Murder trial begins for Delco pastor accused of killing 8-year-old Gretchen Harrington 50 years ago
David Zandstra says he was coerced into giving a false confession to killing 8-year-old Gretchen Harrington in 1975, his lawyer says.
On a bright August morning in 1975, Gretchen Harrington was looking forward to her final day of vacation Bible school and the perfect attendance award she was to receive that day.
But the 8-year-old Marple Township girl never made it to class, Deputy District Attorney Geoff Paine said Tuesday at the start of the murder trial for the man accused of killing her.
Gretchen, he said, died at the hands of her pastor, David Zandstra, head of the Bible school at Trinity Chapel, a friend of her family, and a man she trusted. Zandstra, the prosecutor said, abducted the child on that summer day, then forced her to undress and beat her to death in Ridley Creek State Park.
“We were always looking for the boogeyman, always looking for the stranger,” Paine said. “We know now that’s not usually the case.”
Zandstra, 84, denies any role in the crime and disputes the murder confession authorities say he gave during a four-hour interview with Pennsylvania State Police detectives in 2023 at his home in Georgia, miles and years removed from the Marple Township church where he first befriended the child and her family.
Gretchen went missing after leaving to make the short walk from her home to Trinity Chapel, according to testimony Tuesday. Police, neighbors, and friends scoured the area for weeks, desperate to find her.
In October 1975, a hiker found her decomposing remains in Ridley Creek State Park, next to her clothing, which had been left neatly folded. The makeshift grave was 2½ miles from where she was last seen.
An autopsy later revealed Gretchen had been killed by blunt-force trauma to the head, according to police.
Zandstra, the prosecutor said, told authorities he was not attracted to little girls “anymore,” but said that like King David, his namesake, he would confess and be forgiven.
In court Tuesday, Paine said the crime deserved punishment, not forgiveness.
“Just because he confessed doesn’t mean he’s free of consequences,” Paine told the jurors. “And the consequence will be carried out by you.”
He told jurors that Zandstra, while in custody awaiting trial, had told his cellmate what he had done. The cellmate was so disturbed by the details, Paine said, that he sought counseling and asked to be moved to a different cell.
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But Zandstra’s attorney, Mark Much, said his client was innocent and the prosecution’s case was “riddled with reasonable doubt.” He said state police detectives, eager to make an arrest, had tricked a confused old man into making a false confession while ignoring other, more promising leads.
“These are policemen, people he trusts,” Much said. “If they have evidence, as they say, then he must’ve done it. So what do you do as a religious person? You confess.”
Trooper Andrew Martin, the lead detective, had lied to Zandstra, telling him forensic evidence and eyewitness accounts linked him to Gretchen’s disappearance, according to Much.
In fact, Much said, Zandstra’s DNA did not match the DNA found on Gretchen’s clothing, and he was excluded from being even a potential contributor.
Much told the jury that investigators had considered other suspects, including Gretchen’s older sister, Zoe, who he said confessed to the crime in 2021. But she was never charged, and in testimony Tuesday, Gretchen’s other sister, Harriet Anne Myers, said Zoe had a history of mental health issues.
After years of investigating these and other potential leads, detectives identified Zandstra as a suspect in Gretchen’s death in late 2022, according to Paine.
A woman who had been a friend of one of Zandstra’s daughters came forward to say the pastor had sexually assaulted her when she was a child, at a sleepover at his house a week before Gretchen went missing. Zandstra, she said, had come into the room where she was sleeping and groped her. She told investigators that led her to wonder whether the pastor may have had something to do with Gretchen’s murder.
Zandstra was never charged in connection with the alleged sexual assault, but after speaking with the woman, detectives set up the interview with him in which they said he confessed to abducting and killing Gretchen.
In court Tuesday, Zandstra’s lawyer questioned the woman’s account.
The trial is expected to last through Friday before Delaware County Court Judge Anthony Scanlon.