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An undercover officer was approached to help kidnap, and possibly kill, a child.
By CHRIS TISCH
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 26, 2001
CLEARWATER -- A Citrus County man was arrested over the weekend on a murder solicitation charge after he tried to hire a man to help him abduct, rape and possibly kill a young boy in Clearwater, police said.
The man he tried to hire was an undercover Clearwater police detective.
Kevin G. Jalbert, 42, was charged with criminal solicitation to commit murder. He was being held at the Pinellas County Jail on Monday in lieu of $500,000 bail.
Police had been investigating Jalbert for a couple weeks, during which he "solicited and requested an undercover Clearwater police detective to join him and partake in the abduction of a pre-pubescent male child," according to an arrest affidavit.
Clearwater police spokesman Wayne Shelor said on Monday the investigation is continuing. He declined to discuss how detectives first learned of Jalbert.
"His words and his actions constituted a crime," Shelor said.
Shelor said Jalbert didn't target a specific child but indicated it was to be a crime of opportunity.
Jalbert told the undercover detective that he planned to "carry off a child and sexually batter it," according to the affidavit.
Jalbert also brought bleach, which Jalbert said he planned to use to rinse his victim to destroy DNA evidence, police said.
Using bleach to wipe away evidence was a technique serial killer Danny Rolling used during a killing spree in Gainesville in 1990.
Jalbert and the detective drove to several locations in the Clearwater area where children frequented, police reported. He was arrested at 8:50 p.m. Friday in the area of Sunset Point Road and McMullen-Booth Road.
After he was arrested, he told detectives "that he would have killed the victim child if necessary," the arrest affidavit states.
"Jalbert told the detective that he has done this many times in the past," the affidavit states.
Shelor said Jalbert, who lives in the Beverly Hills community of Citrus County, has no criminal record of this nature, nor have police found evidence that he committed sexual or violent crimes in the past. However, investigators are exploring his background, Shelor said.
"We don't know if he's ever done anything, but we're looking into it," Shelor said.
"But he seemed serious about it," he added.
Jalbert's friends were floored when they learned of the accusation Monday.
"This is unbelievable," said JoAnn Keegan, a friend of Jalbert's who lives in the city of Hernando. "It's not Kevin; he wouldn't do this to anybody."
Keegan said she and Jalbert have even talked about child sex abuse when it appeared on television reports or in the newspaper.
"He's totally against anyone touching a child, we have talked about it," she said. "He said, "Who needs to touch kids?' He's totally against it."
Two of Jalbert's neighbors said they saw law enforcement officers at his house Saturday morning. Officers snapped photographs and seized a computer from the home, one neighbor said.
Friends said Jalbert spent a lot of time on his computer.
His home, at 26 Rose Ave., is in an old section of Beverly Hills, a community in the center of Citrus. No one answered the phone or the door at his home Monday afternoon. Neighbors interviewed by the St. Petersburg Times said they did not know him.
Public records indicate Jalbert lived in Massachusetts before coming to Florida. He obtained a Florida driver's license in 1998, records show.
Keegan said Jalbert had been working as a car detailer recently. He often took her 77-year-old mother to the doctor.
"As far as we know, he's a very loving, compassionate person," Keegan said. "And I can't imagine him hurting anyone, especially a child."
- Staff writer Jim Ross and researcher Cathy Wos contributed to this report.