Retired Georgia minister is found not guilty in the 1975 killing of a girl in Pennsylvania

A retired minister from Georgia was found not guilty Friday in the killing of an 8-year-old girl whose remains were found in a Delaware County park almost a half-century ago.

A jury acquitted David Zandstra, 84, of the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, after deliberating for an hour following a four-day trial.

Zandstra was charged in the summer of 2023 with kidnapping and killing Gretchen Harrington, who disappeared in 1975 while walking alone to a Bible camp at a chapel where Zandstra was a pastor. Her body was found two months later by a jogger in Ridley Creek State Park in Media, Pennsylvania.

Harrington was offered a ride by Zandstra the day she disappeared, the Delaware County district attorney said when the charges were filed. Prosecutors said Zandstra had confessed to the killing after investigators received new information and then interviewed the retired minister.

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Trial begins for former Pennsylvania pastor accused of killing 8-year-old girl in 1975

A trial has begun for a pastor accused in the 1975 murder of 8-year-old Gretchen Harrington in Delaware County.

His attorney, Mark Much, told jurors that detectives pressured and tricked Zandstra into confessing to a crime he didn't commit. Defense attorneys said there was no physical evidence linking the retired minister to the girl's death and that police had investigated other suspects who were more likely to be the killer.

Defense attorney Christopher Boggs spoke with local media and said that Zandstra’s family was glad he could come home after 18 months in custody.

When the girl’s body was found, her clothing was "folded and in a neat pile" near her body with her underwear hanging from a tree branch "like a flag ... as if to call attention to the place," local media said at the time.

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