PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla — For Zachary Bernhardt's family, time is a funny thing.
On one hand, it stands completely still—stuck on September 11, 2000—the day he vanished from his Clearwater apartment.
"I was getting ready for work. And um, she, my mom's like 'Zachary missing,'" said Zachary's aunt Billie-Joe Jimenez.
And on the other hand, his aunt said the time has also dragged on for 22 long years. And for Jimenez, the passing of time showed up most recently in the Crow's feet that have been incorporated in Zachary's newly age-progressed photos from police.
Related Story: Search continues 20 years after 8-year-old Clearwater boy's disappearance
"I think it's what he would look like," she said. "We can only imagine where he's at, what he's doing, if he's being treated okay or not okay."
For the past two decades, the Clearwater Police Department (CPD) has searched for those answers.
Though they say the age of the case plays a major role in their approach to solving it.
"Nowadays, we get very accustomed to digital forensics and physical evidence and video, that it's everywhere, well this was back in 2000," said Major Natalia Illich-Hailey with Clearwater Police.
Because of this, Major Illich-Hailey tells us they have to rely heavily on whatever clues were gathered immediately after Zachary went missing.
"On the back end, what you don't see is we continue to investigate it. We'll have detectives review it, and we'll have different detectives review it with a fresh set of eyes to see if there's anything that we missing that they see from a new perspective," said Major Illich-Hailey.
But even more than that, they are also relying on people to step up.
"An 8-year-old does not walk away and disappear or vanish without somebody knowing something, without somebody seeing something," she said.
Detectives at the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office agree.
"Most of these cases of these cases almost always come down to somebody who has some piece of information, who's willing to step forward and provide that information, and then it's my duty to follow up on that and ensure that that information is vetted fully," said Detective Ron Chalmers.
Detective Chalmers said they've seen the importance of community buy-in to cold cases work a few different ways.
For the last eight years, they've been searching for any trace of Robert "Bobby" Webb, who vanished after leaving an area check cashing store.
"He went missing on January 3, 2015," said Chalmers. "What happened between seeing him on this image to never seeing him again?"
After multiple searches, cell phone tower pings and countless interviews, Detective Chalmers said answers in this case come down to someone coming forward.
"Shortly after Mr. Webb went missing, the people still living at his home were approached by a gentleman in a red SUV who was wearing a construction company shirt who had said he'd found Mr. Webb's wallet near a construction site," said Detective Chalmers. "So we're trying to identify the man in that red SUV who tried to return Mr. Webb's wallet so that we can really pinpoint the location where he had found that wallet to give us another area to search."
The need for tips also shows up in cases where detectives don't know who the victim is.
"In this particular case, we have a young woman who we believe to be in her 20s who we found tied to a cinder block floating in Tampa Bay near the Oldsmar power station. And 60 years later, we don't have a name to go with that; we don't have a family to notify," said Detective Chalmers.
They're now using new tech to try and identify that woman.
"Nowadays we have DNA, and it's challenging getting DNA from a 60-year-old bone, but we've done it, and we recently put in NCIC, the Pinellas County Forensics Lab, obtained a DNA profile it's in there, and now the next step is we're exploring [and] looking at using genealogy to try and work backward through the family trees," said Detective Chalmers.
But in the end, he adds that a tip could help them find her family sooner.
It's information that those who love Zachary Bernhardt say could help them get their time back.
"If anybody knows anything, I would ask them to please come forward," said Jimenez. "He's gonna come home; it's just a matter of when."
If you have a tip in connection to Zachary Bernhardt's case or any other Clearwater Police Department case, you can call the department's 24/7 communications center at 727-562-4242.
Robert Webb's family has also released the following statement:
"The family of Robert Webb would like to thank Detective Chalmers for all of his hard work and dedication to the cold case files he is assigned with the Pinellas County Sheriff's department. We are hopeful, with him on our case, that, one day, we will have answers. We would like to remind everyone, in spite of the circumstances surrounding Bobby's disappearance, that he was a father, brother, son, and a friend. He was very loved and is missed every day. If anyone has any information in regard to his disappearance, please come forward to give his family some sort of peace. Thank you."
If you have a tip in his case or any other Pinellas County Sheriff's Office case, you can call PCSO's main line at 727-582-6200. You can also submit a tip online by clicking here.
