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July 21, 2025 36 mins
  An 8-year-old boy in Clearwater, Florida spends the evening with his mother and asks if he can sleep in her bed. After putting him to sleep, his mother struggles to fall asleep due to typically working the overnight shift. As the hours tick on, she finally decides to leave Zach alone to get some fresh air. When she returns, he is nowhere to be found. This is a complex case with very few confirmable facts, rather rumors and theories galore. But at the heart of it is an innocent little boy. Someone who was loved by a large extended family. A family still looking for him nearly 25 years later.

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https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/missing/what-happened-to-zachary-bernhardt-8-year-old-vanished-without-a-trace
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-naples-daily-news-pattern-of-15-min/176858826/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-leah-hackett-statement/176858734/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-mothers-plea-3-days-l/176857646/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-first-zach-b-article-par/176857279/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-first-missing-article/176749308/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-search-intensifies/176749255/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-search-continues-high-an/176895844/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-tampa-tribune-search-widens/176895889/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-community-reaction/176896035/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-search-halts-review-tips/176896115/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-police-boys-mother-know/176943062/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tampa-bay-times-police-believe-mom-knows/176943287/
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/missing87975/endangered-missing-zachary-michael-cole-bernhardt-t1990.html
https://charleyproject.org/case/zachary-michael-cole-bernhardt

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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
An eight year old boy in Clearwater, Florida, spends the
evening with his mother and asks if he can sleep
in her bed. After putting him to sleep, his mother
struggles to fall asleep due to typically.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Working the overnight shift.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
As the hours take on, she finally decides to leave
Zach alone to get some fresh air, and when she returns,
he's nowhere to be found. This is a complex case
with very few confirmable facts, rather rumors and theories galore,
But at the heart of it is an innocent little boy,
someone who is loved by a large extended family, a

(00:44):
family still looking for answers.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Nearly twenty five years later.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
I'm your host, Megan, and each week on a Simpler
Time True Crime, I cover older unsolved cases and challenge
the idea that a simpler time means a safer time.
This week, I'm bringing to you the unsolved, puzzling disappearance
of Zachary Bernhardt. Before I get into this case today,

(01:27):
I want to share that this has been a requested case.
I held some hesitation in covering. I thought about why
that is, and I think it's because it's a case
with a high level of controversy. It's talked about on
the Internet quite a bit, and it's one of those
cases people have very strong opinions about. From the time
I encountered this case years ago and all through the years,

(01:47):
it's been one that my personal opinion has been all
over the place on and whenever I'm sharing a case
on here, it's important to me to have purpose and
not just add.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Noise to a case filled with speculation.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
And so what I think I can do today is
center the story of an eight year old boy who
was here one moment and gone the next, and to
tell his story to a new audience so that it
keeps his story alive and serves alongside his extended families
push for answers. With that said, I'll be sharing this
story the emerging theories and possibilities, and I'll be as

(02:21):
clear as possible as I'm telling the story of what
pieces are confirmed, what falls into a gray area, and
what lies in the territory of pure speculation. What I
won't be doing is making any firm statements on what
I believe happened to him, blame any one person, or
look at the circumstances through a narrow lens, because like
everyone else, I simply don't know, and with that in mind,

(02:45):
I'm gonna do something I normally don't do before telling.
I'm going to give you a high level overview so
that you can carry this with you as you listen
to the chronological events. We know that eight year old
Zachary Bernhardt went missing from his town home overnight in
the year two thousand and in all the dialogues surrounding
the case, there are three main theories with many sub

(03:06):
theories underneath them. One is that Zachary was harmed by
his mother that night and that she's being untruthful in
her version of events. Two that Zachary was not harmed
directly by his mother, but that his mother is aware
of what happened to him or she was just negligent
in the process. Number Three, that Zachary was abducted and

(03:28):
harmed by a stranger and his mother is not involved
or knowledgeable at all. So let's get into it. The
story starts on September tenth, two thousand, in Clearwater, Florida.
Zachary Bernhardt is eight years old and he was born
on December eighteenth, nineteen ninety one. Zachary lives with his mother,
Leah Hackett. They live in a town home at the

(03:50):
Savannah Trace Apartment Complex. The complex sat on Drew Street,
which is a main east west thoroughfare dotted with low
rise apartment buildings, small retail plazas, service shops, and commercial properties.
At the time, the neighborhood in Clearwater was a largely
working class population.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
It was filled with.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Renters, single parent families, and blue collar workers, with a
mix of longtime locals and transplants to the area. The
complex itself was nice because it offered family friendly amenities
without a super steep price tag.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
There were twelve low.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Rise buildings that housed a total of four hundred and
fifty six rental units, and Savannah Trace Apartments had a pool,
a playground, and a gated parking area. Most of what
I can tell of the layouts of the units, including
the type Zachary and Lea lived in, was that they
were two story town home units. Even though it was
a fine place to raise a family, it wasn't without

(04:43):
its crimes, issues and disturbances, and the greater neighborhood outside
of the complex dealt with these issues as well. Zachary's mother, Leah,
was trying to make ends meet which was a way
of life for her from the moment zach was born.
She was a single mother who worked a series of
low earning jobs. Zachary and Leah had moved around a
ton almost every single year since he was born, and

(05:06):
to understand the twists and turns Zachary had in his
life leading up to his disappearance, it's important that we
go through a lengthy backstory, one that can't be sugarcoated.
Zachary was born in Lakeland, and at that time, Lea
was living with her boyfriend Jason. Shortly after Zachary's birth,
a paternity test revealed that Jason was not his biological father,

(05:27):
and Leah moved out. According to public records and reporting
in the Tampa Bay Times, Lea relocated to a tiny
town in Michigan and began dating a college student named Robert.
It's implied that Zachary did not make this move with her,
or that he wasn't living with her consistently and was
possibly staying with relatives, but I couldn't confirm, so just beware.
That's one of those not concrete things. What we do

(05:50):
know is that she gave birth to a second child,
a daughter, in nineteen ninety four, and that was with
this boyfriend. That relationship also did not work out, and
Robert sued Leah custody of their daughter. Leah initially was
granted custody and the ability to move back to Florida,
and at this point either Zachary was with her or
they're reunited around this time. It's important to note that

(06:11):
Leah's large family would often say that they believed in
the it takes a village mantra and in whatever it
took to raise Zachary. They stepped into help knowing that
Leah was a single mother, and continued reporting in the
Tampa Bay Times. On a Saturday in June in nineteen
ninety six, when Zachary was four and the little girl
was two, Robert came to visit his daughter. Leah met

(06:33):
him on a stretch of the I seventy five corridor
in Hillsborough County, where Leah asked Robert if he could
watch both of the children so that she could go
out for the night. Surprisingly, at least to me, Robert agreed,
but became concerned when Lea didn't return. He tried paging
her several times and could not reach her. After this
he got in touch with Lea's sister, and when Leah

(06:53):
hadn't returned to the following evening again, Robert and Leah's
sister reached out to the police department to file a
missing person's res By the following day, Monday, she returned.
At this point, Robert had enough and he took his
daughter back to Michigan with him, petitioning for soul custody,
and he won. During this time, in nineteen ninety six,

(07:16):
Leah met and dated another man, a twenty two year old, and.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
She moved into his apartment.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
During this time, Zachary was living with Leah's sister nearly
three hours away in Plant City. In late nineteen ninety six,
Leah and this man also broke up, but she continued
living in his apartment. At one point, shortly after their breakup,
he caught her at the residence of another man. He
allegedly shoved Leah, and he pled no contest to misdemeanor

(07:42):
domestic battery. Leah continued to reside at this man's apartment,
and what comes next gets a little fuzzy. It's established
that in May of nineteen ninety seven, the sister was
caring for Zachary, and she went to look for Lea
at this apartment and couldn't locate her. At this point,
she found out that that Leah had also not reported
to work for two weeks, and as such, she filed

(08:04):
another missing person's report, telling police that her sister struggled
with alcohol issues and had a history of threatening suicide.
Interestingly enough, this sister told police that Leah had told
her workplace that she needed some time away because her
mother had died. But Lea's mother, Carol, was alive and well,
and this isn't the last time you'll hear something like this.

(08:25):
Leah resurfaced a few days later and made contact with
her sister. Leah began caring for Zachary again shortly thereafter,
moving into a Rundown apartment complex with him in downtown
Saint Petersburg. Leah couldn't keep employment and afford the rent,
so one of the apartment owners made a deal with
her he would make her the apartment manager in exchange

(08:46):
for covering her rent and utilities. This business relationship turned sour,
though we don't know the details of why. A few
months later, the owner revoked this agreement. Around the same time,
which is mid nineteen ninety eight, this owner barged into
her apartment unannounced, and an altercation ensued, where he was
allegedly wrestling her for the apartment keys and ripped her

(09:07):
shirt open in the process. We weren't here for this altercation,
and it's never okay to put your hands on somebody,
regardless of the circumstances. But it's worth noting that the
altercation is presented differently depending on the source. This that
I just shared with you was from a later article
in the Tampa Bay Times, but an earlier article based
only off Lea's reporting of the incident to police, was

(09:30):
that a former boss and friend broke into her apartment,
attacked her, and ripped her shirt.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Open in front of her young child.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Police ordered the property owner to stay away from Leah
after this. At this point, Zachary had completed kindergarten at
his first elementary school. They moved to a new community,
and then he was moved to a new school for
first grade. This time, Leah was living with a friend
of hers and zach was attending school at Frontier Elementary
School in Largo, Florida. Later articles after his acts disappearance

(10:01):
would have his teachers describing how smart and sweet he
was and a good student, and they.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Said he appeared to really love his mother.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
They said that Leah was good and devoted, and she
came across as attentive, though they said they were surprised
about how good she looked and how she was presenting
on television because she had told the teachers that she
was dying from cancer, which is interesting because that very
much was not the case. And Leah is alive and
well as of this recording. So in living with her

(10:30):
friend here, this was also short lived. By November of
ninety eight, Leah and her roommate got into an altercation
where the roommate said Leah owed her money, and this
roommate eventually moved out, and Leah Hackett asked the landlord
if she could rent out the unit independently. The landlord agreed,
telling the Tampa Bay Tribune quote, I felt sorry for her.
She has no husband, she has a kid. Her son

(10:52):
goes to the YMCA down the street. She says, that's
good for him. She says she's got cancer. Woman cancer
end quote. Yeah, yes, you heard that right. She told
the landlord the cancer story too, so he let her
stay as long as he could, but anytime he would
come to pick up the rent, she wouldn't open the
door for him. He eventually evicted her in the spring
of ninety nine, and after that, Leah and zach moved

(11:15):
to the Savannah Trace townhome. And now Leah had actually
fallen behind on payments to her town home at Savannah Trace,
and according to the Tampa Bay Times, the rental company
had begun the eviction proceedings. Leah had found out they
were to be evicted just a handful of days.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Before Zachary disappeared.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
I want to reiterate that I don't share that backstory
to gossip about Leah's life or scrutinize her stumbles. We
have no idea what was contributing to all of this.
Could there have been substance use, maybe, but I can't
confirm meant to illness same Maybe I just don't know.
And if our lives were put out there for consumption,
we'd probably have patches that we didn't want to revisit

(11:56):
or have displayed. But in the end, this is about
zach and Zachary's life was more than just the day
he disappeared, and to dilute the truth or talk about
that day and avoid would be inaccurate and remiss. Despite

(12:19):
the turbulence, teacher's family and neighbors all described Zachary as
well adjusted and seemingly unaffected by this turmoil. Zachary was
then enrolled at Eisenhower Elementary School, where he was loved
and Leah was very involved, even volunteering at the school carnival.
Zachary was smart and kind, and in an episode of
Investigation Discoveries TV show Disappeared, Zachary's grandmother, Carol described him

(12:43):
as a child who loved to build forts and to
craft and create things. You'd never throw out the cardboard
from the toilet, paper or paper towel roll because he
liked to construct things out of them, like making make
believe telephones to play with. Repeatedly, I kept hearing those
closest to him or refer to him as a sweet
little boy. He had many cousins in the Clearwater area

(13:05):
and played with both those cousins and kids in his
neighborhood regularly. The cousins would often come visit and hang
out at Leah's house because Lea was considered the cool
aunt who let them stay up and watch movies and
was just loads of fun. Leah had employment at this point.
She was working the night shift for a local telemarketing agency.
As a single mother, this gave her a shift differential,

(13:27):
and she needed all the money she could get. Apparently,
she had a neighbor who would keep an eye on
Zach while she was at these overnight shifts. Something that's
not super clear was if Zach would go stay at
this neighbor's house, if the neighbor would come over to
Leah's apartment, or some other arrangement. On September tenth, two
thousand and one, Leah had the night off, but she

(13:49):
kept her same sleep wake schedule, so that day, Zachary
played all over with neighborhood friends while Leah napped. When
he came inside for the day, Leah reported that she
made zach his favorite day, and then they had a
big movie marathon, which he was really excited about. He
had asked Leah if he could sleep with her in
her bed that night, so when he started dozing off
on the couch during their movie session at around eleven PM,

(14:11):
she carried him up to bed. According to Leah, she
was awake from her typical routine and napping that day,
so she just kept watching movies herself. Then after that
she flipped through the channels a little bit. At around
one am, Leah took the trash out and drove the
garbage down to the community dumpster in the complex.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
When she got back, she.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Got on her laptop for a bit and logged into
some chat rooms, which is very early two thousands of her.
After this, the reporting in various outlets, reports and Lea's
own story, I'll just say it gets a little messy,
particularly the timelines. What you'll hear is that she left
anywhere from two to four am. Leah shares four am
for the most part, and police officials tend to believe

(14:53):
it's somewhere between three and four am. But Leia says
she's just restless and decides she's going to get some
fresh chair. She puts eyes on Zachary, who is still
sleeping in her bed. Leah leaves the home without her key,
leaves the door unlocked, and begins walking around her complex.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
And then she.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Says she suddenly gets the urge to jump in the pool,
and so she does, swimming from one end of the
pool to the other. I've lived in an apartment complexes
with pools, and they are always gated, and the gates
are usually locked after hours. But I couldn't find anything
specific about this policy or if it was in any
of the source material. So Lea was in her clothes

(15:32):
without a towel, and then, according to her story, she
walks back to her town home and keeps the air
conditioning temp pretty cool in her apartment, so when she
walks in soaking wet, she's immediately freezing, so she wants
to hop in the hot shower. There are two different
bathrooms she could have used, and this is important because
one of them is right off of the master bedroom
where Zachary is sleeping, and the other is a stand alone.

(15:56):
Now it's possible she didn't want to wake Zachary and
so she went in the bathroom side of the bedroom.
If she used the shower within the bedroom, it's odd
that she wouldn't have looked over in the bed to
check on Zachary at all. However, either way, Leah reports
that she gets out of the shower, and after this
she gets dressed and notices that.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
Zachary is not in her bed.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
Leah initially thought, she says, there's this gap between the
bed and the wall, so she believes maybe he just
fell off the bed, but he's not there. She looks
in his bedroom and around the apartment and still doesn't
see him. It occurred to her at that point that
maybe Zachary woke up and was scared when he couldn't
find her, and so she went to the neighbor's house,
the one who sometimes baby sat him. Leah knocked at

(16:38):
this neighbor's door, and when there's no answer, she started
pounding on the window in a panic. This neighbor finally
stirred awake, and she tells the neighbor she's looking for Zachary.
This neighbor said, I haven't seen him. So then she
places the nine to one one call at four forty
seven am, so to recap the timeline quick from when
she left the house, she allegedly left her on four

(16:59):
for a fifteen minutes total. On that walk, she decided
on a whim to jump into the complex pool and
swim from one end to the other, get out without
a towel, soaking wet in her regular clothes, walk back
to the apartment and hop in the shower. She notices
that zach isn't in her bed. She does a search
for him, and then she notifies police. In the nine

(17:20):
one one call, she sounds distraught. The dispatcher actually asks
her if she left the door unlocked and when she
when she went to take her walk, and she says yes,
and then follows it up by saying she knows it's
her fault, implying like I left the door unlocked and
someone came in. Police respond quickly to the scene, and
in the meantime, Leah calls her mom, Carol, and her
sister for support. When they arrived to the complex, it's

(17:42):
already swarming with law enforcement and police tape. Police said
they wanted to speak to Lea down at the station,
but don't want to bring her down in a police
cruiser and taint the opinion of the media, so they
ask Lea's sister to drive her down, which she does.
Carol Zachary's grandmother refuses to go down to the police
station and says she's not leaving the apartment until her

(18:02):
grandson is found. I have to say that in every
single TV interview that Carol has done, as well as
Leah's family, it's just absolutely heartbreaking. You have to remember
that in many ways they spend a lot of time
raising Zachary all by themselves, and you can just hear
the pain in their voice. You can tell that they
haven't and will not give up on finding him. While

(18:24):
at the station, Polase interview Leah Hackett further, she sticks
with her story and it doesn't really differ in the
episode about Zachary's case on Investigation Discoveries Disappeared, Please say
she sort of has a mixed demeanor, and sometimes it
feels more appropriate than others. She's often crying and panicking
and distraught, and other moments she makes what seems like

(18:44):
an odd or misplaced joke, though they do say everybody
deals with emotions differently, and I tend to agree. I
think of a body language expert walked in and said
everything she's saying, and all her mannerisms point to her
lying I might hold a little more weight than just
she made a weird joke, but it's still worth paying
attention to. All through the night and into the next day,

(19:05):
the search was on for Zachary. The FBI, Tampa Police Department,
and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement or FDL all
helped Clearwater Police in the search, while Zachary's apartment was
nearby the hustle and bustle of US nineteen. Around the
complex at the time, there was a lot of nature,
wetlands and swamps, dense woods, you name it, and it

(19:26):
was pretty treacherous to do a search, So kudos to
the first responders and searchers. They searched all the way
over to an area called Cliff Stephens Park and other
areas east of the complex. They searched by helicopter, on
foot ATV's horseback. They were pulling out all the stops
to find this little boy. Outside of those searches, investigators

(19:48):
were going door to door in the complex and collecting
stories from potential witnesses. They were also locating area sex
offenders and figuring out their whereabouts. On the early morning
hours of September eleventh, two thousand and believe it or not,
it was a really high volume of sex offenders in
his neighborhood.

Speaker 2 (20:07):
More than a lot of neighborhoods. It was just seemingly
not a great area.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Concurrent with all of this, police were trying to get
to know those closest to zach and who might have
had a motive to take him. They ask about Zachary's father,
and Lia says that he's not involved in Zachary's life,
but she does offer up his name and where he
might be staying. Police were able to track Zachary's biological
father down living in another state, and believe it or not,

(20:33):
this man had no idea that he had even fathered
a child with Leah. When law enforcement told this man
he had this boy and that he was missing, he
was very disinterested in getting involved. Whether Zachary made it
home safely or not. He had an alibi and he
was quickly crossed off their list. Police back at the

(20:53):
town home were processing the scene. There was no sign
of fourth century and of course there wouldn't be, because.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
We know the door is left unlocked.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
But there was no sign of anything, not a struggle,
not blood, not any type of crime scene, nothing like that,
which struck them as a little odd. Sometimes when I
have heard this case being discussed, the scene is described
as pristine, And I've seen pictures of the townhome that
police have shared publicly, and I wouldn't describe it that
way because that sort of gives the impression that it's

(21:22):
been like bleached and wiped down everywhere in a spotless
The apartment looks very lived in.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
I mean no judgment here.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
If you walked into my house, it's the same dishes
in the sank, little piles of paper, some clothes on
the floor.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
You get the idea.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
So I just think it's important to note that distinction.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
It's not as if it.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Appeared that she had bleached the house or wiped it
all down or anything like that. Police treat the whole
townhome as a potential crime scene and collect evidence, and
in a very cagy and vague way down the road,
they will mention that they collect DNA evidence. What is
the DNA evidence, I'm not sure, and without knowing the
source of the DA I trust that law enforcement has

(22:02):
thought through all these scenarios as professionals much more than I.
But knowing that Zachary was sleeping in his mother's bed,
if the male DNA profile came from say the sheets
or the bed, LEO was a sexually active single woman
who probably had meant over sometimes. So I just hope
that it's genuinely DNA evidence that could be useful and
not some sort of red herring.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
But I digress.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
The ground search continued on, but was winding down After
a few days without any luck, Leo was hesitant to
be interviewed and wasn't part of the search. She did
make one public statement to the media on Wednesday the thirteenth.
She tearfully got in front of cameras and said, the
following first thing is my family, and I would like
to think everyone who has searched, helped, passed out flyers, prayed,

(22:47):
or thought about Zach since he disappeared on Monday. The
media has been very helpful and respectful through this whole ordeal.
He is a beautiful boy inside as well as out.
He himself would be the first one out searching if
he could. Anytime Zach heard about anyone in trouble or
needing help, he asked how he could help. Anyone who
ever met Zach has loved Zach. The support of the

(23:09):
community has shown us how much Zach is loved. We
miss him, we love him very much, and we want
him to come home. We're all here waiting, So please
don't stop looking for Zach and help bring Zach home.
Thank you very much. As the initial search slowed down,

(23:29):
the court of public opinion shifted away from Leah's favor,
neighbors and acquaintances talked about her going out all the
time and partying. One neighbor, a woman named Deana, shared
that she was very close with her because her daughter
and Zachar used to play together and they Lea befriended her.
Leah would often ask her to use her phone because
she didn't have one. She began giving away Diana's phone

(23:52):
number as a way of contact. The friendship soured when
Deanna felt she was being taken advantage over this arrangement
and she was sick of taking messages from Leah. She
described Leah as somewhat of a strict parent, not so
much in the supervision kind of way, but she said
she was firm with zach and if he had tantrums
or anything like that, it didn't fly. Deanna used to
even have Leah watch her daughter sometimes, but closer to

(24:16):
the disappearance, she had her stop watching her daughter because
of their falling out. But she still thought Zachary was
a sweet boy, so her daughter and Zachary played together.
Deanna said that on September tenth, she saw Zachary playing
outside and that he wasn't being supervised. He was by himself,
which we already knew because we knew Leah was asleep.
She was heading out to go to a barbecue, and

(24:36):
Zachary actually asked her if she could join, and she
kind of said something along lines of no, sweetee, not
this time. And that was the last Deanna had seen
of Zachary. However, she had a really interesting detail.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
She told Palisa.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
In the early morning hours of September eleventh, she noticed
Lea's vehicle not there she was saying goodbye to her
boyfriend around three forty five am. Another neighbor, a woman
named Susan, said she went out for a cigarette break
a little around three and saw Leah pulling up in
her vehicle. Now, those timelines are a little confusing. How
much are you looking at the clock in the middle

(25:10):
of the night. I'm not really sure, but I was
actually surprised that there were multiple people up in the
middle of the night to kind of witness this. I
think to myself that it's possible they saw her vehicle
coming and going when she did that quick trash run,
but it was very different times than what Leah provided.
She said that was more around one am, so it's
hard to say either way. It added an element of

(25:30):
distrust to Leah's story was she out all that night
for longer, and she's trying to cover that up so
she doesn't look neglectful or get in trouble. Was she
out doing something else? Her story certainly didn't sit right
with the public or investigators. She actually told investigators that
she had no idea why she jumped in the pool
that night, that she doesn't even like swimming, so it
just didn't add up. And shortly after Zachary's disappearance, Leah

(25:54):
stopped cooperating. She stopped talking to officials, stopped talking to
the media, and said she shared everything she had to
share with police. She moved out of state, changed her name,
and tried to pick up the pieces and start a
brand new life back in Florida. Carol, Zachary's grandmother, along

(26:22):
with Leah's extended family, all stayed heavily involved in the
search for Zachary, and it's important to note that Carol
and many relatives of Leah stood by her and still do.
They said that Leah was a very good mother, not
without her struggles, but that she loved Zachary and would
never do anything to harm him. They said she left
the area because of how cruel people were to her.
She'd go out and people would call her a child killer.

(26:44):
She had no anonymity, and she couldn't find jobs, and
it was just affecting her mental health. They said she
stayed involved in hearing about the investigation through her family
and that she was profoundly impacted by his absence and
then not knowing The next break in the case came
in spring.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
Of two thousand and one.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
An anonymous tipster in Zachary's case said that there was
a man police needed to look at because he was
sexually assaulting and murdering children in the area, or at
least he said he was. His name was Kevin Jelbert,
and investigators took this tip very seriously. They were able
to infiltrate the dark web and befriend him online, pretending

(27:22):
that they too were interested in this type of thing.
One such investigator, who had succeeded in getting close to Jelbert,
was actually then invited out by him to do a
ride along looking for a child to abduct. The officer
went in the car and Jelbert actually had bleach in
the back and he pointed to it and said that
was to clean up whatever it is.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
That they did.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
The night took a wild turn when suddenly Jelbert turned
into the Savannah Trace apartments and said, the last time
I abducted a boy, it was from this apartment. He
went on to say that the little boy was wearing
Mickey Mouse underwear and Scooby Doo pajamas. At this point
police had enough to bring him in for questioning, but
they ran into issues connecting him directly to Zachary, because

(28:06):
you see, he pointed to the wrong apartment, and Zachary
was wearing a T shirt and boxer shorts when he
went missing, and some reports just say boxer shorts, but
either way, it was not Scooby Doo and Mickey Mouse
or anything like that. So that was not a match
to the outfit that Jelbert described. And then the DNA
was also not a match.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Again, we don't know the DNA.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Or how reliable it is in ruling people out in
this particular case, but that's what they said. One other
odd thing they found with Jelbert, though, was a receipt
in his possession. About two weeks after Zachary went missing,
a receipt was found for a local landfill. Police investigated
that landfill but as you can imagine, that was a
needle in a haystack, and they couldn't find any evidence

(28:48):
of Zachary being there, especially after all this time. A
lot of people still think that Jelbert did this crime
and that his body was dumped in there and that
it was just never found. But it was a little
ways after his disappearance, so that would be a long
time to hold onto a body. Impossible, no, but definitely odd.

(29:09):
Jelbert denied harming the boy and said everything was just
a fantasy, that he hadn't actually done anything to all
those children. And while police couldn't tie him to Zachary completely,
they did charge him with solicitation of murder. They also
found a horrendous amount of child pornography on his computer,
and for all of that he received a forty year
jail sentence. He's still serving that right now. Kevin Gilbert

(29:32):
remains a person of interest because his confessions and ties
to the apartment complex made him suspicious, but due to
his conflicting statements, mismatched forensic evidence, and lack of definitive proof,
authorities never did charge him in Zech's disappearance. The next
lead came just a couple months later, in August of
two thousand and one, all the way near Boulder, Colorado,

(29:54):
a suspicious photo of a young boy tied up was
found outside of a sporting goods store. It showed a
young reddish, blond haired boy bound with duct tape lying
on his back, hands covering his chest.

Speaker 2 (30:06):
With a rock placed nearby. Some people felt it was.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
A staged scene or staged grave, but unsure of who
this was. The Boulder Police Department shared it with law
enforcement agencies across the country trying to id who this was,
and police and Clearwater were interested because it resembled Zachary.
They brought in Zachary's aunt as well as his grandmother, Carol,
and after much time reviewing the photo, they felt it

(30:29):
wasn't him, and police did their due diligence by using
technology to compare facial features and distinguishing characteristics, and in
the end, they too felt that it wasn't Zachary and
to this day they don't know who it was. For
the one year mark of Zachary's disappearance, his family planned
a vigil in a large scale event to draw attention
to his case. Unfortunately, that wouldn't come to be. Is

(30:53):
Zachary's one year anniversary of his disappearance fell on September eleventh,
two thousand and one. With the nationwide train tragedy of
September eleventh, his family knew that his case wouldn't possibly
be featured on anything, so they abandoned this and continued
to just work behind the scenes. His grandmother raised money
for missing children's organizations and did her best to keep

(31:13):
his name out there, and the next lead would come
in early two thousand and two, when another chilling crime
happened in Zachary's apartment complex. In January of two thousand
and two, some boys were playing on the playground at

(31:35):
the Savannah Trace Complex. A man in a truck approached
the boys and asked them if they wanted some ice
cream he had in his truck. The little five year
old boy started walking in that direction when the man
suddenly grabbed him and threw him in his truck. The
other young boys were frightened and immediately went for help,
and an amber.

Speaker 2 (31:53):
Alert was issued.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
A full scale search in roadblocks were happening, and the
hours marched on with no sign of the boy, and
people began to fear the worst. But that evening ten
hours after he went missing, a motorist was driving near
a fast food restaurant in Bushnell, Florida, eighty miles upside
of clear Water, and he swore he heard a sound
coming from the dumpster while he sat at the red light.

(32:16):
He pulled in and found the young boy. He was
injured but alive, and police released very little about what
happened because it was suspected that he was sexually assaulted
and he was such a young miner. The boy was
able to give police a description of his abductor, and
police looked into if the abduction could be related to Zachary's.

(32:36):
I mean, what are the odds that two little boys
are presumably abducted from the same apartment complex in such
a small window of time. But there were a lot
of differences. In the second case, it was in broad
daylight in front of a witness, and that boy was
let go. In Zach's it was the middle of the night,
right from the apartment, and he's never been found. Police

(32:58):
at this time do not believe the cases are related,
but this abductor has never been caught and they can't
rule out the connection for sure. Lear resurfaced around the
to your anniversary for an event in Zachary's name. She

(33:20):
did a brief interview with the news outlet where she
described how her family protected her in her fragile mental
state and how it's been so hard being under suspicion.
Describing the public scrutiny of her personal life, she said, quote,
if you want to find out that I picked my
nose in the third grade, fine, as long as Zach's
picture is put out there, that's okay. I do something

(33:41):
every day for him. I just don't think you have
to do it in front of millions of people to
make it count.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
One might argue that what was being found out was
more significant than nose picking or a bad report card,
but I can also understand what she's saying in due respect,
that people grieve differently, and for the most part, that's
where Zachary's case has stood throughout all this time. The
most recent information I could find was connected to a
nonprofit called Protect Your Children, Inc. Where they were tipped

(34:09):
off about a homeless man living on the Texas Mexico border,
and this person looks a lot like a grown up Zachary.
They do a mini episode on their social media. It's
from back in April of twenty twenty five, and I'd
encourage you to watch it if you're interested, though, until
it becomes more substantiated, I'll just share it for what
it is and let them dive into it further alongside

(34:30):
law enforcement. It's definitely circulating on Reddit and in the
online chatter space, and some people find an uncanny resemblance
while others find a lot of differences. As of this recording,
the question remains what happened to Zachary that night? Was
Leah involved? If so, was it intentional or an accident

(34:52):
she was covering up? Is Leah's swimming story true or
is it possible she went out that night and then
got home and realized zach had been taken and made
up that story to seem less negligent in leaving him
home alone? Did a stranger come in and take advantage
of the situation? In one of Leah's rare public commentary moments,
she shared her belief that she now believes a man

(35:13):
was watching her and her apartment and noticed that she
left and took advantage of the situation. Was it, Kevin Jelbert?
What DNA do investigators have? Of course I know investigators
are understandably going to keep that to themselves until an arrest,
and I hope that day comes soon. This year will
mark twenty five years since Zachary disappeared. And regardless of

(35:37):
what you think of Leah or her involvement, Zachary does
have a strong extended family who has been destroyed by this.
His grandmother Carol said how it broke up her family
and that certain relatives believe Leah is responsible while her
and others do not. But no matter what, they love
Zachary deeply and they deserve to have answers in what

(35:58):
happened to their sweet little If you have any information
on the disappearance of Zachary Bernhardt, please contact one eight
hundred eight four three five six seven eight. This has
been another episode of a Simpler Time True crime. Please
be sure to follow me on all social media, particularly

(36:18):
on Instagram, where I always share supporting pictures for every episode.
Please also follow me on your preferred listening platform and
leave a five star review. Case suggestions can be sent
to Simpler Timecrimepod at gmail dot com and it is
always thank you so much for listening, and I'll see
you again next week.
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