Gretchen Harrington
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To enjoy this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, check us out on Patreon. Patreon.com/ForensicTales Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. In August 1975, 8-year-old Gretchen Harrington left her parents' house in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, heading to summer vacation Bible school class.

The church was less than a mile away up the road, and she had walked it many times in the past. But something about this morning was different. Gretchen never made it. Two months later, her remains were found by a jogger in Ridley Creek State Park. Next to the remains were her neatly folded clothes, and her underwear was found nearby in a tree.

The case went unsolved for decades and remained a haunting mystery in the community for nearly 50 years. Then, in 2023, there was a significant breakthrough leading to an arrest. But the man arrested wasn't exactly the person you'd expect to commit a crime like this. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 277, The Murder of Gretchen Harrington. ♪

In the summer of 1975, there was no such thing as social media. No Facebook, no Instagram.

Most people had TVs in their home, but it would be another several years before 24-hour news cycles became a thing that people followed.

So if a terrible crime happened in a different county or state, you probably didn't find out about it until a few days later, maybe even longer. News traveled pretty slowly. Today, things are much different. News is virtually instantaneous. A murder happens, and it's posted on social media within minutes. A young girl goes missing. The entire country knows about it.

A lot of that is thanks to social media, 24-hour news cycles, cell phones, and messaging. But in 1975, it wasn't like that. Here's what I mean. On Saturday, August 16, 1975, a Salt Lake City, Utah police officer pulled over a suspicious-looking tan Volkswagen Beetle.

Inside was a good-looking guy in his 20s wearing a turtleneck sweater. At first glance, he seemed like a totally normal guy. He could have been your neighbor, maybe even your friend. But the items found inside of his car weren't. A ski mask, an ice pick, and a pair of handcuffs. Now, the man driving that Volkswagen Beetle would eventually be identified as Ted Bundy,

the same guy who would later confess to killing more than two dozen young women, many of them complete strangers. That same day in Marple Township, Pennsylvania, the authorities were looking for a missing eight-year-old girl. No one knew about Ted Bundy or his crimes yet. And in Salt Lake City, Utah, no one knew about missing Gretchen Harrington. News traveled slowly.

The day before August 15, 1975, 8-year-old Gretchen left her home in Marple Township to walk to summer Bible camp and disappeared. The Trinity Chapel Christian Reform Church was less than a mile up the road, and she had made this walk before. Except this time was different. She never made it.

Eight-year-old Gretchen grew up as one of four daughters to Reverend Harold Harrington and his wife, Edna Harrington. Together, the family lived at 27 Lawrence Road in Marple Township, and Gretchen's father, Harold, led the congregation at one of the nearby churches, the Broomall Reformed Presbyterian Church.

From every single thing that I read for this episode, the Harringtons were your typical all-American family for the mid-1970s. They led a pretty normal and quiet life. They were hardworking people and had a lot of friends, either from the church or the neighborhood. The Harringtons and their four daughters were just your average family who lived next door.

Nothing about them or their lifestyle could have ever predicted what was about to happen to them. In the summer of 1975, 8-year-old Gretchen was the second youngest Harrington daughter. Her two older sisters were Harriet, nicknamed Ann, and Zoe. She also had a newborn baby sister named Jessica.

In fact, baby Jessica was only a few days old on August 15th, the day that Gretchen disappeared. Kids Gretchen's age walking somewhere alone wasn't a big deal. This was 1975 in the suburbs. Eight-year-old kids walked alone pretty much all the time. If they wanted to go to a friend's house, they walked. When school was in session, they probably walked.

No one was scared about being kidnapped off the street. This was 1975, not 2025, when parents would probably never let their 8-year-old girl walk anywhere alone. So when Gretchen decided to walk that half mile from her parents' house on Lawrence Road to summer Bible camp, it would have been completely safe.

Although it should have been safe, this was a little out of the ordinary. On any other day, she would have walked to vacation Bible school with her two older sisters, Zoe and Ann. But Gretchen's two older sisters decided to stay home that day because their mom was bringing their newborn sister, Jessica, home from the hospital.

So they wanted to stay home and wait for them to get there while Gretchen decided to go to Bible school on her own. She had a perfect attendance record and she didn't even want to miss a single day. Plus, it was the last day of this week-long program.

She also knew that she would see her baby sister once she got home later that afternoon. So at around 9 o'clock a.m. that day, Gretchen waved goodbye to her father and began the walk up the hill to Trinity Christian Reformed Church, a place, again, only about a half mile away. The Bible classes that Gretchen and her sisters went to during the summer started at the Trinity Church. That's where the kids spent half the morning.

But after that, they would finish the day at the nearby Brumal Reformed Presbyterian Church, the church where Gretchen's dad, Harold, served as a pastor since moving the family there from western Pennsylvania in 1968. Described as a happy girl, innocent and uncomplicated, Gretchen should have been at the church in about 15 to 20 minutes tops, but she never made it.

Here's what her older sister Anne had to say about what her little sister was like. Quote, She was sensitive and liked people. She didn't have a mean streak in her body at all. She was a nice person. She was a nice little girl who loved the television show Gunsmoke, and she couldn't match her clothes. She'd wear stripes with plaid. She didn't care. End quote.

Other family members said things like, quote, if you met Gretchen, you were instantly her friend. She exuded kindness to all and was sweet and gentle, end quote. Sometime around 1130 that morning, it became apparent that she never made it to church.

Some reports say that it was her father that reported her missing, while other reports say that it was Reverend David Zanstra, the pastor of the Trinity Church where she was supposed to be at that morning. Either way, by the time she was reported missing to the police, it had been a little over two hours since she was seen leaving her parents' house.

Here's what Reverend David Zanstra originally said about what he remembers from that morning. According to him, after the Bible classes finished at his church in the morning, he would take the kids on a bus to the second church, Reformed Presbyterian Church. Remember, that was the church that Gretchen's father led.

But when all of the kids filed into the bus, he didn't see Gretchen. And when he talked to one of the Bible school teachers, she told him that Gretchen also missed class that day. So that's when he says he reported her missing to the police. He also called the Harringtons to tell them what happened. Both families knew each other really well, the Harringtons and the Zanstras.

The two families lived close together, both of the dads were church leaders, and both of the moms filled the role of a traditional pastor's wife. One of Gretchen's best friends at the time was one of the Zanstra's daughters, so I think it's fair to say that these two families were really close and they knew each other really well.

The search for Gretchen began almost immediately. By the late afternoon, not only were the local police out there looking for her, but they were joined by many volunteers without any sign of her. By 8 o'clock p.m. that night, Reverend David Zanstra's wife, Margaret, stopped by the Harrington's to drop off some dinner.

This is what she told a newspaper about it, quote, This is also what she had to say about what Gretchen's mom was like when she got there, quote,

She was just kind of accepting the fact that Gretchen was gone. I don't know whether she was just putting on a brave face. I think she was in shock. I think she was just in disbelief.

I do remember not sleeping that night and it was pouring rain. And I thought this poor child is out there somewhere in the rain and the cold. End quote. Well, Gretchen's mom was also a brand new mom to Gretchen's youngest daughter. So maybe she was in shock.

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By Saturday, over 300 people had joined the search for Gretchen. The more people who found out about the story, the more people feared that there was this child kidnapper running around somewhere. They knew Gretchen wasn't a runaway, which meant someone must have taken her. So people were scared and wanted to do anything and everything possible to help find her.

so they passed out flyers with her recent school picture on them. They traveled all the different routes she could have taken from her home to the church, but nothing was found. They talked to neighbors. The police brought in helicopters to search the area from the skies. Canine bloodhounds were brought in to help search the woods, but the dogs were quickly called off because of the rain.

It was like Gretchen had completely vanished after stepping foot outside of her parents' house that morning. One tip the police received pretty early on involved a convicted sex offender named Richard Bailey. A witness had come forward saying that they saw Richard Bailey on Lawrence Road the morning that Gretchen disappeared. Lawrence Road was the road she would have taken from her house to the church.

So at face value, this seemed like a promising tip. Richard Bailey was a known registered sex offender, and he was seen in the area on the morning that this 8-year-old girl went missing.

Well, after looking into this tip, the police never found any solid evidence linking Richard Bailey to Gretchen's disappearance, and he was never named an official suspect. Just like him, many other registered sex offenders in the area were also ruled out. Other tips came in from people saying that they saw a pickup truck parked along Lawrence Road in the same spot where Gretchen would have walked.

It was described as an older model, medium, dark green pickup truck without a tailgate. But nothing really came from that. Most people thought Gretchen had probably been taken by someone that she knew. Since she'd been abducted right outside of her parents' house, that suggested she probably knew the person. She wasn't the kind of kid to get into a stranger's car.

August turned to September. September turned to August with no sign of Gretchen. Then two months later, October 14th, 1975, about eight miles away from her home, there was a discovery. At around 4.45 p.m., a Navy seaman who had been hiking in the wooded area of Ridley Creek State Park stumbled upon a set of human remains.

This was a spot only about a 20-minute drive away from the Harrington's home. At first, he wasn't sure what he was looking at. It wasn't until he got closer and saw what was clearly a human fingernail that he knew what it was and ran to catch a park ranger.

The exact location where the remains were found was very remote and wooded. It definitely required a lot of effort for anyone to access. That also meant that it was a pretty good place to dump a body. As soon as the remains were found, people speculated whether they belonged to Gretchen. But within hours, it was confirmed. The remains did in fact belong to her.

Her parents confirmed that the distinctive clothing found with the remains was definitely hers. Gretchen's mom made all of the girls' clothing by hand, so she knew it was her daughter as soon as she saw them. Soon after that, the medical examiner also positively identified her using dental records.

The remains were described as skeletonized. The police were almost certain that the body had been there since the day she disappeared. Also strange about the scene, Gretchen's clothes, the ones that her mom identified her by, were found neatly folded in a pile right next to her. There was also a pair of children's underwear bound in a nearby tree branch, as well as a pair of shoes.

At the autopsy, Gretchen's manner of death was listed as a homicide, and her cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. Someone had fractured her skull with some type of blunt object about two to three times. Although the police suspected sexual assault, the autopsy wasn't able to confirm that.

I think because Gretchen's body was found naked with her underwear and clothes nearby, there was a strong assumption that she had been sexually assaulted, but since her remains had been virtually skeletonized, it was impossible for the forensic pathologist to say either way. Almost instantly after the remains were found, the police received a flurry of new tips,

People came forward with reports of different men with varying descriptions seen in the area where her body was found, but none of them panned out. And for the people living in Marple Township, things changed after Gretchen's murder. It was once considered a safe and good place to live, but following what happened, things were just different.

Here's what one Marple Township resident had to say about that. Quote, A few days after Gretchen disappeared, my mom made me cut my hair short so that I would look like a boy. She didn't want me to stand out with long hair. Unquote. Another young resident said they never walked alone anywhere after finding out what happened to Gretchen. So things in Marple Township were forever changed.

There was just something so sad and chilling about what happened. This was an eight-year-old girl on her way to summer Bible school. Her father was a church leader himself. There was just something so sinister about this entire incident that made people feel on edge. And I think they had every right to feel like that.

Throughout the years, the police looked into a series of potential suspects, including other known sex offenders living in the area. But nothing led to any arrests. There was never any physical evidence linking someone to the crime. No definitive eyewitnesses. No one actually saw Gretchen get inside of anyone's car that day. There was very little evidence for the police to go on at the time.

Also, whatever DNA evidence there might have been at the scene where Gretchen's remains were found, this was 1975, so the police weren't using any type of advanced DNA testing.

So over the decades, and I mean decades, the evidence box at the Marple Township Police Department just grew bigger and bigger. And as the years went by, the case went cold. Until 2023 came around.

By 2023, the case was 48 years old. Almost five decades had passed since Gretchen had been snatched off the streets on her way to church. And over the decades, different detectives were assigned the case.

By 2023, it was Sergeant Nick Coffin. As time went on, Gretchen's case was occasionally revisited, and people came together on different Facebook pages to talk about various theories about what could have happened. But something special did happen one day in 2022. A pair of authors with ties to the Philadelphia area decided to review the case and write a book about it.

The book was called Marple's Gretchen Harrington Tragedy, Kidnapping, Murder, and Innocence Lost in Suburban Philadelphia. In October 2022, authors Joanna Falcon Sullivan and Mike Mathis published the book in hope of bringing new attention to it.

We know cases with renewed interest usually lead to new leads and information. The squeaky wheel gets the oil. So that's what these two authors hoped for. They wanted the book to generate new leads and new information. And they were right. The book did exactly that.

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Visit reputationdefender.com slash success to learn more. That's reputationdefender.com slash success. In January 2023, three months after this book came out, an anonymous woman phoned the local police. The message was directed to Sergeant Nick Coffin, the new investigator assigned to the case.

Now, it's unclear what exactly prompted this woman to finally come forward, but she did. It might have been the book, or it might have been something else. The woman said she thought she knew who murdered Gretchen. It was her best friend's father. The woman claimed to have kept a diary back when she was 10 years old, 1975, living in Havertown, about three miles east of Marple.

And now, in 2023, she still had that childhood diary. In it, she talked about a lot of things, things that probably any 10-year-old might talk about in her diary. But besides the normal stuff, she also talked about the man she thought who killed Gretchen Harrington, Reverend David Zanstra, the leader of the church where Gretchen was supposed to be at the day that she went missing.

also the person who reported her missing to the police. The anonymous woman said she went to school with both Gretchen and Zoe Harrington, and that she was also friends with David Zanstra's daughter. She was her best friend back in 1975, and like any girl her age, she would often play at his house and spend the night.

Well, according to her, during two of these sleepovers, she said she was awakened by David Zanstra touching her in inappropriate places. And when she told David Zanstra's daughter about it, she replied saying that her father sometimes did that. Remember, not only is this man her best friend's father, but he's also a local pastor. He's a trusted church leader.

The woman eventually went to her parents to tell them what happened, and they told her she wasn't allowed to sleep over at the house anymore. But the incident was never reported to the police, so Pastor Zanstra was never arrested or questioned about it. Now, interestingly enough, though, the police believe this incident, the touching incident, happened exactly one week before Gretchen disappeared.

Also interesting, not long after Gretchen was murdered, the Zanstras moved to Texas. But that's not all this woman wrote in her diary. She also told the police about another girl from her neighborhood growing up, a girl named Holly. According to this woman, someone tried kidnapping her friend Holly right around this same time in 1975.

Here's what she wrote about that in her diary, which was eventually turned over to the police in 2023. Quote, Guess what? A man tried to kidnap Holly twice. It's a secret, so I can't tell anyone, but I think he might be the one who kidnapped Gretchen. I think it was Mr. Z. End quote. That diary entry was dated September 15th, 1975.

She also later confirmed to the police that Mr. Z stood for Zanstra. Keep in mind, this was a 10-year-old girl at the time writing all of this down in her diary that she kept for almost 50 years. In the early part of Gretchen's investigation, the police questioned Zanstra. He was the pastor at the church where she was supposed to be at that day.

The police also questioned him back in 1975 because some witnesses had said that they saw Gretchen outside of a car talking to someone sitting inside on the morning that she disappeared. And some of the descriptions of the car matched one of Zanstra's vehicles.

But when the police spoke to him, this is back in 1975, he insisted he never saw Gretchen the morning that she disappeared. He said she wasn't in class, she never got on the bus that he typically drove to the second church,

But here's a strange detail. When detectives spoke to him shortly after her disappearance, he provided them a very accurate and detailed description of the homemade shorts she was wearing that day, even though he supposedly never saw her. Following this anonymous woman's tip, a now 83-year-old David Zanstra became suspect number one.

So on June 17th, 2023, the police tracked him down in Marietta, Georgia to interview him. He and his wife had moved to Georgia after he retired from his church career. When detectives contacted him, he did agree to meet with them and answer any questions. He claimed to have nothing to hide, basically the same thing he said back in 1975.

This entire interview between the police and the former pastor would eventually last four hours, ending with a full-blown confession. At first, he denied any involvement in the case, sticking to his original story that he never saw Gretchen the day that she went missing. But as the interview went on, he changed his story.

Over the course of four hours, the police confronted him with the information they received from the anonymous woman saying that he inappropriately touched her. They also confronted him with her claims that he was the person responsible for Gretchen's murder and the attempted kidnapping of her friend Holly. Almost instantly after hearing this, David Zantra's story completely changed.

He confessed. He admitted to murdering Gretchen.

Here's part of his confession to investigators, quote, and I must have hit her. And I'm saying this because it's the only explanation. I must have. But why? Why would I? You know, I'm thinking here is a precious child. I love children. I have children. I don't want to hurt children. I don't want to cause trouble to them. I don't want them to be troubled.

but I did, end quote. According to his confession, he invited Gretchen into his car once she was out of sight from her parents' house. He offered to give her a ride to the church so that she wouldn't have to walk the half mile by herself. Gretchen, of course, she trusted her pastor. So she got inside the car and probably never thought twice about it.

but instead of taking her to the church, he took her to a nearby wooded area. There, he allegedly asked her to remove her clothing, but she wouldn't do it. So, he ejaculated in front of her before striking her in the head, causing her to hit the floor and start bleeding. He said he felt for a pulse, but he didn't feel one.

So believing that she was dead, he then attempted to cover up the body, left the area, and then went to church. Detectives told him that multiple witnesses saw Gretchen talking to the driver of a green station wagon, and multiple other witnesses placed Pastor Zanstra driving on the road where Gretchen was last seen walking.

Even a witness who was interviewed back in 1975 reported seeing her talking to the driver of a car similar to the one that he owned at the time, a green Rambler station wagon. So all of this information, it adds up. One plus one equals two. Zanstra himself says that he did it.

Witnesses saw him in the area. Other witnesses saw his car. He lied to investigators back in 1975 when he said that he never saw her that day.

Within just a few months of Gretchen's murder, David Zanstra left Delaware County and moved his family to Plano, Texas, but he didn't give up his career as a church leader. In Texas, he continued serving as a minister until the family moved again in 1983.

Between 1983 and 1999, he ministered at the Living Faith Community in San Diego, then at Fairfield Christian Reform Church in California from 1990 to 2005. After that, he finally retired and he and his wife moved to a lakefront home in Georgia. That's where he was living in 2023 when he confessed to murdering Gretchen.

He was a pastor before he murdered her, at the time that he killed her, then he worked as one for decades after. He led thousands of people at several different churches, all while knowing he killed an innocent eight-year-old girl, or at least that's what the police thought at the time.

After 48 years, almost five decades, David Zanstra was arrested and charged with murder in July of 2023. He was charged with murder in the first, second, and third degree, as well as kidnapping of a minor and possession of an instrument of crime. He was now in his 80s.

He looked like your typical grandpa, hunched over, slow to walk, white hair, white beard. Shortly after his arrest, this is what District Attorney Jack Stolminer said at the press conference. Quote,

Then he's going to have to find out what the God he professes to believe and holds for those who are this evil to our children.

The abduction and murder of Gretchen has forever altered our family, and we will miss her every single day. He is every parent's worst nightmare. He killed this poor eight-year-old girl he knew and who trusted him. And then he acted as if he was a family friend, not only during her burial and the period after that, but for years."

But just when you think this nearly five-decade-old mystery is over, something unexpected happens. And this is still just the beginning of the story. In November 2023, Zanstra was scheduled to appear in court for his preliminary hearing. But by this point, his story did a 180 yet again.

According to his defense attorney, Mark Munch, his client had falsely confessed to Gretchen's murder. He was an 80-something-year-old man who felt pressured by the police to confess to a crime that he simply didn't do. He was a vulnerable, old man who set things under duress.

This is an 83-year-old man that was subjected to a four-hour interview and was manipulated, coerced, tricked, lied to, and they believe he admitted to something that I submit he didn't do. That's a direct quote from his defense attorney at his November 2023 prelim hearing.

On top of a coerced confession, the defense also argued that the police lied to him about the evidence they had against him. They lied in order to get him to confess. According to the defense attorney, Mark Munch, Andrew Martin, one of the state troopers who had gotten Zanstra to confess on July 17, 2023, lied about the evidence they had against him. The first lie was about a witness.

Later on, Andrew Martin, the state trooper, acknowledged that he lied to Zanstra when he said that a witness had come forward and said that they saw his Dodge Rambler approaching Gretchen that day. Lie number two. He told Zanstra the police had recovered rocks with blood on them. These were rocks that came from the wooded area where Gretchen's body was found.

According to state trooper Andrew Martin, there were rocks, but there wasn't his blood on them, and that some witnesses had identified a rambler, but not necessarily Zanstra's car. Here's another quote about these lies from his defense attorney. Andrew Martin lied to him about evidence that he says they had.

He tricked an 83-year-old man into thinking he did something that he didn't remember doing by telling him they had all this evidence against him and they didn't have it. End quote.

Despite these concerns about a coerced confession and made-up evidence, a judge ruled that David Zanstra would stand trial, and he was formally arraigned on murder charges. But these accusations weren't his only problem. In the months leading up to the trial, multiple witnesses came forward, some locally but others nationwide, alleging that he molested them as well.

This wasn't just about Gretchen anymore. There could be more victims out there, other young girls. But Zanstra continued to deny everything. At one point, his defense attorney filed motions to dismiss the entire case as well as suppress the recorded interview where he allegedly confessed.

He argued that Zanstra had passed a polygraph test back in the 1970s, as well as a September 2023 DNA report that basically excluded him as a contributor to the DNA found at the crime scene. Okay, let's talk about that now. In the area where Gretchen's remains were found, the police collected two rocks and a soda can.

They also kept her clothing, which was folded in a neat pile next to her body. Those items were tested years later for DNA. Here were the results. One item of her clothing had DNA from an unknown female, and the soda can and rocks had an unknown male DNA profile.

Zanstra had been excluded as a contributor to the DNA found on all of the items. Basically, his DNA wasn't found anywhere at the crime scene.

So his defense was that the prosecution had zero forensic evidence linking him to the crime, and that the alleged confession was coerced from the beginning. There wasn't a drop of his DNA found anywhere. Plus, he had recently suffered a stroke and had been diagnosed with vascular dementia, a progressive condition affecting blood vessels in his brain.

His defense argued that condition may have contributed to his false confession. But would all of that hold up at trial? David Zanstra's trial began in January 2025. The prosecution's case was that he confessed in 2023.

They also had that anonymous woman's tip who grew up with his daughter back in 1975, the one who accused him of inappropriately touching her at those sleepovers. But the defense's case was everything that we just talked about.

State troopers lied to him about what the evidence they had, specifically State Trooper Andrew Martin, telling him that his DNA, through blood, was found on rocks collected at the scene. But we know from the DNA report that his DNA wasn't found at the scene, or at least it doesn't match. He was coerced into confessing because of his old age and his dementia symptoms, and

He passed a polygraph back in 1975, and despite other alleged victims accusing him of sexual assault, he says he's completely innocent. He's never assaulted anyone, including Gretchen Harrington or the woman who wrote about him in his diary when she was 10 years old. Finally, his defense said this at trial.

In the police's official case file, there is a profile of another man who, according to state troopers, was a possible suspect in the case back in 1975. He was a guy with a history of child abduction and sexual assault.

Well, during the trial, state trooper Andrew Martin admitted that hair found inside of this guy's truck was described as having, quote, similar characteristics to Gretchen Harrington. But his DNA was never compared to evidence from the scene, the soda can or the two rocks.

Now, unfortunately, this individual later died in prison, so it's impossible to say whether he had any role in this case or not. But for the defense for David Zanstra, this offered just another possible suspect to help plant doubt in the minds of the jury. That now brings us to the verdict. What would the jury believe? The confession? The anonymous woman's story?

Or the defense's claim that since David Zantra's DNA wasn't found anywhere at the crime scene, he must be innocent. He's just an old guy who falsely confessed. On January 17, 2025, after a four-day trial, the jury deliberated for an hour before coming back with a verdict of not guilty on all counts.

They didn't believe his confession and couldn't find him guilty because his DNA wasn't found at the crime scene. Here's what one of his defense attorneys had to say about that decision. Quote, David Zanstra maintained his innocence for 48 years. And as Mr. Munch said in his closing, he maintained his innocence for most of his interview. And he maintains his innocence to this day.

Our firm and Mr. Zanstra's family are very proud and grateful of Mr. Munch's efforts, and we are happy to have Mr. Zanstra return to his family. Criminal trials in this country are amazing things, and we thank the jury for their hard work this week.

But for prosecutors, they believe they had the right guy.

The murder of Gretchen Harrington has haunted members of law enforcement since that terrible day in August 1975. The families of victims often say that their lives are forever altered into the before time and the after time.

Undoubtedly, the biggest impact the jury's decision had was on Gretchen's family.

They waited five decades to see someone arrested and eventually charged with her murder. But now, the man accused of the crime simply walks free.

The Harrington family released a statement through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children when Zanstra was first arrested. Here's that statement. Quote,

It's difficult to express the emotions that we are feeling as we take one step closer to justice. Gretchen was only eight years old when she was suddenly taken away from us on her way to church on Friday, August 15th, 1975. If you met Gretchen, you were instantly her friend. She exuded kindness to all and was sweet and gentle.

Even now, when people share their memories of her, the first thing they talk about is how amazing she was, and still is at just eight years old. She had a long impact on those around her. The abduction and murder of Gretchen has forever altered our family, and we will miss her every single day.

We are grateful for the continual pursuit of justice by law enforcement, and we want to thank the Pennsylvania State Police for never stopping in their constant search for answers. End quote. The question of who murdered 8-year-old Gretchen Harrington while walking to summer Bible school in 1975 remains unanswered. Did a guilty man get away with murder?

Or does the lack of forensic evidence at the crime scene mean that he's innocent? As of today, investigators have a DNA sample from David Zanstra to potentially aid in investigations of missing persons, sexual assaults, and or murders. But as of now, he's not considered a suspect in any other child abduction, rape, or murder case.

Those who have accused him of assault have remained anonymous and no other charges are currently pending against him. To share your thoughts on this week's episode, follow the show on Instagram and Facebook. To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales. After each episode, I release a bonus episode sharing my personal thoughts.

Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode. We release a new episode every Monday. If you love the show, consider leaving us a positive review. You can also help support the show through Patreon. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please join me next week. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.

Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production. The show is written and produced by me, Courtney Fretwell. For a small monthly contribution, you can help create new compelling cases for the show, help fund research, and assist with production and editing costs. For supporting the show, you'll become one of the first to listen to new ad-free episodes and gain access to exclusive content. Thank you.

Thank you so much to this week's newest Patreon supporter, Brent E. To learn more, please visit patreon.com slash forensic tales. Forensic Tales is a podcast made possible by our Patreon producers. Tony A., Christine B., Sherry A., Michael D., Nicola, Megan G., Yarelli, Jerry, Anne F.,

If you'd like to become a producer of this show, head over to our Patreon page or send me an email at Courtney at ForensicTales.com.

For a complete list of sources used in this episode, please visit ForensicTales.com. Thank you for listening. I'll see you next week. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings. Hi, Drew and Jonathan Scott here, reminding you that a lot of life's firsts are better with help from American Family Insurance. Like your first home expansion or your first big lightning strike.

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