Trying to piece together what happened…
There are a lot of questions swirling around after a man went missing from a downtown Nashville bar – only to be found nearly two days later at a McDonald’s nearly half an hour away.
It all started around 1:00 AM on Saturday, when 30-year old Taylor Boylan was last seen at Jason Aldean’s Kitchen + Rooftop Bar on Broadway. The Vancouver native was in town for the Nashville Cup club hockey tournament, and was out with teammates when he disappeared. A teammate had recorded a video of Boylan dancing with an unidentified woman at Aldean’s, but it wasn’t clear exactly when he left the bar or who – if anyone – he left with.
The missing man’s phone was reportedly found outside of Bridgestone Arena, and Boylan’s brother flew to Nashville from Vancouver to help with the search after concern that something bad had happened. But yesterday, over 36 hours after he was last seen in Nashville, someone contacted Newschannel 5 reporter Nick Beres about a man at a McDonald’s in nearby Hermitage, Tennessee who matched the Canadian visitor’s description.
Beres passed the information along to police, who confirmed that the man was in fact Boylan. And apparently, Boylan has no idea what happened.
The reporter shared a follow-up today, with Boylan describing what happened in his own words:
“Nick, not exactly sure what happened, but there’s a large gap of time missing from the nighttime to early morning. I woke up in a field missing my apple watch, wallet emptied out except my IDs, and no phone. Went to hospital yesterday for tests but they couldn’t detect anything abnormal in my system which they said was the unfortunate but likely outcome with those tests. Physically, I feel fine — just bumps and bruises scattered on my body.”
Well that’s terrifying…
Obviously there’s speculation that Boylan was drugged and robbed, but with no recollection of what happened to him everybody’s now forced to try to piece together the man’s movements after he left Aldean’s bar.
And the incident comes at a time when there’s a lot of concern about visitors having their drinks spiked in downtown Nashville. I’ve heard from some people who are mad that I’ve written about it (which is ironic that they’re more concerned over me reporting on it than they are about it actually happening), but over the past couple months there have been quite a few stories that have gone viral of people who believed their drinks were spiked while partying on Broadway.
Just last week, a man was arrested for rape after sexually assaulting a woman while leaving a bar in downtown Nashville, and Mayor Freddie O’Connell recently addressed the issue, saying that his office was “reviewing social media scenarios as well as actual reports and they are having extraordinary difficulty recognizing what is showing up in those social media scenarios with what is actually occurring and what is actually being reported. So I’ll say it this way, we take all of those suggestions very seriously.”
After several stories were shared on Reddit and Facebook about victims of drink spiking in Nashville, several posts have gone viral sharing tips for being safe while going out in Nashville.
The Metro Nashville Police Department issued a warning with safety tips including knowing your limits and taking common sense steps like watching your drinks and not taking drinks from strangers.
And a post on Reddit from a woman who says she works security at various bars downtown also shared some tips for visitors, like taking photos with your friends before you go out so that it’s easier for someone to help you find them, keeping an eye on your drink, and using drink covers.
One of those makers of drink covers, Nightcap, recently visited several Nashville bars to hand out their product to customers and offer them to bars. But the founder of the company says that she went door to door to the bars showing them her product, and the only one that responded after following up told her they weren’t interested. (She didn’t name any of the bars, but obviously that’s still concerning).
We don’t know for sure what happened to Boylan, but it’s definitely concerning given recent reports – especially after Missouri student Riley Strain was found dead in the Cumberland River last year after going missing from a Broadway bar.
Luckily this story had a better outcome, but it’s a good reminder to be vigilant when you’re out partying. And hopefully it’s also a wakeup call for the bars and Nashville to start taking things more seriously.
