Zachary Bernhardt

Status:

Open

Jurisdiction:

Clearwater Police Department (FL)

Missing From:

Clearwater, Florida

Summary:

Zachary "Zach" Michael-Cole Bernhardt was a boy who vanished while his mother went for a walk in 2000. Zachary Bernhardt was just 8 years old when he vanished. He's been missing since 2000, making him the longest-running Amber Alert in the state.

Vital Statistics

Circumstances of Disappearance:

Prior to his disappearance, Zach lived with his mother, Leah Hackett, in an apartment complex in the 2600 block of Drew Street in Clearwater, Florida. His mother was suffering from insomnia and decided to go for a walk around their apartment complex and a swim at 2:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. that morning as a result. Reports differ as to how long this took, some say Leah returned within about fifteen minutes while others claim she was gone for as long as two hours. She left Zach, who was sleeping in his bed, alone in the apartment. At approximately 4:00am on September 11, 2000, he was discovered missing and is missing under suspicious circumstances. Police say Zachary's mother, Leah Hackett, called to report him missing just before 5 a.m.

Additional Details:

The Clearwater community turned up to look for Zachary. Police canvassed the area by air, through the brush and even used WaveRunners. Police appeared to get a break in the case in 2001 when an informant notified police that a man named Kevin Jalbert, who resided near Zach's apartment complex, had been bragging about being a child murderer and in search of a new victim. The police had an undercover cop track Jalbert's movements, and Jalbert bragged to the cop that he had abducted and raped over 1,000 children and claimed to have killed five of them. But police later claimed that Jalbert pointed to the wrong apartment unit. And finally, Jalbert's DNA did not match the evidence found at the scene. Police found a receipt indicating that Jalbert went to a landfill two weeks after Zachary's disappearance. After an exhaustive search investigators could find no trace of Zachary at the landfill. A year after Zachary's disappearance, a photo was discovered near Boulder, Colorado, some 1800 miles away, depicting a young, blond haired boy bound at his wrists and ankles with duct tape. The similarity to Zachary was difficult to dismiss, though ultimately this photo cannot be verified. In January 2002, a five-year-old boy was kidnapped from the same apartment complex Zachary disappeared from. Investigators looked into the possibility that the 2002 kidnapping and the Bernhardt case were connected, but they found no evidence to support this. At some point, although Leah's family members are still spearheading the search for Zachary, Leah herself stopped cooperating with the investigation, moved to Hawaii, got married, and changed her name. Detectives gathered more than 350 pieces of evidence and Zachary's case fills 35 binders.

Case Last Updated:

Nov 01, 2026