Girl, 8, abducted on way to Bible camp
Testimony began this week in the trial of a former Marple minister accused of abducting and killing an 8-year-old girl nearly 50 years ago, according to information published in The Reporter.
David Zandstra, 84, is charged with charges of kidnapping and first-, second- and third-degree murder. He is accused of taking Gretchen Harrington off the street on the morning of Aug. 16, 1975, bringing her to Ridley Creek State Park, killing her with a blow to the head, then covering her body with tree branches and leaving the scene.
Gretchen was last seen by neighbors at 9:20 a.m. that morning as she made her way from her home on the first block of Lawrence Road in Marple Township to a summer Bible school at Trinity Chapel Christian Reform Church at 140 Lawrence Road, according to an affidavit written by Pennsylvania State Police troopers Andrew Martin and Eugene Tray.
Zandstra had served as minister at Trinity from 1969 through 1976. Gretchen’s father, was the pastor of the nearby Reformed Presbyterian Church, at 144 Lawrence Road.
Gretchen’s sister, Harriett Anne Myers, testified Tuesday that Aug. 16 was the last day of a two-week vacation Bible school and that Gretchen wanted to go, so she could get perfect attendance.
Myers told Deputy District Attorney Geoff Paine that Gretchen had been walked to the school every day of the first week by one of her older sisters, but on the second week had walked by herself to the church at the top of the street and across Sussex Avenue.
Myers said she alerted her parents that something was wrong when she did not see Gretchen playing with other children outside the Presbyterian church later that morning.
Zandstra said in 1975 that he had not seen Gretchen that morning.
Though Zandstra did confess to the murder during a taped interview with state police investigators in July 2023, defense attorney Mark Much argued in his opening statement that he was coerced into giving a false and confused confession.
