David Zandstra, 83, of Marietta, Georgia, has been arrested in the disappearance and killing of 8-year-old Gretchen Harrington.
An 83-year-old former church pastor has been charged with the murder of an 8-year-old girl who went missing on her way to summer Bible camp in 1975.
The disappearance and slaying of 8-year-old Gretchen Harrington had been puzzling authorities in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, for nearly 50 years until a former pastor at the church she attended confessed to the crime, the county prosecutor said on Monday.
„The murder of Gretchen Harrington has haunted members of law enforcement since that terrible day in August 1975,“ Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said Monday in a statement announcing that a suspect had been charged in the girl’s cold-case slaying.
David Zandstra, 83, of Marietta, Georgia, has been charged with criminal homicide, murder of the first, second, and third degree, as well as kidnapping of a minor and possession of an instrument of crime, Stollsteimer said. On July 17, Zandstra was taken into custody in Georgia. He was denied bail and remains in jail in Cobb County.
Stollsteimer said Zandstra is trying to fend off extradition to Pennsylvania but the prosecutor’s office is requesting a governor’s warrant to bring Zandstra to Delaware County, which is west of Philadelphia.
On August 15, 1975, Harrington left her Marple Township home to walk to Bible school at Trinity Chapel Christian Reformed Church where Zandstra was a pastor, Stollsteimer said. Despite the church being less than half a mile away, the little girl never made it.
