Vanished: Three Disappearances Nobody Can Explain

TL;DR

Three true, unsolved disappearances — Brian Schafer, the Jameson family, and Brandon Swanson — where evidence exists but no explanation does.

Key Points

• 1.Brian Schafer vanished from a sealed bar in Columbus, Ohio on April 1, 2006. Security cameras proved the 27-year-old medical student entered the Ugly Tuna bar at 1:15 a.m. but never left via any monitored exit, with 200 witnesses present and every person accounted for except him.
• 2.The only crack in the sealed-room mystery was a service door near Brian's last known position. It led to a construction area with an exterior exit, but cameras covering the route had timed gaps — not enough to prove Brian used it, but enough that it couldn't be ruled out.
• 3.Brian's roommate Clint Florence refused a polygraph and hired an attorney after refusing to explain what he and Brian argued about on the balcony. He was later subpoenaed before a grand jury and refused to answer questions there too — the one thread investigators say won't stop pulling.
• 4.Brian's phone briefly pinged a cell tower in Hilliard, Ohio — 14 miles from Columbus — five months after he vanished. His carrier called it a glitch, the ping was never explained, and the phone went permanently silent afterward; his credit cards, bank account, and Social Security number have never shown activity in 19 years.
• 5.The Jameson family — Bobby, Cherylyn, and six-year-old Madison — disappeared in Oklahoma's Sanbo Mountains in October 2009. Their truck was found with $32,000 in cash, two cell phones, wallets, coats, and their barely-alive dog Macy, but no footprints leading away and no sign of struggle.
• 6.Security footage of the Jamesons loading their truck on the morning they vanished showed deeply disturbing behavior. The couple made repeated trips in total silence, stopping to stare blankly into the middle distance before robotically resuming — the sheriff said he watched the footage over 100 times and it looked less like packing and more like robots running a program.
• 7.The Jamesons' skeletal remains were found in November 2013, less than 3 miles from the abandoned truck, with cause of death officially ruled 'undetermined.' No bullet damage, no knife marks, no hyoid fracture — four years of Oklahoma weather and wildlife destroyed all forensic evidence of how Bobby, Cherylyn, and Madison died.
• 8.Brandon Swanson, 19, vanished on May 14, 2008 near Porter, Minnesota after calling his parents from a dark road where his car was in a ditch. His father stayed on the phone with him for 47 minutes until Brandon said 'oh' and the line went dead; bloodhounds tracked his scent across the Yellow Medicine River but the trail stopped completely in open farmland.
• 9.Brandon's case led to the passage of Brandon's Law in Minnesota in 2009, requiring police to investigate missing adults immediately with no waiting period. His disappearance has been reclassified from missing person to suspected homicide, but no arrest has ever been made and no person of interest has been named in nearly 18 years.