US pastor arrested for killing of eight-year-old girl unsolved for half a century

US pastor arrested for killing of eight-year-old girl unsolved for half a century
David Zandstra, 83, has been charged with murder and kidnapping of Gretchen Harrington in Pennsylvania in 1975

Ramon Antonio Vargas and agencies
Wed 26 Jul 2023 10.00 EDT
For nearly half of a century, police investigators in a south-eastern Pennsylvania community had struggled to figure out who had taken eight-year-old Gretchen Harrington into the woods, struck her in the head and killed her.

All signs now indicate it was the Christian pastor in charge of the Bible camp to which Harrington was heading in 1975 when some of her loved ones last saw her alive, authorities alleged in a bombshell news conference this week.

David Zandstra, 83, faces charges of murder and kidnapping after his recent arrest in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta in connection with Harrington’s death, the district attorney of Delaware county, Jack Stollsteimer, told reporters at the briefing. He has purportedly confessed to the slaying, prompting Stollsteimer to call him “a monster” who inflicted “every parent’s worst nightmare” on Harrington’s family.

“This is a man who is a remorseless child predator who acted as if he was a friend, a neighbor, and a man of God, and he killed this poor little girl,” Stollsteimer said. The DA added that, until his arrest, Zandstra “acted if he was a [Harrington] family friend, not only during her burial and the period after that but for years”.

Notably, authorities also said they were comparing Zandstra’s DNA to evidence collected from open cases in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. They have said that Zandstra also lived not only in Georgia but also Texas, and they want to establish whether Harrington was his only apparent victim.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/26/gretchen-harrington-murder-david-zandstra-pennsylvania

Yet another sanctimonious bastard! This is one reason I contribute a modest amount to DNSAolves.com monthly.