Inconsistencies, weak evidence undermined prosecution case
Retired Marple pastor David Zandstra, 84, was acquitted on all charges Friday afternoon in the 1975 abduction and death of 8-year-old Marple resident Gretchen Harrington, according to information reported in the Daily Times.
Zandstra, 84, now of Marietta, Ga., had been charged with first-, second- and third-degree murder, as well as kidnapping.
The trial lasted four days, and the jury returned a not-guilty verdict after about an hour of deliberation.
Gretchen, also of Marple, was last seen by neighbors at 9:20 a.m. Aug. 16, 1975, 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.
Her body was found at Ridey Park, eight miles away. She had been killed by a blow to the head.
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.
Prosecutors offered a taped that Zandstra, then 83, had given to state police investigators in 2023. They also provided testimony from Zandstra cell mate, who said Zandstra had confessed while in jail, as well as from a woman who had attended the same camp as Gretchen when she was 10 and testified that Zandstra groped her a few days before Gretchen’s death.
The defense claimed that police got Zandstra’s testimony through manipulation and coercion. They offered witnesses who claimed to have seen Zandstra in his church for opening ceremonies at 9:30, about the time Gretchen vanished.
The defense also noted that Gretchen’s body had been discovered two months after her disappearance, and no evidence was presented regarding how long the body had been there, suggesting someone else could have kidnapped Gretchen and held her for an unknown time before killing her.
The defense also argued that investigators had failed to consider other suspects, including a child rapist who later died in prison for similar crimes was in the area that day.
