Daily News | Nearly 50 years after panic gripped suburbia, a new book, a key witness, and a confession
Earlier this week, murder charges were brought against David Zandstra, 83, of Marietta, Ga., a former reverend who authorities said had kept the crime secret for 48 years.Robert Jordan was playing in his backyard on Aug. 15, 1975, another summer afternoon in his idyllic Delaware County neighborhood, when the panic began to spread from house to house.“I remember being asked, ‘Have you seen Gretchen?’ and saying, ‘No, why?’” Jordan, who was 9 years old at the time, recalled this week.
Hundreds of residents from Marple and neighboring towns would later comb wooded areas with no results. Tracking dogs were called in. Even a psychic.two days after Gretchen’s disappearance. “If she’s in the area, she’s by Jesus well-hidden.” “So many young people from the ‘70s still bear that pain and anxiety today,” he said. “She was a lovely girl.”when Gretchen Harrington’s body was found. The case had long turned cold by 1997, when he joined the Marple Township police force.“Everything — and I mean everything — was followed up on,” said Graeff, who became chief in 2020.
In early 2021, Graeff got a call from a man named Mike Mathis, who said he and another former township resident, Joanna Sullivan, were working on a book about the murder and were hoping the department would cooperate with granting them some access to the files. “We were just at the pool on a hot summer day and the helicopter was overhead,” she said. “We were wondering what was going on. Then we heard.”
When COVID struck in 2020, Sullivan and Mathis suddenly had more time. They got started by creating a list of people they wanted to interview.Marple’s Gretchen Harrington Tragedy: Kidnapping, Murder and Innocence Lost in Suburban Philadelphia It was Zandstra who called police and reported Gretchen missing at 11:23 a.m. on Aug. 15, 1975. He said he was calling at the request of the girl’s father.
Back in 1975, police had interviewed Zandstra twice. He also spoke to Mathis for the book, which focused on a different man as the prime suspect.The conversation was almost cordial to start. Zandstra denied ever seeing Gretchen on the day she went missing.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Authorities comparing DNA of retired minister who confessed to killing Delco girl in 1975, authorities sayA retired minister in Georgia has been charged with murder in the slaying of an 8-year-old girl whose remains were found in the Philadelphia suburbs almost a half-century ago. Now, law enforcement in several other states is looking into the possibility that David Zandstra may have struck there as well.
Read more »
7 years later: Search resumes for woman who mysteriously disappeared after moving to GeorgiaLocal law enforcement and the FBI searched a property on South Broad Street in Porterdale in Newton County on Thursday in connection to the 2016 disappearance of Morgan Bauer, who was 19 at the time.
Read more »
Florida woman who stole nearly $3 million from Holocaust survivor gets over 4 years in prisonA Florida woman who drained an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor's life savings by posing as a love interest and then lived lavishly off the $2.8 million she got has been sentenced to over four years in prison.
Read more »
Florida woman who stole nearly $3 million from Holocaust survivor gets over 4 years in prisonPeaches Stergo was described by the federal judge as “unspeakably cruel” and motivated by greed as he announced the sentence in court.
Read more »
Florida woman who stole nearly $3 million from Holocaust survivor gets over 4 years in prisonA Florida woman who drained an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor’s life savings by posing as a love interest and then lived lavishly off the $2.8 million she got was sentenced Thursday to over four years in prison.
Read more »