Retired Georgia minister arrested for killing 8-year-old girl in 1975

• David Zandstra, 83, of Marietta, Georgia, has been arrested under suspicion he killed Gretchen Harrington, 8, of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in 1975.
• Zandstra faces charges of criminal homicide, first-, second- and third-degree murder, kidnapping a minor and a related count.
• Zandstra is “a monster” and “every parent’s worst nightmare,” District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer told reporters.

A retired minister in Georgia has been charged with murder in the slaying of an 8-year-old girl whose remains were found in southeastern Pennsylvania almost a half-century ago.

David Zandstra, 83, of the Atlanta suburb of Marietta is charged with criminal homicide, first-, second- and third-degree murder, kidnapping of a minor and a related count in the 1975 death of Gretchen Harrington in Delaware County.

District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer told reporters Monday in the Delaware County seat of Media that the defendant was “a monster” and “every parent’s worst nightmare.”

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“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.

Having killed a child who knew and trusted him, he then “acted as if he was their family friend, not only during her burial and the period after that but for years,” the district attorney said.

Harrington, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister and his wife, disappeared in mid-August 1975 while walking from her Marple Township home to Bible camp at Trinity Church Chapel, where Zandstra was pastor. Her body was found two months later by a jogger in Ridley Creek State Park in Media.

Harrington, usually accompanied by her sisters but alone this day because of a recent birth in her family, was offered a ride by Zandstra, who was also the father of one of her best friends, Stollsteimer alleged.

“So when he offered her a ride in his car, of course she got in the car,” he said.