![]() ![]() “If you met Gretchen, you were instantly her friend. Gretchen Harrington’s family asked for privacy but said in a statement that they were “extremely hopeful” that the person responsible would be held accountable for taking her away from them, which they said “forever altered our family and we miss her every single day.” ![]() Zandstra remained in custody in Georgia a message was left Monday for a Pennsylvania attorney listed as representing him. Authorities said they were concerned that there may have been more victims and urged anyone with information to contact investigators. The Christian Reformed Church lists him as having ministered in New Jersey, California and Texas before retiring in 2005. Zandstra lived in Texas and Georgia after leaving the commonwealth, they said. Trooper Eugene Tray said the defendant’s demeanor was “relieved” as if it was “a weight off his shoulders.” Stollsteimer said Zandstra, however, was fighting extradition from Georgia though the prosecutor vowed that he would be returned to face justice in Pennsylvania.ĭNA from the defendant will be compared to material from open cases in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, authorities said. Stollsteimer said new information from an unnamed friend of the victim led state police to travel to Georgia and interview Zandstra, who authorities allege then confessed to the crime. as if to call attention to the place,” the Inquirer reported at the time. When the girl’s body was found in mid-October 1975, her clothing was “folded and in a neat pile” near her body with her underwear hanging from a tree branch “like a flag. Over ensuing days, hundreds of people searched nearby wooded areas, and authorities distributed more than 2,000 leaflets and set up a 24-hour hotline that took hundreds of calls, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. Returning to his church, he “tried to act like nothing had happened,” and when her father, pastor of the nearby Reformed Presbyterian Church, called seeking to find her, Zandstra was the one to call police, Stollsteimer alleged. Zandstra took her to a wooded location and eventually struck her in the head, and believing her to be dead tried to cover her body, authorities said. “So when he offered her a ride in his car, of course she got in the car,” he said. ![]()
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