75 replies to this topic

[Lori Davis]

http://www.nbc4i.com...ears_now/14506/
Without A Trace: Shaffer Missing 3 Years

By Laurie Omness
Published: April 6, 2009

COLUMBUS, Ohio-Police have investigated and re-investigated, but three years after 27-year-old OSU medical student Brian Shaffer was last seen at the Ugly Toona Saloona bar, detectives have no idea where he is.  

The case still is considered an active case but puzzles all who look at it.

Central Ohio Crime Stoppers' Kevin Miles told NBC 4's Matt Alvarez Shaffer still is considered a missing person.  

"It's still in missing persons. It's not in homicide," Miles said.  

If Shaffer were to turn up tomorrow, he'd find the landscape of his life changed in the three years since he disappeared: His mother died of cancer shortly before his disappearance. His father, who spearheaded a constant and widespread effort to keep his son's name in the public eye, was killed in the September 2008 wind storm. A branch fell on Randy Shaffer.

Crime Stoppers continues to offer the $25,000 reward for information on Shaffer's whereabouts.

Anyone with information about on Shaffer was encouraged to call Crime Stoppers at 614-645-TIPS or visit StopCrime.org to e-mail your tip. You also can text a tip to CRIMES keyword CMH.

Crime Stoppers does not use caller ID or record telephone conversations. A special coding system protects the identity of the caller.

[Denise]

http://www.thelanter...e-3707043.shtml

Is Brian Shaffer alive?
Missing med student might be alive, attorney says; brother suspects best friend has knowledge of incident that happened three years ago

Drew Sullivan
Issue date: 4/13/09 Section: Campus

An attorney believes that an Ohio State medical student who has been missing for more than three years is alive, he told a private investigator in an e-mail.

Brian Shaffer has been missing since April 1, 2006. He was last seen on surveillance video outside the Ugly Tuna Saloona on the South Campus Gateway at 1:55 that morning. One of the last people to see Shaffer that night was William "Clint" Florence, one of Shaffer's best friends.

Attorney Neil Rosenberg represents Florence, who has refused at least two requests to take polygraph tests during the investigation of Shaffer's disappearance. Florence is the only person who has refused to take a polygraph, said Kevin Miles, director of the Central Ohio Crime Stoppers.

Private investigator Don Corbett, who has worked on the case for free for the Shaffer family, said Florence refused his request to take a polygraph as recently as last September. Corbett said Florence also refused a police request to take a polygraph soon after Shaffer went missing. The Columbus Division of Police did not respond to phone calls last week seeking comment about Florence's refusal to take a polygraph.

In the e-mail he sent to Corbett on Sept. 22, 2008, Rosenberg said: "If Brian is alive, which is what I'm led to believe after speaking with the detective involved, then it is Brian, and not Clint who is causing his family pain and hardship. Brian should come forward and end this."

Rosenberg said last week in a phone interview that as far as he is concerned the case is closed, and he declined to comment about the investigation or the e-mail he sent to Corbett.

In an e-mail last week, Florence said: "While I appreciate any effort in trying to determine what happened to Brain [sic] that night, I must decline your request. ANY and ALL questions you have for me should be directed to my attorney, Neil Rosenberg."

Florence, 32, works for the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Vanderbilt University Medical School, where he is a postdoctoral fellow, according to a Vanderbilt Web site.

Corbett said he doesn't know which detective Rosenberg was referring to in the e-mail. However, he believes it is one of three men at Columbus Police: detective Andre Edwards of the Physical Child Abuse Section, Sgt. John Hurst of the Physical Abuse Section and Deputy Chief Antone Lanata of the Investigative Subdivision.

All three did not respond to repeated requests last week for an interview about whether they told Rosenberg they believe Shaffer is still alive.

Rosenberg also said in his e-mail to Corbett that, "The only burning issue with the authorities remains Clint's refusal to be polygraphed. That decision was based on my recommendation and advise [sic] to Clint, not because he is, has been misleading or has something to hide, but that he simply has nothing new to tell and was totally up front and honest with them from the beginning. As far as Clint is concerned, this matter is closed."

In a telephone interview Friday, Meredith Reed, a friend of both Shaffer and Florence who was with them that night, said she took and passed a polygraph about a month after Shaffer disappeared.

She said she assumes the Columbus Police asked her to take the test.

In fact, everyone who was asked to take a polygraph passed it, Miles said.

But not everyone who knew Brian or who had seen him the night he went missing was asked to take a polygraph.

The last time Shaffer was seen on surveillance video outside the Ugly Tuna Saloona he was with two women, Brightan Zatko and Amber Ruic. Ruic said in a phone interview Friday that she was never asked to take a polygraph.

Brian's brother, Derek, is the last surviving member of the immediate family. His father, Randy, died on Sept. 14, 2008, when a tree limb fell on him outside his house during a windstorm. Derek's mother died of cancer three weeks before Brian went missing.

In a phone interview last week, Derek Shaffer said he was not asked to take a polygraph but that his father took and passed one. Derek Shaffer also said he thinks it's odd that Clint has refused to take any polygraphs.

"As soon as the detective started getting involved, that's when he pretty much had no contact with anybody," Derek Shaffer said. "I've always thought he definitely knows something - just won't come forward with it.

"If Brian did take off somewhere, if that is the case, we just always had a strong feeling that Clint would possibly know that."

Shaffer's girlfriend at the time, Alexis Waggoner, also thinks Florence knows something he doesn't want to tell. But her opinion regarding Shaffer's whereabouts now is different than Derek's.

"I don't think he's alive," Waggoner said. "I can't imagine he would have just done that."

Alexis Waggoner's father, Tom Waggoner, participated in the search for Shaffer in 2006. During that period he became acquainted with Florence.

"The gist of my perspective on Clint Florence is that I think that basically all roads to making any progress on the case on Brian Shaffer lead through Clint Florence," Tom Waggoner said.

[Lori Davis]

https://findthemissing.org/cases/1709
NamUs profile for Brian R. Shaffer

[Lori Davis]

http://www.columbusm...m/article1.html

In the name of the father
Randy Shaffer died in a freak accident last year before he could unravel the mystery that had consumed his life for nearly three years, the disappearance of his son. Now, a Columbus detective and loyal friends are carrying on the quest.

Reprinted from the April 2009 issue of Columbus Monthly©
by April Johnston

The poster is still taped to the window in the sixth-floor lobby, where all who have business with the Special Victims Bureau can see it. In one photograph, Brian Shaffer is bearded. In another, cleanshaven. Detectives change the pictures every once in a while because, if Brian is still alive, it's likely he's changed, too.

But what hasn't changed, not in three long years, are the words: Missing. OSU medical student. Last seen at the Ugly Tuna Saloona on April 1, 2006. Reward. If the poster could speak, its pleas would be getting desperate, its voice higher pitched.

The case always has been a tragic one, even for the detectives who are accustomed to investigating hardship. Brian’s mother, Renee, lost her battle with cancer only three weeks before he disappeared. The double loss sent her husband, Randy, into a tailspin. He spent the next two and a half years on a rabid, relentless search for his oldest son, sloshing along miles of riverbank, fielding phone calls from psychics and making pleading, public pitches for help, until a freak accident during a September 2008 windstorm took him, too.

The only other surviving family member, Brian's younger brother, Derek, has fallen mostly silent since Randy's death. Friends say he needs a break from the pain and the overwhelming, and increasingly hopeless, task of finding Brian.

But those who watched Randy fight, friends, detectives, volunteers and even sympathetic strangers, have a renewed fervor for the case. They want to find the answers for the father who never got them. They want an ending to this story, even if it's not a happy one. Only, without Randy, they're not quite sure what to do or where to begin.

"It's overwhelming," says Lori Davis, who never knew Brian but felt drawn to the case and to Randy after seeing him interviewed on television. Three years after Brian's disappearance and six months after Randy's death, she still wears a Where is Brian Shaffer? button on her jacket and scours the Internet for clues most every evening. "I want to respect the family's wishes [for privacy], but then I ask myself if Randy would want me to continue searching, and I know he would. I think we're all kind of lost right now."

The details of that Friday night in 2006 have been reported and repeated, sifted and scrutinized, examined and reexamined by the family, the police and the web-based sleuths who love a good mystery.

It goes something like this: Brian, 27, and his former roommate, Clint Florence, arrive at South Campus Gateway's Ugly Tuna Saloona sometime after 9, determined to celebrate the beginning of spring break with a boys' night out. Just before 10, Brian speaks briefly to his girlfriend, Alexis Waggoner, who, like him, is a second-year medical student at Ohio State. He tells her he loves her and hangs up. It is the last time she'll talk to him. While Waggoner visits her parents' home in Toledo, Brian and Florence barhop from Gateway to the Arena District to the Short North, where they meet Florence's friend, Meredith Reed. By this time, Florence will later explain to police, they've had several shots and gladly take Reed up on her offer of a lift back to the Ugly Tuna.

Surveillance cameras hidden in the ceilings and facades at Gateway catch the trio riding the escalator up to the second-floor bar and stepping inside. It's 1:15. Just before 2, Brian is back in the camera's view, speaking with two college-age women. He appears to say goodbye and walk away. He's never seen again.

Calls from Florence and Reed go unanswered that night. Calls from Waggoner and Randy go unanswered all weekend. But it isn't until Monday morning, when Brian misses a long-scheduled flight to Florida, that his family is sure something is wrong. They call Columbus police.

Sgt. John Hurst is a father. A sign that has the word "Daddy" scribbled in wavy, blue crayon hangs from the front of his desk, though his kids are years removed from making such things. So he understood right away Randy's terror, his insistence that Brian would never have walked away on his own and his repeated pleas for the police to find his son. He would have done the same.

But detectives, especially those who work on missing persons cases, are at the mercy of the clues left behind, and in the case of Brian Shaffer, there were precious few.

Hurst and his detectives began their investigation where they believe Brian ended his nightat the Ugly Tuna. It's one of those quintessential college bars, with a spring break attitude, plenty of drink specials and constant entertainment (think "Naughty School Girl" night). But it also was trendy enough to be located in Gateway, the city and Ohio State's upscale answer to the increasingly dangerous and deteriorating south end of campus. That meant one thing to detectives: surveillance cameras. They are indispensable to investigations. The silent and often incontrovertible witnesses to crime can crack a case open faster and more reliably than humans, who are prone to faulty memories and misled loyalties.

But the cameras at Ugly Tuna only caused more confusion, because while they caught Brian entering the bar that night, they never caught him actually leaving. Detectives were perplexed: If Brian left the way he arrived on the escalator he surely would have been taped by one of the cameras. But they soon learned there were other ways out. He might have changed his clothes or donned a hat and kept his head down and face obscured. He could have left through an exit that led directly to a construction site. It would have been difficult to navigate, especially if Brian were intoxicated, but not impossible. Or, the worst scenario of all maybe the cameras simply missed him. One panned the area constantly; another operated manually. What if Brian had slipped out in the anonymous space between them?

In those first few days, and on the heels of that theory, as many as 50 police officers searched for Brian at a time, scouring the streets, pawing through dumpsters and knocking on doors. They moved in an orderly, concentric pattern, beginning at the Ugly Tuna or Brian's campus-area apartment and working their way out, marking distance in blocks and then miles. They questioned Brian's friends and family and asked them all the hard questions you do when someone disappears, questions about drugs and enemies and difficult times. They checked hospitals and homeless shelters. They followed tips and hunches to landfills and riverbanks. They even persuaded the city to check nearby sewer lines. But no one found anything, not even the K-9 units.

Police began to wonder if Brian's disappearance was a crime or a setup. Maybe he was more distraught over his mother's death than he had been letting on. It had been only 25 days since the funeral. Perhaps Brian's disappearance was preconceived, a way for him to escape the pain of losing a parent for a while. If that were the case, they were sure he'd return.

But Hurst had another theory, and it wasn't good. It had been gnawing at him since that first day at the Ugly Tuna. Brian had missed his Monday morning flight, a plane ride that would have taken him to a sunny stretch of Florida and a possible proposal to his girlfriend. It seemed unlikely he would skip such a trip. When people disappear, they typically do it on the brink of desperation, not vacation.

In those first few months of searching, Randy allowed bits of hope to freckle his pain. Friends say he seemed oddly buoyed when Brian's apartment was burglarized, thinking there could be a connection. There wasn't. He figured a good tip would come in after Pearl Jam's lead singer Eddie Vedder took time out at a concert in Cincinnati to talk about the case. None did. And he and Waggoner prayed Brian had turned his cellphone on when, after months of going directly to voicemail, it began to ring. He hadn't. It was a Cingular computer glitch.

And soon, the earmarks of tragedy became more pronounced, splintering Randy's optimism. A year into the search, no one had used Brian's cellphone to make a call or his credit card to make a purchase. None of the hundreds of tips police and Crime Stoppers received had led to Brian or a body. His features should have distinguished him from all the other dark-haired, athletic twentysomethings,a dark fleck on his left iris, a Pearl Jam tattoo on his right bicep but every so-called sighting proved erroneous.

Still, Randy refused to give up. He figured the best way to find Brian was to remind the world that he was still missing, so he courted the media constantly, chatting openly with reporters and crying before the television cameras. He wallpapered the city with "Missing" posters and organized vigils and searches. He befriended the parents of other missing children, and, with their help and the assistance of Crime Stoppers president Kevin Miles, persuaded the Ohio legislature to pass a missing adults bill that established statewide protocol for detectives in cases such as Brian's. Before the bill, each case was handled at the discretion of the detectives and, some families felt, haphazardly.

Desperate for any link to his son, Randy even listened to the advice of psychics. One insisted Brian's body was submerged in water, held down by the whirlpools that form at the base of concrete bridge posts. At the time of his disappearance, Brian lived in the 200 block of King Avenue, less than a mile from the Olentangy River. Randy and his brother bought fishing waders, called Kevin Miles and headed for the riverbank to roam.

For hours, Randy splashed from bridge post to bridge post, kneeling and peering into the murky water for any sign of his son, while Miles looked on helplessly, sensing this particular search was futile. At one post, Randy's feet slipped out from underneath him and the whirlpool that was supposed to be holding Brian yanked Randy toward the riverbed. His brother grabbed him just as he went under.

Miles stood stunned by the scene and by Randy's willingness to sacrifice so much for the faintest possibility of victory. He called in a silent wish. "This father shouldn't be going through all of this," he thought. "Please just let him find his son."

While Randy grieved, Columbus police continued their investigation. It was frustratingly slow. Because the detectives didn't have one good clue to follow, they had to chase a slew of questionable ones. They searched empty fields and lonely patches of woods, followed up on possible sightings in Texas and Sweden. They administered lie detector tests (even to a willing Randy) and questioned the friends who had seen him last. They watched surveillance tapes until the scenes invaded their dreams, hoping to catch something they'd missed the time before. They even briefly considered the possibility of a serial killer, an idea that gripped Internet bloggers and sleuths. Some became convinced that Brian died at the hands of the Smiley Face Killer, who is said to prey on intoxicated, college-age men in the Midwest, murdering them and tossing their bodies into local rivers. Two retired New York City detectives have spent more than 10 years investigating the scenes of the 40 so-called drownings. They've found a smiley face spray painted along the riverbank at each one except Brian's.

"Maybe they just haven't found it yet," one blogger suggested. But Hurst finds the whole idea unlikely. For one, they have no evidence that Brian's body is in a river. They're not even sure he's dead. For another, the FBI conducted its own investigation into the drownings and doubts the existence of a Smiley Face Killer.

Still, every scenario detectives can investigate and eliminate is a possible step toward the answers they need. So they've consistently refused to dismiss even the most outrageous tips. "We've got to keep our senses about us," Hurst says. "But we don't want to say, 'There's nothing to this.' We might look at it at first and say, 'Come on, you've got to be kidding me.' But the ones we can follow up on, we do."

One of those tips came from a young woman who, on a drive through Michigan, had stopped to eat at a diner and was waited on by a man who looked suspiciously like Brian Shaffer. His name tag even read 'Brian S.' She was afraid to ask the question, so she called police instead. When they tried to follow up, the restaurant owners were coy, claiming no one named Brian worked there.

"We have to drive up there tonight," Lori Davis insisted when Randy told her the news. She had become, to her family's bewilderment, both the keeper of Brian's website and Randy's confidante.

"I don't know if I can," he told her. He was scared to find out the truth, afraid, if it were his son, he'd hate him for everything he'd put the family through. But before Davis could convince Randy otherwise, they got the news. Police in Michigan confirmed it: The waiter wasn't Brian.

Randy seemed both deflated and relieved.

In a radio interview 18 months after Brian disappeared, Randy told the host he never understood why Brian went out on the night he disappeared. Father and son had grabbed a steak dinner earlier that evening and Brian seemed exhausted after pulling all-nighters for a flurry of med school exams, and, though he wore a remarkably composed exterior, he was still reeling over his mother's death. Renee was, Brian's friends say, his confidante and his hero. She also was the center of the Shaffer universe, and losing her alternately unraveled tight family ties and thrust the men closer together.

When she died, Randy was too distraught to sort through her things. He left them unmoved, untouched. He did the same when Brian disappeared a month later. By the fall of 2008, the reminders, memories and questions those items brought appeared to some to be choking and taunting Randy. He wrote frantic letters to Clint Florence and Meredith Reed, who he assumed last saw Brian, and asked them to come forward if they knew anything, even if they had promised Brian they wouldn't. He started to call Davis several times a day, one afternoon, she counted 30 just to replay the scenarios.

"He needed peace," she says. "He was a lost soul on this earth."

The evening of Sept. 14, a windstorm ripped through Central Ohio and Randy's backyard. He was, his friends believe, attempting to clean up debris when a violent gust cracked a limb from a nearby tree and hurled it in Randy's direction. The impact killed him. A neighbor found his body the next morning. The family asked Crime Stoppers' Kevin Miles to give the eulogy.

"It haunts me," Miles says, "that we still don't know where Brian is."

Hurst believes in heaven. In the case of Brian Shaffer, it's a critical consideration. Because, if there is a heaven, he can be sure that Randy is with Renee and that he has the answers he wanted about Brian. But it doesn't stop Hurst from wishing he had been the one to provide them.

Within weeks of Randy's death, the detectives uncovered two clues in Brian's case. One was a posting on Randy's memorial website that read, "I miss u dad love brian." The writer listed the Virgin Islands as his home. The other was a third-party tip, claiming Brian's body could be found in a field, near a freeway and just outside of the city.

With no evidence to dismiss either possibility, detectives investigated both. "We were looking for a deceased person and for someone who's still amongst the living at the same time," Hurst says. But in the end they found neither. The posting turned out to be a hoax, written on a public computer in Columbus, and the K-9 search of the field turned up nothing.

Hurst was disappointed, but not surprised. Nothing about this case surprises him anymore. Brian Shaffer is not the first person who has disappeared without leaving any hint of his whereabouts behind, but, in many ways, he is the most frustrating. Even with a reward of $25,000 and even when that reward spiked to $100,000 there were no answers. No one came forward to say what they know. That doesn't mean that person doesn't exist. Hurst, for all he can't say about the case, can say this for sure: "Someone out there knows something."

Lori Davis and Kevin Miles have their suspicions. They're fairly certain Brian is dead, killed over some misunderstanding, and that his body is still somewhere in this city. If he were alive, they reason, he'd never let his brother navigate a world without parents alone.

In some ways, they need to believe this. For Randy, and for themselves. Miles's father was murdered in Washington, D.C., five years ago. The family still doesn't know who committed the crime. They've never had anyone to blame. Miles needs to believe that they'll find Brian just like he needs to believe they'll find his father's killer, so he can still count on justice.

Davis has spent the better part of the past two years immersed in this case. Her husband doesn't understand it. Her 13-year-old son has reluctantly accepted it. He took the photographs when she stopped at the Ugly Tuna Saloona to conduct her own investigation. He's accompanied her to vigils and interviews. Davis needs to believe her family's time hasn't been wasted, that Brian, who she never knew, isn't the type of person who would let his father die, and his brother live, without answers.

For Randy's sake, and on Brian's behalf, Davis plans to keep searching. It's what she'd want someone to do for her, what she'd want someone to do for her son. And though she hasn't found the answers yet, she feels as if she's made progress. Old Shaffer family acquaintances have contacted her with tips and ideas. A woman from Cleveland wants to form a volunteer task force, to share theories about the case. Strangers from as far away as Ecuador and Panama who saw Brian's story featured on the A&E show "Psychic Kids" have signed the website guestbook and offered their prayers.

“The Internet won't let this case die," Davis says. "People a lot more distant than even me want answers. This case haunts them. I think it's because any of us could be in that situation. I have to fight against becoming so paranoid about it that I can't live my life."

With that, Davis's son, Kaleb, sighs. It's his birthday and he's in a Bob Evans, listening to his mother talk about Brian Shaffer, again. "I'm going to the bathroom," he tells her.

Her head snaps up. "If someone tries to take you, you scream," she says. Kaleb rolls his eyes. "I know," he says. He's obviously heard this before. "A million times," they agree. Then their eyes lock and they both start to chuckle.

So much has changed in three years. Brian's girlfriend, Waggoner, has graduated from medical school and gotten engaged. His brother, Derek, plans to marry his longtime girlfriend. The house where the Shaffer boys grew up is empty. Their mother and father are gone. Clint Florence, the last person believed to have seen Brian alive, moved to Tennessee. The apartment on King Avenue where Brian last lived has been rented, deserted, rented again. Winters have frozen and springs have thawed the Olentangy, where Randy once believed his son's body could be found. The "Missing" posters that once wallpapered campus and beyond have weathered and worn and faded away.

Read more at link above.

[Kelly]

Many blessings to our own Lori Davis for caring enough to help a family in need. (see story above)

[Lori Davis]

Yesterday marked Brian's birthday.  May God bless him whereever he is.  Thinking of Brian tonight.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.associate...ppearances.html

Spring Break Disappearances
Published March 15, 2010 
by: Shelly Barclay

Spring break is a time of partying and vacationing for older high school kids and college-age individuals. Parents worry about spring break because it has been given a reputation as a time of debauchery and lowered inhibitions for those involved, and with good reason. For most spring breakers the time passes relatively safely and they wander home from wherever they vacationed, nursing hangovers and regretting their behavior (or worse, bragging about it). However, some very unlucky spring breakers never make it home to rue or revere the day they went to spring break. Some meet with accidents that are drug, alcohol or stupidity induced. Some are murdered (it's appalling, but it does happen). And then there are those who appear to have vanished without leaving behind a single clue. It's a parent's worst nightmare and it happened to the following two Spring Breakers.

During spring break 2009, a 17-year-old girl named Brittanee Drexel made the decision to leave her home in Rochester, New York and go with some of her friends to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Brittanee's mother did not want her daughter to go, which is understandable considering the girl's age and the location which she had chosen to spend her Spring Break. However, Brittanee Drexel decided to go against her mother's wishes and on Saturday, April 25, she disappeared. She was last seen exiting the Blue Resort Hotel where her friend Peter Broswick was staying. The police have been searching for the young woman for nearly a year now and they have turned up very little in the way of leads. If you or anyone you know has any information regarding the whereabouts of Brittanee Drexel, please call the Myrtle Beach Police Department at 1-834-918-1300. Alternatively, you can leave a confidential tip at her family's website www.helpfindBrittaneeDrexel.com.

Brian Shaffer was a 27-year-old medical student at Ohio State University when he disappeared during spring break 2006. On April 1, Brian and his friends went out drinking near campus. They wound up in a bar called the Ugly Tuna Saloona. There were cameras at the entrance and exit of the bar, but oddly, Brian was only seen entering; he was never seen leaving. Police estimate that he disappeared between 1:30 and 2 a.m. All of his belongings were still in his apartment with his car parked nearby. The credit cards that he had on his person and his cell phone have not been seen or used since that night. There is no evidence that he would have just run off and his loved ones didn't seem to think it likely that he would have committed suicide. If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Brian Shaffer, please contact the Columbus Police Department at 1-877-645-8477.

At this point, it is impossible to know the fate of these two spring breakers. We can only hope that they will be returned to their families someday. However, we can do our best to protect those who go out on spring break in the future. It is important to teach your children about spring break safety, no matter how old or responsible they are. It is a good idea for them to be aware of the danger of large crowds and how easy it is to just vanish in them. It is also important to remember that criminals know this. spring breakers are easy targets for them. Preparing a spring breakers may just help get them home safely.

[Denise Harrison]

Brian Shaffer was among the featured people for March 2010 in The Garden for the Missing/Project Jason advertising program within the 3D virtual world, Second Life. The posters are showcased at one of the highest traffic areas in the 3D virtual world, with 45,000 daily visitors from the U.S. and abroad.



These advertisements are purchased by The Garden for the Missing

http://www.gardenforthemissing.org

More information about our efforts in Second Life is available at

http://www.projectja...econdLife.shtml

The advertisements for each person is displayed for two weeks, then another person’s poster appears. The posters are provided by Project Jason’s Awareness Angels Network --

http://www.projectja.../awareness.html.projectjason.org/awareness.html[/url]

[Lori Davis]

http://www.dispatch....ng.html?sid=101

Concert Review | Pearl Jam
Band rocks for 2 hours; happy crowd sings along
Friday,  May 7, 2010 2:53 AM
By Gary Budzak
For The Columbus Dispatch
Courtney Hergesheimer | Dispatch

Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder waxed a little nostalgic last night as the band played to a near-capacity crowd at Nationwide Arena.Once the biggest grunge band in the world, Pearl Jam rocked like it was 1992 last night in a nearly-full Nationwide Arena.

In that breakthrough year, Pearl Jam played 10 songs at Newport Music Hall, singer Eddie Vedder recalled from the Nationwide stage. They played more than twice that number last night, and for two hours, things like deadlines and bills dissolved in the maelstrom of twin guitars, heavy beats and powerful singing.

"We did this song 18 years ago," Vedder said, as Pearl Jam launched into a warp speed version of Even Flow.

With little fanfare and frills, Vedder (vocals, guitar), Jeff Ament (bass), Matt Cameron (drums, percussion), Stone Gossard (guitar), Mike McCready (guitar) and Boom Gaspar (keyboards) had the fans pumping their fists to songs such as Corduroy. And except for the front row, they sat on their hands for songs they didn't know like the newer Got Some, and pot smoke filled the air.

But the best times were when the entire audience sang along with Vedder - for example, "Hearts and thoughts they fade away" on Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town.

It was also cool to watch surfer dude Vedder hanging ten by arcing his body backward, one arm leaning on the microphone stand. And the leaping, pacing Ament and McCready got as much of a workout as Cameron. (Gossard was statue guitarist.) Vedder was seen dancing off on the side, obscured by speakers as the guitarists jammed during an encore. He also smoked and drank from the stage.

Celebrating its 20th year, the Seattle-based grunge rock band has sometimes sabotaged its own success, including fighting Ticketmaster and eschewing videos. And last night, there were no video screens (a staple of arena shows), other than the band name and graphics projected behind them.

For the encore, Vedder said he'd do a "romantic song," Just Breathe, then the audience sang along to Black. Vedder said Cincinnati Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo was in the crowd, and things heated up again with Spin the Black Circle and Go.

On the second encore, Vedder thanked the fans, saying, "Life is a mysterious thing," and dedicating Come Back to missing OSU student Brian Shaffer. Things wrapped up with Alive, with the lights coming on as the fans yelled, "Who answers?" and ended after 11 p.m. with Yellow Ledbetter.

Band of Horses, a 6-year-old Seattle rock band that now calls South Carolina home, opened with music from its albums Cease to Begin and Infinite Arms. Some songs were OK, but they played much too long.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.dispatch....on.html?sid=101

Missing adults getting more attention
Columbus police focus on high-risk cases
Saturday, August 21, 2010  02:50 AM
By Jeb Phillips
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Columbus police distributed these fliers in their search for Timothy Eugene Fisher and Jeffrey Allen Stutton, two longtime missing and presumed endangered adults.In 2005, Columbus police placed three women who had been missing for a long time under possibly violent circumstances on a kind of high-priority missing-adults list.

The first, Ashley Howley, 20, disappeared in June 2004 after reporting that her boyfriend assaulted her. Police found her remains in Delaware County in 2008, where the boyfriend had buried her. He is serving a life sentence in prison.

The second, Crystal Wilson, 47, was last seen alive during a 2003 Christmas party at a Northeast Side tavern. Police found her body on Aug. 13 inside a car in a lake off Dublin Road. Authorities are still investigating.

The third, Carla Losey, was 20 when she was last seen on New Year’s Eve 2002 leaving a Hilltop bar with an unknown man.

“I want her home,” said Pam Conner, 54, Losey’s mother. “If it means we have a burial for her, or if it means we just have to make a psychiatrist’s appointment for her ... I want to know.”

After long criticizing Ohio law-enforcement agencies for the way they handle missing adults, Conner and others say the agencies are improving. But some of the old complaints still pop up.

Some critics say police departments often ignore reports because they believe missing adults are gone because they want to be. Or agencies work some cases harder than others.

Losey, who had been arrested for prostitution and worked as a stripper, might not have gotten the initial attention that she should have, Conner said.

It’s sometimes difficult to separate the reports that need immediate action from those that don’t, said Sgt. Jerry Cupp of the Columbus police’s missing-persons unit.

The unit received 5,726 reports last year, or about 16 per day. About 80 percent of those were for missing juveniles, Cupp said. The unit doesn’t divide the reports by age.

He said that 95 percent of all reports are resolved within two days.

Most adults are, in fact, voluntarily missing, he said. They didn’t come home one night but turn up a few hours later, or the report is the result of someone looking for an estranged spouse. In the latter, police will verify that the person is alive but won’t pursue it further, Cupp said.

A state law signed in 2007 requires law-enforcement agencies to take certain actions in missing-persons cases. They must, for example, immediately enter information into a national database if a missing person is between 18 and 21 years old. They have different time limits when the cases meet other criteria.

Last month, the Ohio Peace Officer Training Commission issued revised legal requirements and recommended protocols in missing-persons cases. The Ohio attorney general’s office, which oversees the commission, has met with families and victims advocates in the past several months to address concerns about the cases, said Kevin Miles, president of Central Ohio Crime Stoppers.

Losey remains on a wall of the longtime, high-risk missing in the missing-persons squad room. Her mother said she now regularly hears from the detective assigned to the case and thinks it’s getting the attention it needs.

Others have joined Losey on the wall:

• Brian Shaffer, an Ohio State medical student who was last seen April 1, 2006, at the Ugly Tuna Saloona in the South Campus Gateway. He was 27 years old.

• Anthony Luzio Jr., of Powell, who was last seen July 4, 2005, leaving a party in southern Delaware County. He was 25.

• Jeffrey Allen Stutton, who was last seen Oct. 9, 2005, at his residence on Hodges Drive on the West Side. He was 46.

• Timothy Eugene Fisher, who was last seen June 5, 2005, at Bill’s Other Place bar, 733 Harrisburg Pike on the West Side. He was 45.

For more information on Columbus missing persons, visit www.columbuspolice.org/missings and www.ohiomissingadults.com.

Anyone with information on missing people can contact the Columbus police missing-persons unit at 614-645-4670.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.ohioattor...-People/Shaffer
Brian Shaffer's case on the Ohio Attorney General's Missing Person website

[Kelly]

http://www2.nbc4i.co...s-di-ar-439314/


Brian Shaffer Blood Drive Marks 5th Anniversary Of Disappearance
Without A Trace: Shaffer Missing 3 Years

Central Ohio Crime Stoppers and family and friends of Brian Shaffer are planning a blood drive this weekend, commemorating the five-year anniversary of his disappearance.

By Lauren Schmoll
Published: March 31, 2011

COLUMBUS, Ohio --

Central Ohio Crime Stoppers and family and friends of Brian Shaffer are planning a blood drive this weekend, commemorating the five-year anniversary of his disappearance.

Shafer was a medical student at Ohio State when he went missing early on the morning of April 1, 2006. He was last seen by friends at a bar near campus.

The blood drive will run from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. Saturday, April 2, at the Grandview Kroger off Chambers Road.

Anyone who donates will receive a $10 Kroger gift card.

You can register online by going to http://www.redcrossblood.org and inputting the sponsor code "krogrand" or by calling 800-REDCROSS.

Central Ohio Crime Stoppers is still offering a reward for tips in the case. Just call 614-461-TIPS.

[Lori Davis]

Happy 33rd birthday Brian, where ever you may be.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.abc6onyou...man-21725.shtml

Reward Offered In Missing Dublin Man

Thursday, January 10 2013, 11:23 PM EST
Reporter: Carol Luper
Web Producer: Kellie Hanna

DUBLIN — Crime Stoppers, Dublin Police and the family of Siva Kumar Singh Gadwal are offering a reward of up to two thousand dollars for information that helps find him.

He and his wife were visiting their daughter and son-in-law and their brand new granddaughter at their Dublin apartment.

On December 11 he told his daughter he was going for a walk for five or ten minutes, but he never came back, and has not been seen since.

Today the family came together with Crime Stoppers and Dublin Police to announce the reward and ask anyone with information on his whereabouts to call Crime Stoppers or Dublin Police.

There’s no evidence of a crime, but Crime Stoppers does provide rewards in some cases of missing persons.

There was a reward posted for OSU Med student Brian Shaffer who was last seen at a bar in the Campus Gateway on North High Street.

There was also a reward for Tony Luzio who apparently left a party in his car July 4th 2005 and hasn’t been seen since.

Siiva Kumar Singh Gadwal’s family hopes he is found alive and well but so far no clues have been found.

[Lori Davis]

http://www2.nbc4i.co...tho-ar-1310352/

Columbus Sees Many Missing Adults Who Vanish Without A Trace
Long Term Missing Adult Cases Heartbreaking For Families

By: NADIA BASHIR | NBC4
Published: January 12, 2013

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- In the last several years Columbus has seen several high profile cases of missing adults who vanish without a trace.

The most recent case is that of Siva Kumar Singh-Gadwal, the missing Indian man who disappeared after going for a walk outside his daughter's Dublin home. Singh-Gadwal and his wife were visiting from India.

Police searched by ground and by air, even diving in local ponds. Still Singh-Gadwal remains missing without a clue. The family tells NBC4 that tips have stopped coming in to police which prompted them to join with Crime Stoppers last week to offer a $2,000 reward.

In 2006, the case of missing OSU medical student Brian Shaffer came in to the spotlight. Shaffer disappeared from the Ugly Tuna Saloona on N. High Street. Friends reported Brian left to see the band and was never seen again.

Shaffer's father kept the case in the spotlight until his own death in 2008. A $25,000 reward remains for information in the case.

Last Spring, Kenneth Roberts disappeared after going to visit a friend.

CPD initially said that on April 9, a relative took 61-year-old Roberts to Ravenswood Court, near Easthaven Road, to visit a family friend. It remains unclear whether Roberts disappeared after leaving the friend's or simply walked away from his home.

Kenneth doesn't have his daily medication for high blood pressure, dementia and Parkinson's disease, which he was diagnosed with in 1994.

Last Spring his family spoke to NBC4 about how difficult the ordeal was.

"Churches, banks, homeless shelters hospitals. You know we've been combing the areas quite a bit out here. It's pretty tough," said Roberts' son, Kenneth Roberts, Jr.

Missing persons investigators say in most cases someone somewhere has a clue that can crack the case but those people are often afraid to come forward. Investigators also say that in some cases missing persons stay missing because they do not want to be found.

However in most cases there is someone who has the clue that can crack the case.

"They may not have caught it the first 99 times it's been on TV but that 100th time maybe they'll see it and they'll remember something they saw that will be pertinent to the case," said former FBI agent Harry Trombitas.

[Lori Davis]

http://www.dispatch....ng-locally.html

Among the missing locally

The Columbus Dispatch Wednesday May 8, 2013 6:47 AM

The Ohio attorney general’s office and Columbus police list these people as missing adults on their websites. Ages are what their current age would be.

• Robert Mohney, 46, Westerville, missing 17 years. He was last seen in his red Pontiac Firebird on July 16, 1996. The car was found the next day near the Hoover Reservoir spillway.

• Anna Zirkle, 39, Columbus, missing 16 years. She was last seen leaving her East Side home on Feb. 1, 1997.

• Aaron Cody Stepp, 19, Columbus, missing 16 years. He disappeared on March 11, 1997, at the age of 3 from his South Side home.

• Tammi Campbell, 47, Grove City, missing 14 years. She disappeared on June 12, 1999, after leaving her son at a friend’s home for the night. Her body was never found, but a jury convicted her Grove City boyfriend of her murder in 2010.

• Trevell Henley, 29, Columbus, missing 14 years. Henley was 15 when he disappeared on July 2, 1999. Columbus homicide detectives think he was a victim of a gang killing, but his body was never found.

• Carla Losey, 30, Columbus, missing 10 years. She was last seen on Dec. 31, 2002, leaving El Grotto strip club on the Hilltop with an unidentified man.

• Timothy Fisher, 53, Columbus, missing eight years. He was last seen on June 5, 2005, at a West Side bar.

• Anthony Luzio Jr., 33, Powell, missing eight years. He was last seen at 4 a.m. on July 4, 2005, leaving a party in southern Delaware County.

• Tina Wilson, 51, Whitehall, missing eight years. She was last seen on April 18, 2005.

• Carmen Colon, 52, Columbus, missing seven years. She was last seen on March 16, 2006.

• Brian Shaffer, 34, Columbus, missing seven years. Shaffer was an Ohio State University medical student last seen on April 1, 2006, at a bar near campus.

• Jeffrey Stutton, 53, Columbus, missing seven years. He was last seen on Oct. 9, 2005, at his West Side home.

• Andrew Chapman, 38, Columbus, missing six years. He disappeared on Dec. 14, 2006, shortly after he didn’t show up for a court appearance.

• David Morse, 58, Ashville, missing four years. He was last seen on July 22, 2009.

• Claudia Escobar, 30, Columbus, missing one year. She was last seen in Columbus on March 23, 2012. Police think she was killed and are searching for a suspect.

• Rick Frayer, 47, Columbus, missing one year. He was last seen in Columbus on March 29, 2012.

• Kenneth Roberts, 62, Columbus, missing one year. He has been missing since April 9, 2012. He suffers from Parkinson’s disease and displays early signs of dementia.

Sources: Ohio attorney general’s office, Columbus Division of Police, Dispatch archives