Nearly 3 years after the 26-year-old disappeared from Union Cafe, friends, family and police search for answers in his mysterious death of Joey Labute Jr. 

Joey LaBute wasn’t the type to barhop. He was a homebody, content to play videogames and watch “Sleeping Beauty” or episodes of “Game of Thrones.” He liked to knit scarves. But on Friday, March 4 of last year, he ditched his Gahanna apartment for a night on the town at Union Cafe in the Short North.

The body of Joseph “Joey” LaBute Jr., 26, was found March 29 in the Scioto River, about three weeks after he went missing.

LaBute was a 2007 graduate of Lakota East High School.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that LaBute had “dry” lungs and no water in his stomach and that toxicology tests revealed only alcohol in his system.

“Due to the decedent being found in water and the probability that he was in the water for a length of time, we cannot definitively give a cause of death,” Franklin County Coroner Anahi Ortiz told the Dispatch. “All we can say with certainty is that there were no signs of trauma” such as gunshot or stab wounds.

Police have labeled his death suspicious, primarily because of the circumstances in which he disappeared and where his body was found.

As of March 25, 2019, Joey's case remains at the Columbus Police Department with no further actions of continued investigations on the case. 

NOW IT IS TIME to petition that Joey's case to be transferred to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations for a fresh look into this unsolved "murder" case which may be connected to other cases in other states. 

With enough signatures and public response, we believe we can get this case transferred! 

Please support our efforts to find Joey's and the other young men's murderer.