A 50-year-old cold case murder that shook a Marple neighborhood for decades added another chapter Friday when a Delaware County jury found pastor David Zandstra not guilty in the 1975 murder and kidnapping of 8-year-old Gretchen Harrington.
A jury deliberated for about an hour following a four-day trial. Prosecutors said they are respecting the jury’s verdict, writes Vinny Vella for The Philadelphia Inquirer.
“I think the Commonwealth was absolutely in a difficult spot, trying to prove something that was 50 years old,” said Christopher Boggs, co-counsel for the 84-year-old Zandstra.
Deputy District Attorney Geoff Paine, responding to the verdict, said his office believed Zandstra was the correct suspect but it was a difficult case since some witnesses were unavailable.
Zandstra’s attorney Mark Much said during closing arguments that Pennsylvania State Police detectives coerced and manipulated Zandstra into confessing to a crime he did not commit.
Zandstra was the pastor at Trinity Chapel in Marple Township, near the Harrington home.
Gretchen was last seen walking to the church for Vacation Bible School before disappearing.
Her body was found two months later in Ridley Creek State Park, dead from blunt-force trauma to the head.
Read testimony details from the trial in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
