July 30, 2024
Warning: Mention of child abuse and harm of a child. Reader discretion is advised.
Eight-year-old Gretchen Harrington was the daughter of a former minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Covenanter Church. At around 9:30am on 15 August 1975, Gretchen left her home at 27 Lawrence Road in Marple, in Broomall, PA, on foot to attend summer camp, which took place at Trinity Chapel Bible School and The Reformed Presbyterian Church. Usually, Gretchen would walk to Bible Camp with her sisters, but the family had a new baby, and she ended up walking alone.
Gretchen would never make it to summer camp, and she would not be seen alive again.
At approximately 11:23am, a reverend at Trinity Church and family friend of the Harrington’s, David Zandstra, made a call to police, reporting Gretchen missing after her father, also a pastor, became concerned that his daughter had not shown up.
Zandstra lead the morning segments at the summer camp and also acted as the driver who transported the kids from the school to the church at around 10am each day.
Zandstra switched between two vehicles, his personal green Rambler station wagon, and a blue and white Volkswagen bus.
Local residents began looking for Gretchen, expanding the search out into a larger radius as time passed. Flyers with her likeness and description of circumstances were distributed in the thousands and a hotline for tips and information was set up by police.
Although the calls came in, none of the tips lead to Gretchen.
Sniffer dogs followed Gretchen's tracks from her home to a spot around a block away, where the trail suddenly went cold. Detective Lt. Richard W. Mankin, in charge of the investigation at the time, even consulted with a Delaware-based psychic named Judith Richardson, who told him Gretchen was no longer alive, and described a location where she said the body would be located.
Around two months later, on 14 October 1975, a man on an early morning jog discovered Gretchen Harrington's body in the woods at Ridley Creek State Park, around 2 and half miles from the victim’s home.
Next to the child's body, her clothing had been folded neatly, save for her underwear, which was hanging on a nearby tree branch.
"I remember clearly seeing her. It was really bad, something I'll never forget," Makin said.
Her remains were soon identified, along with a suspect, a convicted child molester whom Pennsylvania Police at the time did not have enough evidence to charge.
The death was ruled a homicide, with blunt force trauma to the head.
During the initial stages of the investigation, police received an anonymous letter detailing new information, but despite the tip, the case eventually went cold.
Detective Mankin would later state that the psychics description of the location was “uncanny.”
In the Jul 29, 1977 edition of the Delaware County Daily Times, Mankin described how a witness, a delivery truck driver, reported seeing a young girl, whom he believed to be Gretchen, near a pickup truck that was parked on a steep hill leading up to Trinity Church Bible School. The truck was described as green in color, "old and dilapidated," and missing a tailgate. The witness said at the time he did not find the scenario particularly suspicious, however, after later hearing about Gretchen's disappearance, he reported it to police.
Gretchen’s parents said their daughter was timid around strangers and would not talk to someone she didn’t know.
Due to the description of the vehicle reported by the witness, David Zandstra was questioned by police, but denied having seen or talked to Gretchen on the day she went missing.
In early January of 2023, investigators interviewed a person referred to in documents as CI#1, identified as the best friend of David Zandstra's own daughter back when Gretchen went missing. CI#1 had in her possession, her diaries from the time.
She recalled sleeping over at the David Zandstra's home when she was ten years old, and awoke in the night to David Zandstra groping her private area. When she told her then best friend what had happened, she was told Zandstra "did that sometimes."
CI#1 also mentioned in her journals that she suspected David Zandstra had something to do with the attempted kidnappings of a classmate back in 1975.
David Zandstra no longer lived in PA, and had relocated to Marietta, Georgia. On July 17, 2023, officers from the Cobb County Police Department questioned him, showing him the evidence shown to them by CI#1.
At first Zandstra denied seeing Gretchen on the day she went missing, but then admitted that he had indeed saw her walking on Lawrence Road, and had been driving the green station wagon described by the witness.
He then confessed to the crime, admitting to police officers that he had offered her a ride to lure the child into the car, but instead had driven to the wooded area in which the body was found. He elaborated, saying he ordered the victim to take off her clothing, to which Gretchen said she would not. Zandstra said in response, he hit her with a closed fist.
According to a statement released by The District Attorney for Delaware County PA, he said the child was bleeding from the injury, and believing he had killed her, "attempted to cover up the body and left the area."
In 1976 Zandrsta left Delaware County, relocating to Texas, then California, before ending up in Georgia where he finally retired. Former congregations he has been a part of over the years will be contacted.
Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said of David Zandstra at a recent conference: "David Zandstra, is, ladies and gentlemen, a monster. He is every parent's worst nightmare. This is a man who is a remorseless child predator, who acted as if he was a friend, neighbor, and a man of God- and he killed this poor little girl."
Describing the kidnap and murder, Stollsteimer said: "He told her to take off her clothes, she refused, he then ejaculated in front of her, and beat her to death with his hands, disposed of her body, and went back to the Church acting like nothing had happened. This man is evil. He killed this poor eight-year-old girl who knew and trusted him, and then he acted as if he was a family friend, not only during the burial, and after that, but for years."
Zandstra, now 83, is being held in a jail in Cobb County, Georgia. He has been denied bail and refused to waive extradition to Pennsylvania, although a petition to extradite him is being submitted. Zandstra's DNA sample will also be entered in CODIS in an attempt to match him to any other open cases in Pennsylvania. Zandstra has also lived in Texas.
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