MEDIA, Pa. — A retired minister from Georgia was discovered not responsible Friday within the killing of an 8-year-old lady whose stays have been present in a southeastern Pennsylvania park nearly a half-century in the past.
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 summertime of 2023 with kidnapping and killing Gretchen Harrington, who disappeared in 1975 whereas strolling alone to a Bible camp at a chapel the place Zandstra was a pastor. Her physique was discovered two months later by a jogger in Ridley Creek State Park in Media, Pennsylvania.
Harrington was provided a trip by Zandstra the day she disappeared, the Delaware County district legal professional stated when the fees have been filed. Prosecutors stated Zandstra had confessed to the killing after investigators acquired new info after which interviewed the retired minister.
His legal professional, Mark A lot, advised jurors that detectives pressured and tricked Zandstra into confessing to against the law he did not commit. Protection attorneys stated there was no bodily proof linking the retired minister to the lady’s demise and that police had investigated different suspects who have been extra prone to be the killer.
Protection legal professional Christopher Boggs advised The Philadelphia Inquirer that Zandstra’s household was glad he might come dwelling after 18 months in custody.
Within the days after the lady disappeared, tons of of individuals searched close by wooded areas, and authorities distributed greater than 2,000 leaflets and arrange a 24-hour hotline that took tons of of calls, The Inquirer reported.
When the lady’s physique was discovered, her clothes was “folded and in a neat pile” close to her physique along with her underwear hanging from a tree department “like a flag … as if to name consideration to the place,” the newspaper stated on the time.
