An 84-year-old retired pastor was found not guilty of murdering an 8-year-old girl who was walking from home to her church’s Bible school. After a decades-long investigation, he has been cleared of all charges. After a four-day trial in Delaware County, Pennsylvania jurors decided David Zandstra was innocent of taking the life of Gretchen Harrington in 1975.
Decades after the girl disappeared, Zandstra was taken into custody in July 2023. Prosecutors described how the girl was walking home from a summer Bible school. Authorities sought to prove that the pastor offered her a ride, drove her to nearby Ridley Creek State Park, and murdered her. At the time of his arrest, the retired pastor was living in Georgia.
Prosecutors cited statements that the police attributed to Zandstra. It was claimed that he confessed to the 1975 kidnapping and killing. However, his lawyers argued that the confession was coerced. His defense contended that the client never voluntarily admitted guilt and that he was pressured into confessing. After ” jurors about an hour to reach a verdict,” he was cleared of second and third-degree murder charges, criminal homicide, kidnapping of a minor, and possessing an instrument of crime.
During the mid-1970s Zandstra served as a pastor at the Trinity Chapel Christian Reformed Church in Broomall, Pennsylvania. Gretchen was last seen heading to a Bible camp at that church when she vanished on Aug. 15, 1975. Investigators discovered that Trinity Chapel Christian Reformed Church was less than half a mile from her home. Her remains were discovered by a hiker in Ridley Creek State Park about two months after she vanished.
The girl’s father, who served as a pastor at a separate church, called the police when his daughter failed to appear for a session of the camp. Zandstra also contacted the authorities the same morning “to report Gretchen missing.” Jack Stollsteimer, Delaware County District Attorney, described the event as a case that had “haunted members of law enforcement since that terrible day.”
He also said the crime “left a family and a community forever changed.” A witness reported observing Gretchen speaking with someone driving a green station wagon or a two-tone Cadillac around the time of her murder. Another witness alleged that Zandstra was guilty of sexual misconduct. Police say he admitted to these allegations in July 2023.
Police say He admitted to offering Gretchen a ride and taking her to a nearby wooded area. “The defendant stated that he had parked the car and asked the victim to remove her clothing. When she refused, he struck her in the head with a fist.” Last year, we reported on another man cleared of a church-related killing. Three years after Dennis Perry was freed from prison, a new suspect has been charged in connection to a 1985 killing of a couple at a Black church. Erik Kristensen Sparre was jailed on suspicion of felony murder and aggravated assault in the killings of Harold and Thelma Swain. Perry was sentenced to life in prison for the killings until DNA evidence exonerated him after 20 years in prison.
On March 11, 1985, Harold and Thelma Swains attended a meeting at Rising Daughter Baptist Church. Another churchgoer noticed a man standing at the entrance to the church. The stranger said he wanted to talk with Harold Swain, 66. Swain went to speak with him, and witnesses reported hearing gunshots. Thelma Swain went to aid her husband and was also killed. The murderer escaped into the night, witnesses report.
The case went cold but was reopened in 1998. Dennis Perry was arrested and then convicted of the crime. However, Perry’s advocates pointed to several irregularities in the case. “He was tried on a death penalty offense, he could have been executed, he had to waive his right to appeal a wrongful and unjust conviction to stay alive,” said an attorney working with Perry. “And then it took 20 years after that for his conviction to be overturned. There are so many lessons to be learned from this case.”