MISSING: Zachary Bernhardt

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts. [00:30] Hi, Crime Junkies. We recorded this episode a few weeks ago, but just a couple of days ago, we had a note posted on our Patreon wall that I would like to share with you because we would like to dedicate this episode to a really special fan. And I apologize, I have tried reading this like eight or nine times and not crying, but it doesn't work. So please just bear with me. [00:59] And [01:00] Hi Ashley and Britt. I'm joining your Patreon in honor of my little sister Stephanie, who passed away two weeks ago. [01:08] She fought a courageous eight-year battle with cancer. Your podcast has been a shared love of ours, and as her health and mobility declined... [01:17] and as her health and mobility declined it remained one of the few things we could still do together i spent many hours over the last few months next to her in her hospice bed listening to the stories you tell so well always somehow both soothing and suspenseful

[01:36] She was a crime junkie until the very end. [01:40] Be alone. [01:43] Thank you. [01:44] I'm so grateful that she and I had your show. I can't seem to find the words to properly explain just how special those opportunities to bond with my sister were to me. [01:57] I guess I just wanted you to know that you played an important role. [02:03] for us in these last few months. Thank you so much. [02:08] So everybody go hug your sister today. And this episode is for Stephanie. [02:16] Thank you. [02:46] Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today we're covering a case kind of like one that a lot of you have been requesting. Britt, you are in our suggestion form all the time. All the time. And we get, I mean, how many requests for Casey Anthony?

[03:16] this case. I'm not saying we never will, but the case is one of the most publicized of our generation, I think, and there have been numerous documentaries and podcasts on it since. And the case I want to talk about today is pretty close to that one, but it doesn't get nearly the same amount of attention. So instead of rehashing a case you all know, I want to bring attention to a lesser known case [03:46] a story that takes place in the same state even, Florida, and it's about a child gone missing while in the care of his single mother. And this is the story of the disappearance of Zachary Bernhardt. [03:59] Our story starts on a sunny day in Clearwater, Florida, September 10th of 2000. This whole story surrounds Zachary Bernhardt and his mother, Leah Hackett. And, you know, I think one of the reasons this case stuck out to me so much is because Zachary, to me, looks so much like my own little brother, David, who for anybody who doesn't know, David now does all of our editing. So hi, David. [04:29] I just felt weirdly attached to Zach and this story because I kept picturing my own little brother at age eight. He's now 20, but like, that's what I was seeing. No, he's not. He's 100% eight, right? He's still eight. He edits our episode, he's eight. So Leah is a single mother in 2000 and she's living at Savannah Trace apartment complex with her eight-year-old son, Zachary. And it's just the two of them living there. And a lot of the stuff I watched or read

[04:59] and that they spent a lot of time together. [05:02] Some of Zach's cousins said they actually loved going over to Leah's house because she was like the cool aunt and would let them stay up and eat junk food, like that kind of thing. Leah would always let the kids stay up late because she herself was a night owl. She actually worked nights at a telemarketing company, so that was just the schedule that she was on. [05:21] That's gotta be so hard being a single mom working nights. [05:24] I'm a night owl, but I also like coming home and sleeping while my kids sleep. It's kind of nice. [05:30] Yeah, it's hard having off schedules, but I think this is something a lot of single moms have to deal with because when you work nights, you make shift differential. And those extra couple of bucks an hour is huge when you are the sole provider. So her normal schedule is to sleep during the day while Zach is at school and then go to work at night. And when she's gone, there's actually a person in her apartment complex who kept an eye on Zach. [06:00] the night off. She cooks Zach dinner and they watch a movie together until Zach falls asleep around 11 p.m. She said that when he was awake he had said that he wanted to sleep in her bed so that night when he fell asleep she takes him in there and tucks him in but she isn't tired. She's used to being awake so she goes downstairs, she hangs out, maybe watches some tv, we go maybe on the internet. I know she was like chatting with people for a little bit and based on statements

[06:30] to take her garbage to the dumpster. [06:32] Is that normal? [06:34] I haven't lived in an apartment for a while, but... [06:36] I used to just walk it out there. Was the car thing necessary? You know, I don't know. I can't find what apartment they were in or how far away the dumpster was. I think this is normal if you live a good distance away. I was actually in a complex once where the whole place had like one dumpster. So I would drive my trash. I'd put it on my roof and drive it out to the dumpster. But I'm with you. It's one of those things that I kind of come back to and question. But you'll see why later. [07:03] So she says she comes back to the house right after taking the trash out, maybe watches some more TV, maybe gets back online. But she's getting super restless and she can't fall asleep. So sometime, and there's actually a ton of conflicting reports that actually put this anywhere from 2 to 4. But police believe it's sometime between 3 and 4. Leah decides she wants to go for a walk to kind of burn off this energy, see if maybe she can get herself to fall asleep. [07:33] leaves. [07:34] She says she checks on Zach. He is still sleeping in her bed. So she leaves the apartment without locking it and walks down the stairs to go walking around. Um, I'm sorry. At 4 a.m., [07:48] She's going to leave her apartment unlocked with her kids sleeping there. Yeah. And, you know, honestly, that's not even the strangest part to me. So while she's going on this very short walk, we think it's probably, according to her story, ends up being like 15 minutes. She says that all of a sudden she gets this urge to go for a swim, like just on a whim. What?

[08:18] a towel and just jumps in. She swims one end to the other, then gets out and goes back to her apartment. And also, she said she has no idea why she did this because she made statements later to police that she doesn't even like swimming. So, [08:34] Should we break down everything that's wrong with this? I would say you can't see me, but I have a very skeptical face right now. Well, yeah, and honestly, not even everything is wrong with this because I can't explain human behavior, especially for someone I don't know. But there is one thing that really sticks out to me. I have lived in a few apartment complexes in my day and never, ever has there been one with a pool open all hours of the night. [09:00] Now, [09:01] Perhaps it was technically closed, but maybe they didn't lock it up. I've seen this happen before. So maybe she was able to get in. And because it was so quick, like she didn't make a scene so no one noticed. I mean, maybe, but I don't know. I feel like... [09:17] the pools are usually near some apartments and there's [09:20] A splash at least when you get in? [09:23] I don't know. Yeah. So I couldn't find anything from police or the apartment complex about what time the pool closed back in 2000. I would assume this is something that the police checked out. And the fact that there's nothing on it. [09:36] maybe leads me to believe that they couldn't find anything definitive. Like, yeah, maybe they technically closed at 10, but they didn't lock it up. So after she jumps in... [09:45] and goes back to her place. She said she walks in and right away wanted to take a shower because it was really cold. She had her AC on. So she walks in and she's freezing. So she hustles into the shower and...

[09:56] And it doesn't say what shower and I can't figure out what shower because if I can tell by like layouts today looking at the apartment complex, I don't know what it looked like in 2000. It looks like there would have been a shower in her room and a shower like that would have been Zachary's bathroom or the guest bathroom. [10:27] That's when she realizes Zachary isn't in her bed anymore. [10:31] So the question I have is if she ran into the shower in her room and he's sleeping in her bed, was she just going so fast that she didn't notice her bed was empty? [10:40] So, devil's advocate... [10:42] assuming she's coming in, she's turned on some sort of lights, but she's going through her bedroom to the bathroom and it's dark. Maybe her eyes didn't adjust? [10:50] Perhaps. That's a really good point. So she comes out of the shower, realizes Zachary isn't in her bed anymore. And her first thought is actually like, oh my God, maybe he fell off the bed. But he isn't on either side. So she decides to get dressed and start searching her apartment. But when she can't find him in her apartment either, she thinks, okay, he must have woken up, not known where I was, and maybe went looking for me, or more likely, maybe went to his babysitters who lives in the complex. [11:20] She actually runs over to the babysitter's apartment and is banging on the door till she wakes them up. But he wasn't there either. And this is when she calls 911.

[11:30] Now, unlike a lot of the missing person cases we tell, this is one that police took seriously from the get-go. This was an 8-year-old boy seemingly taken in the wee hours of the morning from his mother's own bed. When police arrive, they establish a perimeter and start searching the complex. They process the apartment as a crime scene at this point, fingerprinting everything, taking pictures, and looking for DNA. But there was something off about the scene. [12:01] There was no blood. There was no sign of forced entry, which does make sense considering Leah left the door unlocked. But there was nothing even out of place. Like if Zachary was taken, he either walked out of the apartment willingly with somebody or more terrifying, someone picked him up in his sleep and carried him out of the apartment without Zachary even knowing what was going on. [12:27] While the search is going on, police take Leah and interview her for hours. One of the first things they want to know is, where is Zach's dad? We all know that often when children are abducted, it's by somebody close to them, and more often than not, a parent, especially when that parent isn't together with their primary caregiver anymore. But Leah says that Zachary's dad has never been involved in his life and wouldn't be the one who would take him. [12:55] Police obviously have to verify this and when they track down Zach's dad, he actually lived out of state and was out of state at the time. But even more than that, when they find him, this is the first he's ever heard of Zach. He had no idea he had a son, but also even when he found out, he had little interest in being involved with him, even if police were to find him. So they quickly rule this dude out as a suspect.

[13:25] for hours, but I don't know exactly what they asked her or what subjects they pushed on. We do know, though, that police say she stuck to the same story, but her demeanor in the interview was kind of off. Like, she would look really upset, and then later she'd laugh or crack a joke at, like, the most inappropriate times. But even though they didn't love how she was acting, and [13:55] they didn't have anything to hold her on so they let her go. [13:59] Thank you. [14:01] Now, police let her go, but she was still on their radar. And she was on the radar for the media, too. Every news outlet in the area was reporting on this story. And every single one had questions for her. Because, again, this whole thing just seemed so crazy. Like, you go for a spontaneous walk slash swim at 4 in the morning when you hate swimming in your clothes with no towel. And in that brief, like, 15-minute window, you claim to be gone. [14:30] What, someone watching your home, like saw you left, saw that you didn't lock your door, and they went upstairs and grabbed your son and got away? The more people dug into Leah's life, the less she looked like the picture of a wholesome mother that her family had been painting. She had actually had multiple evictions. Her and Zach had been bouncing around from home to home, almost a new one for every year of Zachary's life.

[15:00] at bars. And this is kind of where it relates to Casey Anthony's. Everyone was saying she was this mother who maybe didn't really want to be a mother. Her family defended this, saying, listen, she wasn't perfect, but she was always a responsible parent. [15:16] And I think there's some evidence in her past that refutes this completely. [15:22] Summer's here, and whether you're traveling, shuttling kids to camp, or spending long days by the pool, staying healthy and on budget, is always top of mind. That's where GoodRx can help. GoodRx can help you save up to 80% on prescriptions for you and your family. [15:36] Even your pets, too. Just check GoodRx before every pharmacy run to find big savings on both brand name and generic medications. [15:43] I love seeing how many options they have to save. [15:46] GoodRx is free and easy to use. Just search for your prescription on the website or app, compare prices, and get a free coupon to show your pharmacist. Use GoodRx to save at over 70,000 pharmacies nationwide, including Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, Publix, Kroger, and many more. GoodRx is not insurance, but it works whether you have insurance or not, and it could even beat your copay price. Save time and money at the pharmacy this summer. [16:09] Go to GoodRx.com slash Crime Junkie. [16:12] That's goodrx.com slash crimejunkie or download the free GoodRx app. Zachary wasn't Leah's only child. She had actually had a daughter after him. You see, Zachary was born in 1991 and she didn't list the father on the birth certificate, but she spent most of her pregnancy living in Michigan with her boyfriend's family. But after Zachary was born, the family requested a paternity test

[16:42] father. So she obviously ended up moving out, took Zach with her to raise him on her own. A couple of years later, in 1994, Leah gets pregnant again while living with her 20-year-old boyfriend in Ann Arbor, Michigan. And this kid was actually in Ann Arbor because he was studying at the University of Michigan, actually for engineering. Now, I don't know how their relationship became contentious, but after her daughter was born, she actually ended up suing him for custody. And when [17:12] However, one time shortly after she had moved, her little girl's dad had come down to visit. And at some point, they like meet up somewhere off of a highway. And Leah asked him to take both kids because she was going to go out that night. [17:27] I mean, as weird as that sounds, [17:29] She's a single mom. [17:31] Doesn't sound completely out of the ordinary for her to just need a night off. [17:35] Oh, that's not the part that makes her look like a bad mom. Allegedly, she ended up dropping them off and then not returning for days. Yeah, and no one could get a hold of her. Her family ended up reporting her missing. When she finally returned a few days later, her daughter's father was like, there's no way I am leaving her here with you. And so he took their daughter back to Michigan where he petitioned the court for full custody and won. Yeah, that's really intense. [18:05] involved or is that me being presumptuous? You know, I think it's definitely a possibility, but her reasons for disappearing were never noted in any of the papers that I read. But I think it shows you that she has a clear history of not putting her kids needs first. And to me, it really opens up the possibilities about what could have happened the night that Zachary went missing. And it makes you really scratch your head when you start to hear reports from neighbors that say that,

[18:32] they saw her car coming and going from the apartment complex sometime between 3 and 345 when she said that she was home. [18:41] I mean, that's definitely not the time she was taking out the trash, right? Right. So she said she took the trash out at 1. So if people see her leaving between 3 and 3.45, I think the theories online that are very sinister think that perhaps she was, like, if she had done something to Zach, she was, like, possibly moving him. I think in a less sinister but more in line with her past, like, what if Zach was left in the apartment and she was just going out for the night? [19:11] looking to score at that point too. Right. If, if that was like a possibility again, right. I think that's speculation. Yeah. Total speculation. I think it's a, an assumption made by a lot of people, um, just because of her behavior. But again, nothing reported for sure. Now up to this point, the media speculation has gone wild because no one has heard from Leah. Like after Zachary goes missing, she's pretty quiet and she avoided interviews. But on the 15th, she finally makes a [19:41] It was very brief. It was very to the point, basically asking people not to give up and that they were looking for him. After that first statement, though, she goes pretty quiet again. And detectives eventually tell the public like two weeks later that they don't believe they're getting the full story from her. But every time police talk to her, her story stays exactly the same.

[20:03] And then, a few months after Zack disappears, as his case begins to grow cold, [20:09] Leah does something that I've never seen a parent do in the case of a missing child. [20:15] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. So [20:34] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [20:41] wherever you get your podcasts. [20:44] After just a few months of Zachary being missing and his case is starting to go cold, this girl moves to another state. [20:55] Uh... [20:56] What? Yeah, right. So this is something that I've never seen happen. I've even seen cases, not that this is like what everyone has to do, but I've seen where they stay in the same place forever. They live in the same house. They never change their phone number just in case like if someone were to have taken them and they were ever to like get free or try and look for them. They would like know where to come or know where to call, but to move completely. Yeah. Isn't that like, uh, isn't that what, uh, Johnny Gosch's mom did? Like she has the same phone number. She's like in the same place forever and ever. Yeah. Yeah. [21:26] this was super weird to everybody so it's one thing to be like you know the media is criticizing you I get not talking to the media but to go move out of state I think what I heard I'm not 100% sure is that initially she had moved to North Carolina gotten like married divorced remarried and then there are rumors that she eventually ended up in Hawaii like the farthest away you can go uh yeah that's

[21:52] really difficult to track from Florida. Right. So again, this is just a few months after he's gone missing and she pretty much goes away from the spotlight altogether at this point. She does end up doing a couple of interviews here and there in the last like 18 years he's been missing, but she marries, divorces, changes her name, and she says she wants to live a quiet life away from all of that. And she said that she just wants to live a life that he would be proud of, [22:22] understand where she's coming from. I don't know that it's wrong, but it's definitely strange. I was going to say, we obviously follow a lot of missing people cases, missing children cases. [22:32] And I feel like every year, at the very least, we see media presence from their families, from their parents, saying, you know, this is the... [22:43] 17th anniversary, this is the 21st anniversary, this is the 7th anniversary. Year after year, just trying to get the word out about their child and... [22:53] I don't know if there are any who like [22:55] want to quote unquote live a quiet life. They want to... More than anything, they want their kid back, you know? Yeah, and I get like if it were years later and you think that they're past, but again, so soon after is what I think is... [23:09] standing out to everybody in this case. Now, luckily, Zachary still had his family in Florida advocating for him and pushing hard to keep his story alive. A local business actually ended up putting up a reward of a few thousand dollars for information about his disappearance, and it ended up drawing national attention and bringing in a lot of tips, but none of them really led anywhere.

[23:31] But the biggest break comes with what has infamously become known as Tip 746. A confidential informant tells police, listen, there is this man that you need to look at. His name is Kevin Jalbert, and he's going around telling people that he has raped and killed a bunch of children in the area. [23:55] Well, whether or not this has anything to do with Zachary, this is super messed up. So they put an officer undercover to meet Kevin. And sure enough, this guy is able to get close with him. And one night, Kevin takes him on this little ride along around Clearwater. And as they're driving, he's bragging about all the horrible things that he's done to these little kids. And just when he thinks it can't get any weirder, Kevin pulls into the parking lot of an apartment complex. [24:25] but not just any apartment complex. He pulls into the Savannah Trace Complex where Leah and Zach used to live. No. Yes. And he points to an apartment and says, Do you see that one over there? The last time that I took a kid... [24:41] It was from that apartment. Now, this is more than enough for police to bring him in and like bust up this operation. So they bring Kevin in for questioning, but there are a few problems with actually connecting him to Zach's case. First is that even though he pulled into the right apartment complex, he pointed to the wrong apartment.

[25:11] that he was [25:12] taken or went missing. But they definitely say that he isn't connected when police test his DNA and there's no link. Whoa, did I was there DNA? Did I miss? No, exactly. When I researched this case, like I was deep in I'd watched a documentary. I was like in these articles from back in the day. And there were just a couple of reports about this Jalbert guy and him not matching the DNA. [25:42] DNA is from. I was like, the DNA is very ominous. Whose DNA? Where was it from? Where did we get it? I have all the questions too. And this kind of makes me wonder if this is part of the reason that they are saying that his mom... [25:56] is somebody that they think has more answers, but isn't like the person. I have no idea. [26:04] what kind of DNA they have, where they got it. And I have to think it's like a male's DNA that they would even take the time to compare Jalbert, Kevin Jalbert's to it. If it were female DNA... [26:17] I mean, we would know right away if it matched Leah. Obviously, it doesn't match her. So this is like a big question mark that I think is so key to this case, but is, again, just like kind of thrown out there randomly. Like, hey, we... [26:31] No, he's not the guy because of the DNA. [26:34] but like no questions are answered. It feels like such a long order line. Like, [26:39] He's not the guy because of the DNA. Oh, okay. The DNA. Got it.

[26:45] Now, even though he's cleared of Zach's case, they are not letting this creep go. After all, he was trolling around town talking about killing kids. And did I mention that he like had in the back of his car a bunch of bleach to, quote, clean up? Naturally. Yeah, yeah. So he had bleach in his car to clean up. And though he tells cops that he was just fantasizing, they end up finding loads of child porn in his home. And they end up arresting him on solicitation of murder. [27:15] There is one piece of evidence that keeps coming up whenever you look at this case that's related to Kevin Jalbert. They find a receipt in his possession for... [27:26] dumping something at like a public dumpster two weeks after Zach went missing. Now, when police looked into this, like apparently they went to that dump site and searched it and didn't find anything. But if you've ever seen a landfill or a dumpster, it's easy to understand why people can't let this go because a lot of people think that they just didn't find what he put there. Yeah, definitely. If it's a public landfill, it's... [27:53] massive [27:54] Right. So people will continue to speculate. I think it's unrelated. Now, [28:00] It's not till the next year, in August of 2001, that a new lead pops up somewhere strange, outside of Boulder, Colorado, of all places, in the parking lot outside of a sporting goods store. And...

[28:17] What this lead is, is outside of this sporting goods store, [28:21] in Boulder, Colorado, so far from Clearwater, Florida, [28:24] Someone finds... [28:26] this photo. So Britt, I'm going to send this to you right now. Do you want to kind of describe this picture? It's a kid. [28:34] who has blondish, reddish hair and a bowl cut. [28:39] It appears to be a male, I think. [28:42] He's laying on the ground. It's either straw or like [28:47] - Pine needles? - I was gonna say dead pine needles, yeah. [28:51] There's maybe a rock nearby, and the kid's arms are crossed in front of him. Yeah, he's laying on his back. He's laying on his back, and the hands are... [29:02] duct taped and you really are kind of looking at the picture from the top of his head down, and you can't see much past kind of his waist. [29:11] If that kind of provides a perspective. Yeah, and even his face, like you can see his nose and kind of the left side of his cheek. Like his chin and his left ear, but really nothing of the right side of his face. Yeah, it's definitely not straight on. But this photo comes forward and it's a year later and people start to wonder if this could be Zachary. So the police from Colorado share this with the police in Florida and they bring the family in to look at it. [29:41] and after staring at it over and over, the family finally says, you know, we don't think this is him.

[29:49] To us, this is not Zachary. And police aren't as confident. Even today, they have not 100% ruled out this picture as not being Zachary. But that being said, they also to this day have no idea who this boy was and have no idea where this picture came from. [30:08] Okay, so... [30:09] This is... [30:10] kind of off track, but do you know what this reminds me of? What? What? [30:14] The Polaroid from the Tara Calico case. Oh my god. So much. And it was kind of found in a similar way, right? Yeah. So it was just kind of found... [30:24] randomly. And listeners, if you aren't familiar with the Terra Calico Polaroid, if you will, there was this Polaroid found in... [30:33] in June of... [30:34] 1989 and [30:37] In this Polaroid, it's shot in the back of a van, and there are two people bound and gagged. And it's like a teenage girl and a tween, early teen boy. [30:52] They are [30:53] They have tape across their mouths. They're both looking at the camera. Their hands are behind their back. You can't tell if they're bound or not, but they're just laying there. And... [31:03] A lot of people think that this is Terra Calico based on [31:07] how she looks in supposedly a scar on her leg, but nothing definitive has ever come from it. And there's been other photos that have been found that may or may not have [31:17] been the same girl [31:19] and or boy in this photo.

[31:22] And that's pretty much all we know. Yeah. And I have obviously like, you know, people will bring up, oh my gosh, was he the kid in the Tara Caligal photo? That was taken. I don't think so. No, 100% not. That was taken way before Zachary even went missing. And I think it's definitely not even this boy in the picture that we don't know who he is. It doesn't even look similar. And he's like the same age. Like he wouldn't have aged in many years. So, but what I think is really strange is I kind of wonder in the back of my head if this is like a weird MO from somebody. Right. Yeah. [31:52] taking these strange pictures of children they've abducted and like leaving them in random places for people to find. It is so eerie. And again, I think another like rabbit hole in this case, because I don't think it's related, but police, again, not totally ruled it out. So this photo was really all they had for the first year. And as they start coming up on the first year anniversary, the family plans a vigil and [32:16] But... [32:17] Can you guess why that never happened? Was it mom? No, the first year anniversary would have been September 11th, 2001. [32:26] Ah! [32:27] I feel terrible. I didn't even think about that. Right. So obviously that's when all the attacks happened here in the U.S. So the family said literally like in the morning they were making all the final preparations for this vigil. And then they had to stop. And the towers were hit. And then of course after that getting any kind of press for a missing kid as tragic as it was, was like the farthest thing from the media's mind. [32:52] So it took a long time for them to...

[32:55] For us as a country to kind of get past that and start to think about these smaller cases that might have fallen to the wayside. So the first year anniversary was September 11th. New Year's Eve of that same year, 2001, Zachary's case gets brought up again because there is another attack at the exact same apartment complex. But this time there's witnesses. Now at this point, it's been 15 months since Zachary's disappearance. [33:25] Zachary's family, but people are starting to think like, maybe there isn't anything we need to be worried about. Nothing has happened. Maybe it was the mother and really our kids are safe. But 6 p.m. on New Year's Eve, 2001, all of that changes. Three young boys are playing on a playground at the apartment complex when this truck pulls up and a man gets out of the vehicle [33:55] truck. Or anybody who you don't know. I feel like that should be a rule, right? Yeah, yeah. It's... [34:03] Ice cream, candy, puppies, kittens, anything, like... [34:06] Don't know him. Don't take it. Oh, yeah. Come help me find my puppy is like numero uno. But someone would have gotten me, if I'm being honest. Oh, totally. So he does convince this five-year-old boy to approach his car. And when this five-year-old boy approaches, he grabs the boy and puts him in his truck and just takes off with him, even though these two other boys saw him. Now, this obviously gets reported immediately, and law enforcement springs into action again.

[34:36] they had a description. So people at least knew to look out for a white pickup truck, knew kind of what kind of guy to look out for. There's a statewide Amber Alert that brings in absolutely no sightings. [34:49] And people think that this boy could just be [34:52] gone for a year like Zach was. 10 hours after the abduction, there's this guy driving down the street and he's close to a fast food restaurant. And this is late at night. [35:04] and [35:05] He is like eight miles away ish, like from where the boy went missing in the apartment complex. And as he's driving, he's kind of like slow or stopped. And he hears what sounds like crying from a dumpster or like cries. Yeah. Like someone crying out. And. [35:22] This guy's like brave beyond belief because he decides to go look in the dumpster with the crying and [35:29] He finds that a child had been left there. And it turns out it was this boy who had been abducted. He'd been sexually assaulted. They have not released any other details about this boy, who he was, exactly what happened to him. They just say that, you know, because he was such a, he was a minor at the time. You can't release that information. We just know that he was abandoned by this guy. And he's actually able to give a description of this white male with dark stringy hair. [35:59] Zach's case, like, is this just like a good apartment complex to take kids from? Could there be any connection? To me, it seems a little bit strange that this kid was found 10 hours later alive, and we still have no idea where Zach was. But they never found this guy. And police say that it's probably not connected. But the family members involved say, how can you know it's not connected unless you find this guy? Like, we don't believe that definitively until you can show us who it is and prove that he had no connection to Zach.

[36:29] And like nothing in his possession has any connection to Zach. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think so. Now that lead was New Year's Eve of 2001. There have not been any newsworthy leads since. Some people still point to Kevin Jalbert. A lot of people point to this mystery man from New Year's Eve. But I truly don't think it's either. I'm with the police. And I think that Leah holds more answers than she's giving. [36:59] that night went like she said maybe she was just gone for longer than she wanted to admit fearing that like maybe if sack did come back she'd be charged with negligence now neighbors remember reported her coming and going out of the complex maybe she wasn't doing anything with sack like i said maybe she was just going somewhere on her own [37:17] But here's what I can't get past. [37:19] And like the one thing that's making me think maybe she didn't do something is if you had done something to your son, why not wait until the morning? Like how much easier would her story have been if she said, no. [37:34] I put him in his own bed. [37:36] I went to bed and when I woke up he was gone. [37:39] To me, that's like a way easier story to believe than I left my apartment, went for a swim I wasn't planning on going for, left it unlocked, and when I came back in 15 minutes, he was gone. [37:49] Like, why go with that story when... [37:51] it would be way easier to go with the other. Right. [37:54] I totally agree. [37:56] But again, devil's advocate. Maybe she started out wanting to be as truthful as possible, and then...

[38:02] panicked. [38:03] Because it didn't make sense. True. And also, if you believe that substance abuse is involved... [38:09] maybe putting together a story didn't 100% make sense either, but at the time to her, it did. I also can't get past that DNA that keeps coming up. And... [38:18] I wonder because police won't call Leah a suspect. They won't even call her a person of interest. I sometimes wonder if... [38:27] Say we could say definitively it's male DNA, which we can't even say that, but say you could. I wonder if they think she possibly knows who did something to her son, but I don't know why she would be protecting that person. [38:40] That's a really good point, but there's also a chance that she thinks she knows who it is. [38:45] but isn't sure? [38:46] I'm like super... [38:48] like defense lawyer today. I apologize. Yeah, I I can't piece it together because even if because even if she knew who it was like you turn that person in unless you. [38:59] you were like working with them. But for as many questions as I have for Leah about that night and her behavior after this, you know, to your defense attorney point, this kind of reminds me of one of our Patreon episodes. That was, I don't know if you remember, it's about that single mom whose son was attacked in his bed in the middle of the night while they were sleeping, like seemingly for no reason. Yes, little Joel. Yeah. And everyone said, oh, it had to be the mom.

[39:29] night and stab a little boy like nothing about this makes sense nothing about your story makes sense turns out there was someone yeah and she was accused of it and even went to prison until the real killer came forward so unfortunately like so many of our cases even when somebody looks suspicious we will still never really know [39:52] thank you all for tuning in thank you to everybody who's been telling your friends about the show we cannot thank you enough if you want to follow us on social you can get at us on instagram at crime junkie podcast or on twitter at crime junkie pod and we always have our website [40:22] out to our patreon there where you can get more episodes all the time we add more episodes every single month so much content patreon.com slash crime junkie this week's episode of crime junkie was written and hosted by me all of our editing and sound production was done by david flowers [40:51] And all of our music, including our theme, comes from Justin Daniel. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

[41:02] Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [41:21] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [41:25] I think you'll love it too. [41:26] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.