Eric Zahnd

On September 17, 2026, the Platte County Courthouse closed about 2:15 p.m. while the sheriff's office investigated a death on site. Captain Jeffrey Shanks confirmed Zahnd was the deceased and said there was no public threat. Authorities released no cause or detailed circumstances. Governor Mike Kehoe, Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, Mayor Quinton Lucas, Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer, and peer prosecutors issued statements of condolence.

Zahnd grew up in Andrew County, Missouri, as a sixth-generation Missourian and graduated first in his class from Savannah High School. At William Jewell College he studied political science, economics, and philosophy in the Oxbridge Honors Program, served as student-body president, and spent his junior year at Cambridge University. At Duke he earned a J.D. with honors (Order of the Coif) and a master's in philosophy, edited a law journal, and wrote on Aristotle's legal philosophy for Law and Contemporary Problems.

Before his election he practiced business litigation at Bryan Cave LLP, worked in the Missouri Attorney General's office, served as a staff assistant to the Governor's Commission on Crime, and acted as a special assistant prosecuting attorney in Cass County.

Zahnd ran as a Republican in 2002 for the office being vacated by Todd Graves and took office as one of the youngest elected prosecuting attorneys of a first-class Missouri county. He was reelected repeatedly and became the county's longest-serving prosecutor.

His stated priorities were protecting children, prosecuting sex offenders, and targeting career criminals. He personally convicted defendants in murder, rape, robbery, and assault cases, including a murder-for-hire scheme tried as special prosecutor and Platte County's only modern quadruple murder.

With the Platte County Sheriff he helped stand up an early Missouri Cyber Crimes Unit focused on internet predators. Local and national coverage credited him as a leader against online child exploitation, and his office obtained lengthy sentences in abuse and predator cases.

In 2006 he helped pass Jessica's Law in Missouri. He authored a constitutional amendment (adopted in 2014) allowing juries to learn of prior criminal acts by repeat child sex offenders, helped tighten penalties for repeat drunk drivers in 2005 and 2010, and wrote a 2009 law requiring police to record interrogations in dangerous-felony cases.

Alongside hard charging of violent crime, his office operated Platte CARES and drug, DWI, mental-health, and veterans' treatment courts for nonviolent offenders.

Zahnd was Missouri Prosecutor of the Year in 2014, past president of the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, and a National District Attorneys Association board and executive-committee member. In 2025 he received the NDAA Distinguished Prosecutor Award. He was also named an Ingram's 40 Under 40 (2004) and an inaugural Super Lawyers prosecutor honoree.

He chaired fundraising for a local domestic-violence and child-protection center, served on the Missouri Humanities Council and William Jewell alumni board, and was a deacon and church council chair at his Baptist congregation.

On March 31 / April 1, 2026, Zahnd withdrew his reelection filing and endorsed longtime first assistant Mark Gibson. He called the move strategic, said it was the right time to pass the baton, and planned to finish his term through December 31, 2026, helping with a transition while spending more time with family. One son was a first-year law student and the other a Ph.D. candidate in crop physiology at the University of Missouri.

Tributes emphasized best practices he helped set for Missouri prosecutors, mentorship of younger lawyers, devotion to his team and family, and more than two decades of public-safety work in Platte County.