Missing Interviews True Crime Garage /// Part 2 | Forensic Files

Welcome to Off the Record. I'm your host Nick Crime. It's good to be seen. And it's good to see you. Off the record.
Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend. True Crime podcast. Be good. Be kind. And don't live. Crime. Gather
around. Grab a chair. Grab a beer. Let's talk some ground. Welcome back to Missing. I am Tim here
today with Lance. Lance, how are you today? I am doing fantastic today, Tim. I hope the listeners out there are doing
fantastic as well. And Tim, I hope you're doing fantastic. I know the two guys that we have on this part two
episode. I know they started off a little apprehensive because uh Captain was nervous to talk to you because he
was afraid that you were so mad at him. But Tim, are you still mad? I am not. Uh, and I I have not been holding any
kind of grudge um against Captain. Um, but uh, so yes, this is part two of our two-part conversation with Captain and
Nick of True Crime Garage. First half, we talked a little bit about Mora Murray's disappearance from North
Haveril, New Hampshire in February of 2004. And in this conversation, we speak a little bit about the disappearance of
Brian Schaefer from Columbus, Ohio. And he went missing in April of 2006. And this is an extension of the
conversation that we had with Captain and Nick when we visited them in the in the garage, in the proverbial garage. It
was more like a kitchen table and then a studio, but the uh the overall arching concept is the true crime garage. So, it
was refreshing to hear their thoughts on Brian's disappearance today and how these details have come up in the
meantime and how they've had to adjust and go along with the realities of what comes with a missing person. You know
what I mean? Because in the beginning, you're talking about a missing person and they start to appear one way in your
head and you don't realize, hey, maybe they had these circumstances going on in their family or their friends or their
their romantic life or something like that. So, revisiting this conversation a few years later after visiting with them
in person was again very refreshing and very revealing. Okay, so we hope you enjoy part two of our conversation with
True Crime Garage. Make sure to check out what they're up to at trueg.com and follow us on social media
at missingcsm. We're going to take a quick break here for commercial and we're going to be right back with
Captain and Nick. We have a timeline of the case, but the most important timeline of
Brian's is from like, let's say, 12 to two on the night he goes missing. And then you have the pre-timeline and then
you have the post timeline of when he goes missing. But you don't even know if those matter or not. You know, you you
find out that maybe he had a homosexual relationship with one of his friends. You find out that um you know that he
had more conflict with his dad than his dad was leading on to believe. You you find out that the dad had no alibi. You
found out you find out that police actually took cadaavver dogs to Brian's dad's house and you go it does that mean
something? Does it mean nothing? Is it, you know, uh, it makes for a better story, but or did Brian at 2:00 just run
into the wrong person and that has nothing. Now, the pre timeline and the post timeline mean nothing to the case,
but we obviously don't know that because we don't have any answers. Yeah. I think
sometimes, and this is speaking for for me and Lance's journey real quick, um I think sometimes when when we cover the
culture of a case as well as the case itself, sometimes it blends a little bit in, I guess, an incorrect way to where
you think like, well, this person has a theory for you almost make assumptions on why um people are pushing narratives
and you know, a lot of times you there's there's no reason that they just that's
just what they believe. Um, but I do want to get into uh Brian Schaefer a little bit more. Can you uh can you tell
us a little bit more about this case? I know uh Lance and I uh appeared on in the garage a few years ago to speak
about this case and um it's a very memorable experience for us. So, there's a handful of cases that if somebody
reaches out to me, I will talk to them anytime because I know enough about the case that I don't have
to take down notes before I call the person, you know. So, in Brian's case being one of those and um but so
recently I was reached out to this lady, I won't name her cuz I I never asked her
if that was okay, but she got uh 10 hours of footage of the night Brian goes missing. And so, she's been
setting up a basically uh dissecting the video footage. And in a very fascinating way, this is when
Brian showed up. This is when other individuals showed up. This is when other individuals
left. But before she actually got this footage, she had two pictures that she believed were of Brian walking down the
steps. And the last picture, he would have been, I don't know, 5t from the front door. So to me, that would have
definitively proved that Brian left through the front door. And but again, it's all narrative.
So when when we first talked to um the lead detective, Hurst, he made it seem like there was a
team of detectives that went through this surveillance footage and that they were able to account for every
individual on the footage. you then find out, well, it was one detective that did that. So, again, I'm
not questioning, you know, I'm not questioning his integrity or how hard he worked on it. But if you tell me 10
people examined it and then we figured this out, that holds more weight than well, one
individual when he was not on the clock. You know what I mean? like in his free time, this guy was going over the
surveillance footage. So, I think there's more information that we can learn. And um so this individual that we
thought could be Brian with further examination. We don't we don't believe it's Brian. We we we think we know who
it is in the video. We don't have that individual identified, but because of just that work, uh, this individual was
able to get 10 hours of surveillance, but it's only one angle. So, I do believe if we can gather more
information and gather more things of this video footage that are fascinating that maybe law enforcement
will give us another angle of the surveillance that night. And you know that there is another angle. Well,
that's a good question, Lance. Um, and a fair question at that. You know, I worked high-rise security for several
years, and we at that facility, we had 30 cameras that were running at all times. Now, which ones we were recording
on um were were actually 16 cameras. Um, so while you could monitor as many as 30, we were only recording on 16 at one
time. Now, some of those some of those recordings would be scrolling through a series of cameras. So, it it gets I
mean, every system is different. Every system is unique, but I but the captain's hitting on something that's
very important to any case, not just the Schaefer case, but to any case. It's it's the story as you as he says is a
man walks into a bar. He's seen going in. He's never seen ever again. Well, he's never seen leaving that bar by by
whomever viewed that that surveillance footage, right? Does it doesn't mean that he's never seen again or never
actually left or or was or was killed before uh he was removed from the building. It
just means whoever viewed that says that Brian Schaefer went in this way and he's
not seen ever leaving in the same manner that he entered the bar. Yeah. And we're
just And like I said, just every time I talk to an individual, when you when you talk to the detective
and I don't know, it was three years I had this rumor that Brian had a a gay relationship.
Well, that is not a normal thing for a a college kid, right? Like out of all my friends and my friend group in college,
I don't know if I had I mean I had gay friends, so they had relationships, but I never had a a
straight friend that had a gay relationship and then was considered to be straight. So, when you have this
rumor for years, I mean, I had it for years. I talked to this individual on the phone
that was like, "Yeah, I I dated Brian for like 6 months. His friends knew about it. His family knew about it, but
none of them were telling this was never part of the story." And maybe it's not an important Maybe it's not an important
part of the story. But then when when me and Maggie Freeline uh interviewed John
Hurst and he he never ever said it once on camera, I don't know if people just didn't ask him or if he was just not
willing to to share that information. But when he confirmed that with us, it's like again now we have to determine is
this part does part is this narrative important to because look every m you guys covered
a bunch of missing person cases. I have never had a case where talking to whether it's private investigators or
law enforcement that they lean towards they lean more towards the idea that he went off and started another
life. I I find that strange. You know, normally it's like, well, that's a possibility, but we have no proof of
that. But so many times in this case and and I'm also talking about law enforcement officers that like I'm
playing a gig and the guys work in security and we end up talking about the Schaefer case and they didn't
investigate the case but they'll just say oh well rumors around the department were that he went off and started a new
life and and maybe other than the Mara Murray case that's just not a narrative that seems very plausible in a lot of
these missing person cases. So, but also I mean, think about this. When this source sends me these two
pictures, you got a guy wearing jeans, a green t-shirt with a white undershirt, which was kind of a popular
style back then. So, my first thought was, okay, well, we have couple hours of surveillance footage. We have to
see what are the chances that there's another individual wearing the same color green shirt with a white
undershirt. Well, we found one. Like literally standing right next to Brian. They're like basically wearing the same
outfit and you're like what are the chances of that? So, but I just think it's fascinating.
Like I said, this source, she is going through meticulously. And we've always heard
that Brian was talking to these two girls at the end of the night, but there there seems to be
another person involved. What's interesting sometimes about true crime is you don't have to
have faith. This is not religion. I can watch the footage and tell you, okay, this girl shows up and she goes apart.
She's a part of this group. I can see now Brian's talking to these individuals. who is this other
individual? And everybody just everybody I've talked to just seems like this individual didn't
exist that they don't know what they they're so confused on why I'm asking them about this person. They're like, I
don't know what you're talking about. There was no other person. Well, why am I seeing it on video footage? Like, I'm
not making it up. It's there. So, that's where it's been. That's where we're at right now is uh we're trying to
take this footage and build a timeline of events in the footage that we think matter and then is there anybody in this
footage that we can identify as Brian leaving and and can we do enough work that maybe CPD will give us more footage
because I don't know if they're looking for the right stuff. Again, one of the narratives was that Columbus uh police
officers talked to everybody that worked that night, questioned everybody, questioned the ban. Well, then when I
questioned the ban two years ago, they're like, "We never talked to the law enforcement." They talked to him two
years later. Listen to this. This blows my mind. Well, and and not to cut you off here, Captain, but the importance of
this for people unfamiliar with the case is Brian, according to the people he's with, Clint and I can't think of the
lady's name, he Meredith. So, according to Clint and Meredith, at some point, Brian says, and this is this is just
prior to them saying we never see him again. He says, "I'm going to go over and talk to the band." And we know that
Brian was a aspiring musician. He was a big fan of Pearl Jam. And so to say that
they didn't enter the band until 2 years later is one thing, but to but to know that part of somebody's story, a key
witness's story is that he said he was going to go talk to the band. Well, that's your next breadcrumb in your
breadcrumb trail. And so, you know, it's very important that and almost strangle as simple as they had a hard
time tracking down the band or who it was that night. We don't know the reasons for why the delay, but uh but
it's it's important to to understanding the story. So, there was a three-piece band. They were called Rock House. They
were just a cover band. CPD initially said, "We talked to the band." They didn't. Two years later,
for whatever reason, there's a group of detectives and law enforcement that show
up to Ugly Tuna Saloona. The band that played the night Brian Schaefer went missing was called Rock
House. The band that played the night that they came back two years later to just look around the bar and maybe just
to discuss the case is what I'm guessing they went to do. The band playing that night was called Filthy Habits. The
Filthy Habits and they were a cover band as well. Now Rock House had three guys in the band. Filthy Habits had three
guys in the band. Two of the guys from the Filthy Habits were in Rock House. So when the cops came back and
they're just looking around, the guys in the band were like, "Hey, uh, what's going on? Like why are
you guys here? It's a small bar. It's a square bar. Like from any corner you can
see anybody." So they're just like, "Hey, what are you guys doing here? Why why are the cops here?" And the cops
were like, "Oh, we're just discussing discussing the Brian Schaefer case. do you know anything about it? And they
were like, well, we happened to be playing that night, me and uh it was the singer and the drummer. And so that's
when they talked to law enforcement, but law enforcement didn't show up to talk to them. They're just
showing up to you. You see what I'm saying? So then then that changes the whole narrative. And to be interviewing
the band and uh super uh I I've known all those guys for a really long time. super
talented guys, super like they're sweetheart guys. And um and I told him I was like, "You guys know that one of the
number one theories on the internet is that the band killed Brian and dismembered him and put him in
cases and they didn't believe me. They like had to look it up on Google and they're like, "Wait a second, there's
people out there on the internet that think we might have killed this guy." I'm like, "Yeah, that's how that's how
crazy this is." But yeah, so it's just um but like I said, it goes back um to my point that I just think like it's
easy to assume that whatever narrative we're initially being fed is the truth. And and then then you have to question,
are they are they feeding me this false narrative cuz it's nefarious or is this just their version of what happened or
or their version of what they think is important, you know? And so I I I mean I don't
think there's no evidence to me that that uh Brian went missing or on his own accord. But the
other thing too is we have this narrative that okay, well if Brian got drunk, the narrative was Brian got
drunk, had problems in his life, and decided at 1:55 a.m. he was going to go start a new life. But but there was all
all these people saying, "Oh, well, this person checked his apartment the next day and this person checked Nobody
checked his apartment until like Sunday or Monday. So he he could have got back home, woke up, took a shower, went to
the gym, and did whatever, and then decided, nah, you know what? Don't I think I'm going to take off and go on
vacation. And that to me, so what we also uncovered is that Brian multiple times in his life just took off and went
on vacation. So, is it a possibility that on Saturday he was like, "Well, screw this. I don't
really want to go on vacation with my girlfriend. I'm just going to take off and go to the Virgin Islands or
whatever." And then something bad happened to him there. That's that's a possibility, you know. But, yeah. So,
every day it's like I get a new text message about some piece of the puzzle of Brian Schaefer's case. and we'll be
right back after a quick word from our sponsors. Thanks to our sponsors and now we're
back to the program. I one thing that is so tough for me to wrap my head around is well I guess two
things. You just kind of sparked it in my brain here by saying like did he really just decide at 1:30 in the
morning to this is the moment that I'm going to start a new life? That's one thing like people don't typically do
that. Also, getting away with murder without a single trace of evidence is also very
difficult when you're looking at like the band. You know, the band who I'm sure has never committed murder before.
They've never had probably some serious allegations toward just the drummer, but
other just the drummer, of course. always the drummer. But you know, like all of a sudden the band becomes like
mastermind killers who can find a random person and and spur of the moment spur of the moment and then get
away with it clean and and you know or or anybody if if Brian's walking home and somebody meets him on the street
that just happens to be one of the most efficient killers ever. Well, the only reason why I think that's a possibility
is because that campus area I I actually know of maybe five people personally that have just been randomly attacked
late night walking home because I think what would happen is that these wannabe gang gangster guys would
be driving around campus and they'd see a guy walking and they go, "Okay, well, you want to be a part of this group? go
beat this guy up. I mean, one of my friends literally was just walking home from a party one night on a well-lit
street and five guys jump out of the car and beat him up and knock his teeth out.
I mean, he permanently has uh replacement teeth. He did nothing. He didn't yell at, you know, nothing
happened. And then a guy that me and Nick grew up with was shot and killed basically on the street. Brian went
missing from simply because a car drove by. They almost hit this guy. The guy was like, "Hey, what? Watch where you're
going. I'm walking here." And those guys thought it was some different guy. So they come back around, shoot him, and
then whatever, you know, a couple weeks later when they're arrested, they're like, "Look, we we thought he was this
other guy that we had beef with, and he wasn't, and we killed the wrong person."
So, so I'm just saying that that has happened in that area. So, if he was intoxicated and
decided that he was just going to walk home, it wasn't a super short walk and he would have went down streets that he
might have ran into the wrong person. And you know, we have a perspective that is different on that
case than many others because we were, you know, Brian because he was a medical student, he was older than your
traditional college student, but you know, the captain and I grew up in Columbus and have a lot of ties to
campus. I mean, you can say what you want about the the campus, but they had some of the best record stores in
central Ohio, if not maybe in the state. And so, that's one reason to go there. The captain played in a lot of bands,
played at a lot of those different bars. And I for a period of time worked for the university. So, to what the captain
is saying is not wrong. It was it was not students that was making camp campus so dangerous. It was it was the people
that lived around it's the campus back then was surrounded by very lowincome high crime areas. And
when when you have when you have criminals and you have violent people that that want to victimize others and
steal and rob from others, they don't do it on the street that they live in or the neighborhood that they live in. They
drive to where they think they can get something of value or some money. And the thing with Brian that's that I'll
never the hurdle that I'll never be able to clear with his case is he if he he if he one we know he was
very intoxicated. Okay. We can see that on the on the video. If if he wasn't very intoxicated, he's pretending to be
for some reason. So he's very intoxicated. We know he's been out all night long with a handful of different
people starting with dinner and then then going from bar to bar. He's very intoxicated. He's likely alone. We know
the two friends that he was with claimed that they didn't they didn't see him leave the bar. Walking from that bar to
his home, he would have made for a wonderful target for a car full of thugs that want to do something bad. They they
would have looked at him and they would have said, "Let's go and get that guy." and maybe not with the intention to to
murder or even physically harm the individual, but physical harm is on the menu if he doesn't comply, if he doesn't
give us his wallet, if he doesn't give us this or that or the other thing. And I've always thought that that was what
Brian ran into late that night. And that goes with the crime trends of that area
of that time period as well. And I've had, depending on which detective I talk to, and it's in and not in regard to
Brian's case, uh, but in other cases, I've had some detectives tell me, "Yeah, if if if you end up in the landfill, um,
they there's a high probability they'll never find you." And I I've just always thought that that somebody it wasn't an
efficient killer. It wasn't some criminal mastermind. It was just wrong place at the wrong time crossing paths
with a violent person that tried to take something off of him and I think he ended he may have ended up in a dumpster
somewhere and there's a lot of dumpsters in that area and yes, did they check the
landfill? We know that they did. That doesn't that doesn't mean that he's not in the landfill. Did they check the
dumpsters? Yes, we're told that they did. But just like the the surveillance footage, it doesn't mean that they
checked the right one or they checked the one that he was put in before it was the pickup schedule. And so I just I've
always thought that that is a stronger possibility in Brian's case rather than him leaving to start a new life. Uh
whether it was impulsively or the plan all along was to do it in the middle of the night after drinking heavily. Um, it
it it's it's an unfortunate situation and it's a situation that nobody wants to root for. Obviously, I I would rather
be wrong, but it just seems like a very likely thing because we try to apply all
these different mysteries and different parts of the story to these true crime cases when they're unsolved, right?
Everybody looks guilty, everybody looks like a good suspect, and every action is
suspicious. But the majority of the crimes out there, the murders out there is person A
gets mad at person B and kills person B. And and it could be they got mad at him
and met him for the first time that night when they were killed or they've known him for 20 years. Well, and think
about this, okay? So, the night that Mara went missing, there's a lot of uh I've seen
this a lot on the internet where people go, "Well, why why when these cops show when they showed up that night, they
didn't start this like crazy in-depth search?" They didn't really start searching what till the next morning.
Yeah, they they drove around a little bit that evening. Um, but I just think they they thought
it was like a DUI, right, situation where she got got away from her vehicle. Um, whether she was in the immediate
vicinity or hopped into a car. I don't know what they were thinking, but um I think that was their but they do start
some some searches the next morning. Yeah. Well, even according to the dispatch, they said that they expected
that she would show up at the cottage, which was the hospital. And that's like written in the dispatch logs like make
sure I don't remember the exact wording, but it was like if she shows up at the cottage. So, yeah, it was along the
lines of intoxicated person will probably find their way to this hospital. So, so in this missing person
case, people were going, "Wow, they should have they should have started checking that night and not the next
day." Well, Brian, they there really weren't checking or doing much of anything until Monday. So, you're you
see what I'm saying? Like, so now we got Absolutely. we got this longer time that
has passed and in Mar's case, they're searching in the wide open basically, right? And then Brian's case, it's
opposite. It's a very condensed, highly populated area. And I think I'm not saying that the cops made a mistake
because when you talk to anybody that has done missing person cases, the first thing they'll tell you, uh, I believe my
father has done 4,000. But out of those, 90ome% of those cases, the next day the case is off your
desk because the guy came home. So, so you can't fault law enforcement for not going, "Oh, all hands on deck. This this
guy was super intoxicated." But here here's what we've learned since, you know, like since we've talked to you
last, and hopefully I'm not repeating stuff uh that we said before, but uh I think this stuff again goes to
narrative. So, law enforcement never talks to the band. So then when I talked to the
band, I think this is maybe something important. Somebody came up to the band, a guy, and somehow that there became a
confrontation between this guy and one of the girls that were hanging out with the
band. But these guys weren't confrontational in the sense of like, "Hey man, what the hell are you doing?
You're being a jerk. I'm going to kick your ass. It was just, "No, this guy's being a jerk. Let's get him away from
us." But there's But what do we know? Brian told his friends, "I'm going to go talk to the band." And then the band and
their friends have a confrontation with some intoxicated drunk guy. Was Was that
guy Brian? And so if it was Brian, is it possible that he got in another confrontation with somebody outside the
bar or leaving the bar? So, I think and then also just the fact that like the narratives keep changing like the
narrative was that Brian went to uh dinner with his dad because hey, I'm going on vacation on Monday, so I got to
see my dad before I leave. No, Brian and his dad weren't speaking. They weren't on good terms. So, it was kind of a come
to Jesus moment of let's go out to eat. let's see if we can establish uh build back up this
relationship. And so then what you find out is that him and his dad got into this huge argument over money inherit in
inheritance money that he was getting from because Brian's mother passed away. So we have eyewitnesses at this
restaurant that are like, "Yeah, they got into like kind of a shouting match." So that was the narrative that I heard
then for years. And now I recently learned, oh yeah, well they got in a shouting match, but they calmed down.
They finished dinner and then they went back to Brian's house and Brian, his dad, and Clint had a beer before Brian
and Clint left to go out to the bars. But we don't know if Brian's dad even left Brian's
apartment. So maybe Brian gets back to his apartment drunk and his dad's there. We don't know. But we do know that, you
know, now we know that law enforcement had did look into his dad as a possible suspect. His dad had no
alibi. Um, obviously they had a argument over money, so that would give some motive. And so again, I I I don't know
if these these little details are important, but it's just building the story. And again, if I told
you person A went missing and couple hours before they went missing, they had a shouting match
with their father, you'd want to know about that. That would be, I think, important information if you're law
enforcement. I mean, it was important information enough to have cadaavver dogs go out to his house multiple times.
And then also just like weird stuff like his brother had his brother was supposed
to meet up with him, never met up with him. But law enforcement tells goes, "Well, but dude, he has an
alibi." I go, "He has an alibi till when?" 2:00. When did Brian go missing? Around
1:55. You know what I mean? So, is that really an alibi? I mean, I just I think not, you know,
but and again that I think when you put these ideas out there or just put out your thought process on how you think of
the case, people then could take that as that I'm implying that Brian's dad is responsible for him going missing or his
brother is. And that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying these are a part of the
story. Again, we don't know if we don't know if that's important or not. Am I making any damn
sense? Sometimes I just feel like I'm screaming at a wall. My biggest frustration with true
crime, and uh I don't think Nick likes this joke, but I don't think we should call it true crime. I think we should
call it what we think we know so far. But the amount of stories, whether it's John Benet Ramsay or West Memphis 3, the
narratives that were fed initially are so [ __ ] And then my question is, why are they such I mean, West Memphis
3, three teenage boys that just well, all they did was listen to heavy metal and wear Metallica shirts like, and then
they were thrown in jail for murdering three eight-year-old boys. And it's like that's a narrative you're fed for so
long and you're like they weren't just like innocent like little angels that were
railroaded by the system. These were weird kids that were confessing to the murders
um and telling people in public that we murdered these people. So I just think that a lot of these narratives in these
cases that we hear you have to start pulling it back. But again, I I just start questioning why is the false
narrative put out there and is it just are we part of the problem? Is the documentaries part of the problem? Are
they just trying to cultivate a story? Um does does that make any sense? Yeah. I think when there's no answers in a
case and you're looking at all angles, um, as a consumer, it's easy to believe that we're only going down this road
because it does matter, you know. Yeah. Because just talking to somebody like in
a bar and we start talking about the Schaefer case and I I just start bringing up, well, there's this thing
that you might not have heard or this thing. And they're like, so you're saying that the dad did it? And you're
like, no, I'm just trying to tell you. I'm just trying to fill in the gaps. And this is probably what happened a lot
with your guys' podcast. You guys would hear a rumor about Mara and try to follow it up and then you probably get a
bunch of people going, "So, are you trying to say that the father was involved? Are you trying to say that?"
You know what I mean? Like, and you're like, "No, I'm just trying to figure out what the truth of the story is." And
then once you figure out the truth of the story, does it even matter? You know, because again, Brian could have
got in this horrible fight with his dad, he could have said, "Dad, I hate you. I
never want to see you again." And then at 155 when he left the bar, at 20:05, he runs into a bad dude that has nothing
to do with his dad and has nothing to do with anything other than just a bad dude
at the wrong time. Or did he get hit by a car and that person was heavily intoxicated and decided, "Oh, well, he's
still breathing. I'll just dump him off in this in this uh dumpster or something. So yeah, I don't know. Since
the beginning of time, I feel like we have always as a human race tried to solve stuff, you know, from the simplest
way of how am I going to feed my family tonight. And that's a series of decisions that you make and you make the
right ones or you make the wrong ones. I think that that translates to today where, you know, man walks into a bar,
he's seen going in, he's not seen going out. Some people still have that part of
them that's like I have to figure this out. Yeah. It's just what do you do with that? Like what do you do with those
narratives after you have, you know, process the information internally? So, do you go out and be public about it in
in what manner? Do you do you be public about it in a you know broadcast like I've solved the case manner until the
next theory comes up and then you're like no I've solved it this time or do you just kind of try to make
people process it as pragmatically as as you did you know does that make sense? Well Nick always says you know I hope
you're not hearing what we're not saying. Yeah. Don't hear what I'm not saying. Yeah. Exactly. which you I can
throw that warning out there and they constantly hear what we're not saying. Um, but it's, you know, it's it's it's
searching for the truth. It's seeking the truth. You know, I said that in my book. I said, you know, I I grew up
always thinking because reading true crime and and watching mystery shows. I always thought that that I liked a good
mystery. And the older I got, I realized I don't. I I I hate them. and and but what the reason why I hone in on them
and focus in on them so much is because I want there to be some kind of solution
to this. I want to I want to know what actually happened and and so it's the hate of the mystery part that that
drives me. And so it's yeah um as far as the telling of these stories I can't say that that people
don't tell them you know what is their motivation for telling the story. I can't say what's in in their head and in
their hearts. Um, you know, I can only tell you why we tell the stories that we do and we and we're we do it because we
hope to keep the story alive. You know, when we covered a long time ago, one of it felt like a big undertaking and it
felt like it was something really big for the show and and it turned out to be something big for the show. We covered a
case, the victim's name was Tony Muny, Anthony Muny. He was from Columbus, Ohio. Um he was he was murdered when he
was a teenager and he was disposed of on the side of the road in another county.
He was partially dismembered and you know for a handful of months it was a really big story in the early 80s and
when the captain and I were digging through cases and whatnot and this actually was a case that I was looking
into before we even started the podcast cuz I was working on a book that never happened that it was going to be about
some Ohio cold cases and um it really struck a chord with me that that this poor a teenage
boy was killed and it was a story for a couple months and then it was like like it never happened almost to the point
like if if that he didn't even exist, you know? It was uh I was I was in incredibly shocked and this will show
some of my naivity, but I was incredibly shocked that there here was this teenager, this kid that was killed in
the area where I grew up and I never even heard the the kid's name or never even heard anything about the story
until I stumbled upon it uh on on the internet. And it wasn't being covered as a story. It was it was simply just a
cold case. Just a name with a date on some cold case list. That's all it was. And so I I do think that it is important
to keep telling these stories. It's a good reminder that that something tragic happened. Something something and
somebody's responsible for it. You know, I think you quit telling these stories then then somebody's getting away with
with great injustice and and great harm that they did destroying people too that
don't follow these stories. Maybe they just watch a date line here or there couple times a year. You don't
realize, forget about the impact. You don't realize how many victims there really are in these stories. You know,
it's not just the the kid that got killed and and dumped on the side of the road. No, there were so many victims in
in that case. And there are so many victims in in a lot of the cases that we cover and that you guys cover. And and
and one thing too that that will shock people is the killer's family a lot of times are are the are the victim that's
overlooked. you know, they Oh, it's it's not a good feeling to wake up and realize my son is a horrible
monster. You know, it's not a it's not a good feeling to to all of a sudden figure out that your your sister was
biling people out of out of money and oh, killed this man to cover it up, you know? It's it's it's horrifying and and
tough for for those people, too. Well, yeah. They have to then try to figure out why their son or daughter or brother
or sister became that perpetrator of violence. They have to think to themselves. Was it something I did in
the upbringing? Did I not do something right? Did I miss signs? Did I miss signals? And that has to be just as
painful as somebody wondering why was my son or daughter or wife killed for no reason randomly out of the blue. an act
of violence that she didn't ask to have, you know, on her, you know, that trying
to come to terms with that is just everyday torture that you have to, you know, go through therapy to get through
and a lot of people do. But a lot of people don't and a lot of people turn to violence in that case as well. They'll
start to become violent themselves. So, yeah, you're right. It's not just one person that you have to look at and say,
"There's the killer. There's the victim. I feel bad for the victim." Like the ripple effect and we always say that the
ripple effect, the butterfly effect is infinite. Yeah. Because you know back to like Bill
Bill Roush chicken his life forever. Yeah. Chicken or the egg. Were you going to do these actions no
matter what? Or were these actions propelled because you had a traumatic experience with a girlfriend going
missing? You have no answers. But also back then back to the narrative thing, I do think sometimes these
narratives there there's not a nefarious they're not simplifying it to be nefarious, but like I was just talking
to Aurelia the the other day and she's the one that told me about Mara's case and it was like it simply was, you know,
the New Hampshire uh girl that went missing in New Hampshire, she went to UMass. That was the narrative. You know
what I mean? So that was enough for me to go, well, let me look into it. And then you're hooked and now you then the
narrative expands. So I don't think always the narrative being simplified or not true is coming from a bad place. It
might just be because that's how we simplify Brian Schaefer. The narrative that guy walks into a bar and never
walks out again. And we'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. Thanks to our sponsors. And now we're
back to the program. Well, my question to you guys is when is your book on the Brian Schaefer case
coming out? I wrote a book last year called um IP Ipoo. Um it did pretty well. Um but I have the Audible version
of it. No, again, see, this goes back to my thing and I don't know if you guys wrestle with this uh or not because
again, you guys are coming from to to me and and maybe it's just cuz I know you on a different level than other people
know you uh or or how I came to know you, but like I view you guys as filmmakers like in in my mind, but I'm
sure most of your audience views you in a different light than that. And just like I said, I think me and Nick's path
and what we're doing with the platform is different. And I think that's okay, you know, and and um cuz there's stuff
that he like when I say he's a true crime expert. Like every almost every case we
cover, he says something that I'm like, "Oh, I never even thought of it that way." Or, "Wow, that's a
very How did you get that piece of information? And I looked I I looked at this I had 10 sources on this case and I
I didn't come across that. So, um I think I don't know. I think all that that's that's something I wrestle with
all the time cuz sometimes I think oh I have this platform and I got these five victims families I need to call back.
And then there's other there's other days where I'm like I'm I'm not calling them back cuz I don't care. I'm not
calling them back cuz if I keep going at this pace, I'm going to break down at some point. Yeah, burn out. Yeah,
burnout's definitely a a real thing. Um, well, yeah, Nick, I know you did write a
book. Um, are you going to write another one? Have you have you uh considered that? I hope to. um in the early stages
of putting together a story that would be, you know, not just a different case, but it that the case and and the way
that the storytelling would go would be considerably different than the Deli murders book. And you know, with the
deli murders book, I really felt like I was writing it uh I was writing it for me, but I also had to keep in mind that
the a large portion of the people that would would be kind enough to read my book would be people that are already
part of our audience. And so I I did I did what they tell all writers not to do. I wrote myself into the book, but I
felt like that I needed to uh give give a little more background because we don't we don't get into too much
personal stuff on on True Crime Garage. We we try to keep the the story about the the victim and and the the facts of
the case and and and some of our theories and speculation, but you know, so I did I did kind of give the the
reader information on why and how I got in into true crime because, you know, when when I was a kid, uh true crime was
this was this single bookshelf in the back of the bookstore that uh that very few people
people ventured to and even few people fewer people wanted to be seen standing in front of. Um it was kind of this it
was kind of looked at as like uh tabloid news in a in a in a way. And so, um, you
know, today it's so there's so many people that that that follow the stories and and you have
these these shows that everybody tunes into and um I have this weird fear of and it's because it's happened
multiple times that I'm, you know, I'm in a bar or I'm somewhere in a in a in a big social gathering And somebody asked
me, "What do you do for a living?" Uh, "What is it that you do?" And I'm always hesitant to get answer that question
truthfully because I know 90% of the time what will follow. It's going to be I'm going to be peppered about some case
that I may know if you know, I may be familiar with or it may be a case that I don't know anything about. Um but the
the worst the worst questions that you can get is uh um you know you can pick any victim or or let's use Mara Murray
as an example like the the broad question and I'm sure Tim Lance you guys get this the people that don't know your
show but find out what what it is that you're working on. I I hate the one who's like hey Mara Murray so
uh go like that like what's the question? What what am I supposed am I am I supposed to do a show a podcast
right here in front of you now? You got your PowerPoint ready for the presentation? Well, real quick, uh Tim
Lance, uh we'll start with Tim, when somebody asks you at a bar what you do, what do you what do you tell them?
Yeah, I I don't go to bars too much these days. Um but h gez, I guess I would probably say podcaster.
um you know and try to get out of the conver like I try to shift the the topic very quickly after that and Lance what
do what's your answer yeah I say like I have a media company uh we do podcasting
uh primarily like true crime stuff uh and then they'll be like oh really that I love to you know people will typically
say that they like you know oh we watch Netflix documentaries but I always end up saying like you know it it it tends
to get pretty heavy you know it's it's pretty heavy indicating like I don't want to
Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm here trying to talk about something else. Um but then I'll ask them what they do. Like it's
really easy to just like get hook it around and just say like, "Yeah, so that's that's me. What do you do?" But
yeah, you know, a lot of the times like uh the conversations will happen where we'll hang out with our neighbors who
know what I do and they'll say, "Any updates on?" And then they'll they'll, you know, fill in the blank there. And I
think they get it now. when they first met me, I think they wanted more and now they just know by my body language. Like
if I say no updates, like that's it. That's gonna be like, no, there's there's not not a whole lot to talk
about. Then we just move on. But I also want to say like it's it's hard sometimes to have conversations that
aren't about the work. Yeah. um like like uh you know if my my kids are having a playd date with with a a dad um
sometimes it's hard to not talk about who we just interviewed or who our next interview is and uh and I don't want to
get into it but sometimes I just don't know what else to talk about so I do Yeah. Well, sometimes it is kind of like
you you start talking to people because you want to see their reaction. Yeah. Yeah. or hey. Yeah. And sorry that's
kind of selfish, but like what did you do today? Oh, that was your job. Well, today we talked to the guy who stole $5
million from Atlantis Morset, went to prison, came out, and now is trying to reinvent his life. Wait, who was what
was that one? I got to listen to that one. Latest crawl space, Jonathan Jonathan Schwarz. Oh my god, I'm so
crazy. This I'm going to go listen to. Uh, but yeah. What do you guys say? Well, what do what do you say, Nick?
Well, I mean, I'm I'm honest about it, but I but if there's a a group of people and it's kind of going around in a
circle, you know, I will usually conveniently like try to be the quiet one that doesn't say anything. I've
also, and it's not that I'm trying to be rude, it's it's but but you know, it's like I said, it's the dumb the fear of
the dumb question of the uh you know, Matthew Perry. Okay. what happened? Like, you know, I don't I don't know,
you know, like like there's there's a lot of cases and stories I'm not familiar with at all, but but I'm also
one of those guys that like if I'm out in a social place or if I'm at a at an event, I'm there for the event. I'm
there for whatever. I I you know, I'm I've never been the type that loves sitting around and talking about work or
bitching about work after the workday is done. Totally. you know, and that's just me, you know,
and there but we all do know somebody that that all they talk about is their work and and and good for them and and
and I'm I'm very happy and and I'm very lucky to do what what I do um and get to
do this and I that's not lost on me. But wait, if you if you see me sitting there
on the bar stool, uh I'm I'm there for um fun conversation in in usually the the game that's on the TV in front of
me. Oh, I I try to tell people all the time if you listen to the show, people are like, "Man, I'd love to have a beer
with the captain and I'd love to talk true crime with Nick." And I'm like, if you meet us like at an event, like uh
I'll probably be the one talking about a case and Nick will probably be the one drinking a beer and talking about
football and having a good time. Uh but but our our dynamic is also a little strange because you know our father was
a detective and so when we first started I I remember Nick was on some show or some documentary and it said like true
crime expert and at first my dad was like how is he a true crime expert? Like I'm a detective. I was a detective for
20 years and and now so many years later, you know, Nick wrote a book. He's involved with Project Porsche. They they
solved a murder. They uh figured out these uh Jane Does and John Doe's and and so it's weird because my father is
now very uh proud of everything he's done. uh and kind of does view him, oh well, he didn't do the job, but he is an
expert in this field, but then he's weirdly proud of me for not wanting to be an expert. And if that makes any
sense. Like I feel like I'm here to help facilitate what he's doing. Um, and when
I say that, people are like, "You're just as much of a part of the show." I'm like, "Yeah, I know that. I produce I
edit every show. I know what I'm doing, you know, but uh but when people ask me at bars what do you do? I say I I edit
audio for commercials and it's like cool enough where they're like oh cool like at a
studio I'm like no I just work at my house but like it's cool enough but not enough where but it's true I mean it's
cool enough to stand out as unique but you don't really have to get into it because
I get it. I get what a commercial is. Yeah. If they ask me questions, I'm like, "Yeah, we do ads for Better Help
and uh Simply Safe and HelloFresh." You know, you probably heard those. I do. They'll be like, you know, like ads on
podcasts. Yep. Exactly. You've heard you've heard my word. No, but I think but I think it's okay. And I think uh
look, my favorite murder. They blew up. Nobody on that show is claiming to be an
expert. They're still entertainers and comedians and that's fine. I don't think we all have to then define ourselves uh
as armchair detectives. It's something I'm super fascinated. What I also hate is when listeners go, it's amazing to
see how uh involved and evolved you become in the true crime space. I'm like, I was always fascinated with it,
but it's just it's a smaller percentage of who I am as opposed to Nick, you know, just like me and Nick both watch
NFL football. Uh, but I don't have like two or three fantasy football leagues and I've never bet on a game. We're
there's just we're involved in a different way. Yeah, sports is a great escape. I think that's uh for for me at
least from, you know, work and and everything else. It's just uh Well, you can you used to be able to dunk, right?
I have dunked in a game before. Once one time. I've never done it in a game, but um but
my life ain't over, my friend. My life ain't over. It was I was on a breakaway. It was It
was lucky. Um but my god, you guys, this has been a great conversation. We got to do this uh more.
Why don't we do this more? Yeah, this is easy easy lift. Easy lifting. Yeah. Yeah. This has been super fun uh
catching up with you guys and uh hitting a hitting a plethora of topics. Are we going to see you at uh in Colorado or
Yeah, I believe so. Yeah, that will be fun. That will be fun. No formal announcement yet, but yes. Uh very
likely. Let's see if we can uh connect and do something there. Well, I hope so. You you guys always look handsome and
uh always always uh you look better and smell better than Bob Ruff every time. Every time. That's a compliment I'm
going to take very seriously. I appreciate that. No, he does smell nice though. He He is very nice smelling man.
Yeah. Um well, cool you guys. Um what's coming up uh soon on True Crime Garage? Hopefully this episode that we are doing
right now. Yes. Fantastic. No, we we we're actually just had a a meeting this morning to uh add some new
cases to the the calendar. We don't like to we're not big on announcing what's coming up because we've a lot of times
we we're always getting approached with different cases and different stories and um
sometimes, you know, one one may one may leapfrog another story. So, it's it's a
it's a fluid calendar that we keep. But, uh yeah, we got some some interesting case. And you know what's what's wild is
all these cases that we've covered over the years when am I going to stop being shocked, right? When when I keep think I
would have thought by now that I would just be like, "Okay, here we go again, you know, with this this crazy story."
They just keep getting more far out there and more bizarre a as as we dig deeper into this this space. Well, you
know, I think that's a testament to the two of you, you know, not being so battleweary, not being so desensitized
that they still affect you. So, that's good. Yeah. But do you wrestle with this though, too? Um, people love dine,
right? Because there's a start and there's an end of the story. And I do think it's important to cover uh cases
that are solved because you there is something you learn from that. But when you have a platform
like we just feel like it's more important to uh cover the unsolved cases because it might stir something. You
might have an effect on on on life. And so I think we wrestle with that sometimes of you know are we doing too
many unsolved cases or too you know uh so I don't know if you guys wrestle with that as well. Yeah. Yeah absolutely but
you know there is an obligation that comes with this and I mean you weigh it and I mean the story is nice when it
gets wrapped up but you also have to make sure that there are stories out there that aren't
wrapped up that can be wrapped up. Exactly. It's got to start somewhere. Yeah. I think we find the unsolved ones
a bit more purposeful, but I think um I think listeners tend to gravitate towards cases that have been solved. I
think um from what we've heard, but uh yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I think for me as a listener, I'm I'm
always more interested in the unsolved stuff. Um I think I come from that uh school of like the Bermuda Triangle and
like Bigfoot and like that that is like where my interest in mysteries began. Um, and it's, you know, morphed quite a
ways, but uh, but yeah, I love I at my core that like I'm interested in the ones that we'll probably never, you
know, have a great answer for. Yeah. One day they're going to do um like a docue series of the
the explosion of podcast and how it how it formed because we started like you guys when it was a complete wild wild
west. Uh and it seems not so wild west anymore. Uh seems a little And it was a bunch of a bunch of no-name people that
had podcasts when we all started, right? It was a bunch of Tim and Lances and Nick and Captains out there, right? And
it it's like Steve Bushimi just did an ad on our show that he's got a podcast coming out now. So, it's it's it's all
uh the the famous people are they're going to they're going to squeeze us out of this this space. Tim, I just saw that
Bart Simpson has a podcast. Really? I saw that saw that cartoon character. Long aaited long aaited long
aaited. I've always wanted to hear a long form interview with Bart Simpson. Always.
No, but but Lisa Simpson has a has a true crime podcast. Yep. But I but I think it's interesting how
uh people have evolved over time and and some shows have become more entertainment as opposed to uh trying to
move the needle. And but I'm proud like maybe we're not the biggest show. Whatever. At least we're trying to move
the needle and I I'm proud of that and I'm proud of what you guys are doing. Uh and um like I said, you can yell at me
anytime you want, Tim. I will never stop loving you. Um no matter no matter how many times you hurt me. Um I will I
still don't even know. No more yelling. I still don't even know what the cover I
don't even know if you yell at me. I'm making this all up. But no, but but I'm proud to know you guys. I'm proud to
have worked with you guys and I'm proud that you continue to do what you do. So,
thank you for having us on. Yeah, I mean the feeling is is entirely mutual. You guys are honestly like an inspiration to
be uh in the same conversation with and you know even having this conversation has been a incredible highlight of the
year to be honest. Yeah. And I know it's hard to keep up with code name pay a horse but pay well who can but you got
to try. You got to try. You're so pale and fast. I'm glad that you said uh an inspiration there, Lance. So maybe in uh
Denver, come this fall, I could inspire you to buy me a drink or two. I That's that I I will always step up to a
challenge like that. I want to want to make sure that that fulfills your uh inspirational needs.
Well, uh, yeah, we can't wait to, uh, rub elbows with you guys again in person, um, sometime very soon.
Hopefully in Denver this, uh, September. That'll be, uh, that'd be great. So, there's no better place for the pale
horse to ride than Denver. I'm I'm just glad you said that. I'm just glad everybody acknowledged that. I
didn't want to have to do it myself. [Music]

Missing Interviews True Crime Garage /// Part 2

Part 2 of 2

Nic and the Captain sit down to talk True Crime with Tim and Lance from the podcast Missing.

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com (https://pcm.adswizz.com) for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Brief Summary

Captain and Nick discuss Brian Schaefer's disappearance and new evidence in this part two episode with Tim and Lance.

Key points

Welcome to Off the Record. Host Nick Crime welcomes listeners to the true crime podcast.
Part Two of Brian Schaefer's Disappearance. The conversation continues about Brian Schaefer's mysterious disappearance.
Surveillance Footage Investigation. A source provides ten hours of footage from the night Brian went missing.
Questioning the Narrative. The hosts discuss the complexities of the narratives surrounding Brian's case.
The Danger of Intoxication. Brian's intoxication made him a target for crime that night.
Confrontation at the Bar. Brian's interaction with the band raises questions about his fate that night.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Sometimes it blends a little bit in an incorrect way.

Talking about narratives in true crime

4:19WatchMay 5, 2025

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

More from True Crime Garage TV

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.