A retired pastor who reportedly once had ties to Plano has now been arrested in the murder of a little girl in Pennsylvania nearly a half-century ago.
Reverend David Zandstra is now 83-years-old. In 1975 he was the pastor of a church in a Philadelphia suburb where an eight-year-old girl named Gretchen Harrington vanished and whose skeletal remains were found several months later.
Reports say Zandstra was questioned but police did not have enough evidence to make any arrests. But now, 48 years later, a woman has brought forward a childhood diary in which she recorded allegations that Zandstra molested her during a sleepover with her friend, Zandstra's daughter.
Pennsylvania police found him living in retirement in Georgia where they say has now confessed to the little girl's murder.
Investigators say in the intervening years Zandstra has pastored churches elsewhere including a stop in Plano. A Christian Reformed Church Website suggests Zandstra pastored one of its apparently now-defunct congregations in Plano for seven years beginning in 1976, the year after Gretchen was killed.
Plano police are asking if anyone has any info on David Zandstra and ties to Plano, TX please let them know. "We will also be checking our records but as of right now we don't have any information" say Plano police.
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