing his call, Clint emerged from the
Speaker 1: bar and suggested they get started on their bark crawl.
Speaker 1: They worked their way gradually southwards across the city, stopping
Speaker 1: every now and again along the way at every bar,
Speaker 1: they each had a single shot of hard liquor, never
Speaker 1: lingering long before moving on. Two hours and as many
Speaker 1: miles later, they reached a bar in the Short North neighborhood,
Speaker 1: where they met up with a friend of Clint's called
Speaker 1: Meredith Reid. But it was getting close to midnight and
Speaker 1: Brian was beginning to succumb to all the sleepless nights
Speaker 1: and stresses of the exam week. Sensing that the night
Speaker 1: was winding down, Meredith offered to give the guys a
Speaker 1: ride back to the University district and get one last
Speaker 1: drink there with them. A short time later, at one
Speaker 1: fifteen am, the three of them rode up the escalator
Speaker 1: to the main entrance of the Ugly Tuna Saluna, where
Speaker 1: Brian and Clint had begun earlier in the night. Both
Speaker 1: were several drinks deep at this point, but weren't visibly
Speaker 1: drunk or out of control. By then. The bar was
Speaker 1: much less packed than it had been earlier, but the
Speaker 1: atmosphere was still buzzing and a life band was playing.
Speaker 1: The trio mingled and danced. Then at some point Brian
Speaker 1: got separated from the others. It's been suggested that shortly
Speaker 1: After re entering the Ugly Tuna Saluna, Brian and Clint
Speaker 1: got in to an argument, but this has never been
Speaker 1: confirmed in any case. By the time the bar closed
Speaker 1: at two am, Clint and Meredith appeared to have completely
Speaker 1: lost Brian. They both lingered by the exit as other
Speaker 1: patrons descended the escalator, wondering if perhaps Brian was still
Speaker 1: in the bar, maybe using the restroom or finishing up
Speaker 1: a conversation with someone. They tried texting and calling him
Speaker 1: as they scanned the faces of the thinning crowd of
Speaker 1: people as they emerged one by one from the bar,
Speaker 1: but Brian didn't respond, and neither did he appear to
Speaker 1: emerge from the bar Barely a few minutes later, the
Speaker 1: Ugly Tuna saloona turned out its lights and locked its doors.
Speaker 1: A security guard confirmed that there was nobody left inside. Confused,
Speaker 1: Clint and Meredith assumed that Brian must have simply gone
Speaker 1: home without them. It was a little strange, but he
Speaker 1: wouldn't be the first person to pull a French exit
Speaker 1: when he got tired. The next morning, Brian's dad, Randy,
Speaker 1: knew better than to try calling his son so soon
Speaker 1: after a night out, even when he finally shot off
Speaker 1: a text to him on Saturday afternoon, how was last night?
Speaker 1: He wasn't surprised not to get a reply. Brian's girlfriend, Alexis,
Speaker 1: who was busy with her family and Toledo for most
Speaker 1: of Saturday, had tried calling him earlier in the day
Speaker 1: to check in, but her call went straight to voicemail,
Speaker 1: so she figured he was just sleeping off a hangover.
Speaker 1: She tried again that evening, but again it went to voicemail.
Speaker 1: A thread of unease began to twist in her stomach,
Speaker 1: but she tried to shake it off. They'd already finalized
Speaker 1: their plans and agreed to meet at the airport on
Speaker 1: Monday morning, so there wasn't anything pressing they needed to
Speaker 1: talk about. Even still, Brian had always been communicative, and
Speaker 1: it was rare for them to go a full day
Speaker 1: without any contact. On Sunday, she tried him again, but
Speaker 1: yet again, it went to voicemail. By now, Alexis was
Speaker 1: beginning to wonder if Brian had lost or broken his phone.
Speaker 1: She thought about calling his dad, but the family had
Speaker 1: been through so much recently that she didn't want to
Speaker 1: worry him unnecessarily. On Monday morning, Alexis arrived at the
Speaker 1: airport as planned, but Brian was nowhere to be seen.
Speaker 1: Alexis could only wait at the security gate, watching as
Speaker 1: one after another passenger filed pass to get onto their flight.
Speaker 1: On the huge illuminated departures board above her head, she
Speaker 1: watched as the status of their flight to Miami moved
Speaker 1: from go to gate, to boarding to final call. Then
Speaker 1: she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket, and for
Speaker 1: a second her heart leapt. But it wasn't Brian, it
Speaker 1: was his dad. As Alexus answered the phone call, she
Speaker 1: realized for the first time that her hands were shaking.
Speaker 1: Her voice came out strangled with panic, and finally she
Speaker 1: told Randy everything. She told him that Brian was missing.
Speaker 1: For Andy, it was almost a relief to finally hear
Speaker 1: the words out loud. Like Alexus, he'd been desperately trying
Speaker 1: to convince himself that everything was okay, even as his
Speaker 1: texts and calls went unanswered. Now finally he could spring
Speaker 1: into action. As soon as he got off the phone
Speaker 1: with Alexis, Randy reported Brian missing to the Columbus Police
Speaker 1: and told them everything he knew about his son's Friday
Speaker 1: night plans. The cops began by interviewing Clint, who gave
Speaker 1: them a rough timeline of the evening. As he explained
Speaker 1: it to them, he'd last seen Brian inside the Ugly
Speaker 1: tunis Lie around one forty am, but hadn't been able
Speaker 1: to find him when the bar closed at two. This
Speaker 1: location was good news for the investigation thanks to high
Speaker 1: crime rates in the surrounding neighborhood. The South Campus Gateway
Speaker 1: complex where the bar was located, had numerous security cameras.
Speaker 1: When the police reviewed the security footage, they quickly identified Brian, Clint,
Speaker 1: and Meredith going up the escalator towards the bar at
Speaker 1: one fifteen am. This matched the timeline that Clint had
Speaker 1: given them, which lent credibility to his statement, but otherwise
Speaker 1: didn't give them much to go on. And then at
Speaker 1: one fifty five am, just five minutes before the bar closed, incredibly,
Speaker 1: Brian was picked up on CCTV emerging from the bar
Speaker 1: into the street outside. He appeared to talk to two
Speaker 1: young women there before heading back into the bar. The
Speaker 1: CCTV footage then revealed Clinton Meredith leaving a few minutes later,
Speaker 1: along with the rest of the bar's remaining punters. That night,
Speaker 1: but Brian wasn't among them. Despite scourring the footage again
Speaker 1: and again, the police couldn't find a glimpse of him
Speaker 1: leaving the club. No one in the footage really looked
Speaker 1: like him or was wearing the same clothes as him
Speaker 1: that night. The position of the camera also eliminated any
Speaker 1: blind spots. It was inconceivable that anyone could have used
Speaker 1: that main entrance without showing up on the footage, which
Speaker 1: left two possible explanations. Either Brian had deliberately disguised himself
Speaker 1: by changing his clothes and hiding his face from the
Speaker 1: cameras sneaking out with the crowd at two a m.
Speaker 1: Or else he'd left by a different route. Officially, the
Speaker 1: Ugly Tuna Saloona's main entrance was the only way in
Speaker 1: and out of the building, but there was a service
Speaker 1: door tucked away in the side of the bar, not
Speaker 1: far from the spot where Brian had last been seen.
Speaker 1: It led to a first floor hallway, which in turn
Speaker 1: led to a construction area there wasn't technically open to
Speaker 1: the public, but wasn't locked either. There were security cameras
Speaker 1: in that area too, and when the police reviewed that
Speaker 1: footage there was no sign of Brian there either, but
Speaker 1: the camera coverage there was much more patchy and had
Speaker 1: multiple blind spots, so it was entirely possible that he
Speaker 1: could have slipped past unrecorded. Still, there was no mistaking
Speaker 1: that service door for a public exit. If Brian had
Speaker 1: chosen to leave the bar that way, it was because
Speaker 1: he didn't want to be seen, because he wanted to disappear.
Speaker 1: Even though multiple bars in the area had security cameras too,
Speaker 1: Brian wasn't visible on any of them. After one fifty
Speaker 1: five a m. On the morning of April first, there
Speaker 1: wasn't a glimpse of him anywhere in the city. In
Speaker 1: the days following Brian's disappearance, the police mounted a vast
Speaker 1: search effort, which spiraled outwards from the Ugly Tuna SALOONA
Speaker 1: and Brian's apartment nearby. As many as fifty officers went
Speaker 1: door to door asking for information. They searched local hospitals
Speaker 1: and homeless shelters, while police docks were used to comb
Speaker 1: through dumpsters, landfills, and abandoned buildings for any evidence of Brian,
Speaker 1: but there was nothing. They questioned Brian's family, friends and
Speaker 1: fellow students, hoping to uncover some dark secret that might
Speaker 1: offer a clue a drug habit perhaps, or gambling debts,
Speaker 1: or even a known enemy. But yet again they came
Speaker 1: up empty handed. Nobody had anything bad to say about Brian,
Speaker 1: nor any clue where he might have gone. Brian's own
Speaker 1: apartment offered no leads either. His car was still parked outside,
Speaker 1: so wherever he'd gone, he hadn't used his own vehicle
Speaker 1: to get there. This was significant because detectives were considering
Speaker 1: the possibility that Brian had disappeared voluntarily. By anyone's standards,
Speaker 1: he'd been under intense stress before he disappeared. There was
Speaker 1: the fresh grief of his mother's death, the sleep deprivation
Speaker 1: and stress from his exams, maybe even the pressure he'd
Speaker 1: felt to propose to Alexis. But Brian's friends and family
Speaker 1: dismissed this out of hand, and even the detective who
Speaker 1: thought it was possible had to admit that Brian didn't
Speaker 1: fit the profile. Typically, people who deliberately disappear tend to
Speaker 1: do so to escape financial ruin abuse, or a similarly
Speaker 1: unbearable and inescapable situation. Despite everything that Brian had been through,
Speaker 1: he had a stable life and a loving family. He
Speaker 1: was close to it just didn't feel right if Brian
Speaker 1: hadn't intended to disappear, The police figured there were only
Speaker 1: two real possibilities to explain what had happened to him.
Speaker 1: Either he'd fallen victim to an accident, or a deliberate
Speaker 1: act of violence. Because that service door from the bar
Speaker 1: led into a construction area which wasn't well lit at night,
Speaker 1: investigators thought it might be possible that Brian had fallen
Speaker 1: there and somehow died, but after an exhaustive search of
Speaker 1: the whole site, no body was ever found. As for
Speaker 1: an act of violence, there was no sign of a
Speaker 1: struggle or foul play at the bar, and Brian was
Speaker 1: a strong, athletic young man who was more than capable
Speaker 1: of defending himself even after several drinks. It is hard
Speaker 1: to fathom how he could have been overpowered and taken
Speaker 1: against his will without anybody noticing, and without any video evidence,
Speaker 1: every possibility seemed equally implausible. Before long, the police began
Speaker 1: to wonder if Clint or Meredith were hiding something. They
Speaker 1: asked the pair to take polygraph tests. Meredith agreed happily
Speaker 1: and passed the test, but Clint refused such tests. Are
Speaker 1: notoriously unreliable, so perhaps Clint figured not unreasonably, that he
Speaker 1: didn't want to subject himself to something so unpredictable, especially
Speaker 1: if he didn't have anything to hide. Either way, there
Speaker 1: was no evidence to suggest that Clint had anything to
Speaker 1: do with Brian's disappearance, and the security footage clearly showed
Speaker 1: him leaving the bar with Meredith after they appeared to
Speaker 1: have innocently failed to find him. All the while, brian
Speaker 1: father Randy continued to search relentlessly for his son. Losing
Speaker 1: his son so soon after his wife's death without any
Speaker 1: closure was too much for him to bear. Throwing himself
Speaker 1: into the search was just about all he could do
Speaker 1: to keep it together, and so as the official investigation
Speaker 1: began to lose steam, he wrapped up his own. He
Speaker 1: and Brian's younger brother Derek formed a search party with
Speaker 1: some of their neighbors, and together they spent hours trudging
Speaker 1: along the shores of the Olan Tangy River searching for
Speaker 1: any sign of Brian. Meanwhile, Alexis would repeatedly call Brian's
Speaker 1: cell phone, in part just so she could hear his
Speaker 1: voice on the voicemail, but also in the hope that
Speaker 1: one day somebody might answer, and for months it went
Speaker 1: straight to voicemail. But then one night she called Brian's
Speaker 1: phone again and it began to ring. As Alexis sat
Speaker 1: listening to that ring tone, she was instantly seized by hope.
Speaker 1: But after only a few rings, the call once again
Speaker 1: went to voicemail as usual. Investigators determined that this was
Speaker 1: probably just caused by a glitch on the cell phone network,
Speaker 1: but then Brian's phone from that exact call was later
Speaker 1: found to have pinged a tower in Hilliard, a northwestern
Speaker 1: suburb of Columbus. This cell phone ping is the closest
Speaker 1: thing to new evidence that submerged since Brian went missing,
Speaker 1: but in the end, just like everything else, it led nowhere.
Speaker 1: Although dozens of tips came in from members of the
Speaker 1: public claiming to have seen Brian in locations as far
Speaker 1: apart as Texas to Sweden, none of these leads panned
Speaker 1: out either. In September two thousand and eight, Brian's father, Randy,
Speaker 1: was killed in a freak accident by a falling tree
Speaker 1: branch during a storm. Then, in the comments of his
Speaker 1: online obituary, a post appeared claiming to be from Brian,
Speaker 1: giving his location as the Virgin Islands, but the police
Speaker 1: soon determined that the post was just a cruel hoax. Today,
Speaker 1: the investigation into Brian's disappearance is officially still active and
Speaker 1: remains one of Ohio's most notorious cold cases. In twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, authorities released an age progressed photo showing what
Speaker 1: Brian would look like in his forties, in the hopes
Speaker 1: that he might still be located one day. Hope doesn't
Speaker 1: have an expiration date. The Ohio Attorney General set Every
Speaker 1: Missing Person Counts. This spring of twenty twenty six marks
Speaker 1: twenty years since Brian's was last seen. This episode was
Speaker 1: written by Emma Dibden and produced by me Richard McLain smith.
Speaker 1: Thank you as ever for listening. Unexplained as an AV
Speaker 1: Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain smith. All other
Speaker 1: elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced
Speaker 1: by me Richard McClain smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook
Speaker 1: is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon,
Speaker 1: Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores. Please subscribe to
Speaker 1: and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and
Speaker 1: feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or
Speaker 1: ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you have an explanation or a story of your own
Speaker 1: you'd like to share. You can find out more at
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us online through X
Speaker 1: and Blue Sky at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook
Speaker 1: dot com, Forward Slash Unexplained Podcast