On the morning of Aug. 15, 1975, Gretchen Harrington, 8, left her house in Broomall, Pa., for summer time Bible college. The Trinity Chapel Christian Reformed Church was lower than half a mile down the street, however Gretchen by no means made it.

Skeletal stays discovered close by in Ridley Creek State Park on Oct. 14, 1975, have been later recognized as Gretchen’s. The reason for her demise, which was dominated a murder, was discovered to be accidents to her head. But, for many years, nobody knew who killed her.

On Monday, the district lawyer’s workplace in Delaware County, Pa., west of Philadelphia, introduced that it had filed prices towards David Zandstra, 83, of Marietta, Ga., in Gretchen’s homicide. Mr. Zandstra, who was a minister on the church within the Nineteen Seventies, was charged with prison murder, kidnapping of a minor, possessing an instrument of crime and homicide of the primary, second and third levels.

Mr. Zandstra was taken into custody in Georgia on July 17, the authorities mentioned. He is being held in Cobb County, Ga., the place he has been denied bail.

Jack Stollsteimer, the Delaware County district lawyer, mentioned at a news conference on Monday that Mr. Zandstra was combating extradition to Pennsylvania, and that his workplace was looking for a governor’s warrant to convey Mr. Zandstra to Delaware County.

“We’re going to try him, we’re going to convict him and he’s going to die in jail,” Mr. Stollsteimer mentioned. “And then he’s going to have to find out what the God he professes to believe in holds for those who are this evil to our children.”

The prices filed towards Mr. Zandstra have introduced a way of closure to Broomall, which has been haunted by Gretchen’s abduction and homicide for practically 48 years. Chief Brandon Graeff of the Police Department in Marple Township, which incorporates Broomall, mentioned on the news convention that Gretchen’s homicide had “transformed this community.”

“Pre-August 1975, it was Any Town, U.S.A.,” he mentioned. “Post- that day, it changed everything for the kids, for the parents, for the families, for everybody because nobody could do anything anymore in the innocence that they used to do it before this happened.”

Gretchen’s household mentioned in an announcement on Monday that they have been “extremely hopeful that the person who is responsible for the heinous crime that was committed against our Gretchen will be held accountable.”

“It’s difficult to express the emotions that we are feeling as we take one step closer to justice,” the household mentioned. “The abduction and murder of Gretchen has forever altered our family and we miss her every single day.”

It was unclear if Mr. Zandstra had a lawyer. His spouse, Margaret Zandstra, didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Monday.

The web site of the Christian Reformed Church lists Mr. Zandstra as a retired minister and says he was ordained on Sept. 20, 1965. In addition to the Trinity Chapel Christian Reformed Church in Broomall, Mr. Zandstra additionally served at church buildings in New Jersey, California and Texas between 1965 and 2005.

The Christian Reformed Church mentioned in an announcement on Monday that it needed to “extend our condolences to the family of Gretchen Harrington.”

“We are additionally grieved to hear that a C.R.C. pastor has been arrested for her murder,” the church mentioned. “We recognize that we live in a broken and sinful world where violence can happen anywhere by anyone — even within our churches and by leaders we hold to the highest standards.”

The Delaware County District Attorney’s Office mentioned it had collected from Mr. Zandstra a DNA pattern that will be in comparison with DNA collected in different open instances in Pennsylvania and throughout the nation.

“We are concerned that there may be more victims who might have been sexually assaulted by this man,” Mr. Stollsteimer mentioned. “We want to hold him accountable for everything he did.”

‘I think it was Mr. Z’

Gretchen was imagined to be at Trinity Chapel Christian Reformed Church by 9:30 a.m. on Aug. 15, 1975, in accordance with a police prison grievance. Around 11 a.m. that day, Harold Harrington, Gretchen’s father and the reverend of the church, discovered that she wasn’t there and referred to as the Marple Township Police Department to report her lacking.

In the weeks that adopted, the police spoke with a number of individuals to piece collectively what had occurred to Gretchen. They interviewed Mr. Zandstra twice, on Aug. 19 and once more on Oct. 30. He instructed them that he had picked up some kids and pushed them to the church the day Gretchen went lacking, however he denied having seen her that day, in accordance with the grievance.

The police have been unable to seek out any leads that would steer them nearer to discovering who had killed Gretchen, and the case went chilly. Then, earlier this 12 months, investigators interviewed a girl, recognized within the grievance as “CI #1,” who had come ahead and mentioned she went to highschool with Gretchen and Zoey Harrington, one in all Gretchen’s sisters.

The girl instructed investigators on Jan. 2 that she was pals with Mr. Zandstra’s daughters, and that she would typically play on the Zandstra house and keep in a single day. The girl instructed the police that, throughout two sleepovers, she was woke up by Mr. Zandstra touching her groin space.

Eventually, the girl mentioned, she instructed her dad and mom, and that a short while afterward the Zandstras moved to Plano, Texas, a Dallas suburb, in accordance with the grievance.

As the girl was being interviewed, she confirmed investigators a diary that she saved when she was a woman. In one entry, dated Sept. 15, 1975, she wrote: “Guess what? A man tried to kidnap Holly twice,” referring to a woman in her class.

“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,” she wrote, referring to Mr. Zandstra.

The interview and the journal entry prompted investigators to trace down Mr. Zandstra, who was residing in Marietta, northwest of Atlanta.

Investigators interviewed Mr. Zandstra at Cobb County police headquarters in Marietta on July 17. At first, Mr. Zandstra denied having seen Gretchen on the day she went lacking, in accordance with the police grievance. But ultimately, it mentioned, he confessed.

He instructed the police that he noticed Gretchen strolling to church that morning, and that he picked her up in his inexperienced A.M.C. Rambler station wagon. But as an alternative of taking her to church, Mr. Zandstra instructed investigators, he drove her to a wooded space close by, parked the automotive after which instructed Gretchen to take away her garments, and she or he refused.

He instructed the police that he ejaculated whereas Gretchen was within the car with him, in accordance with the police grievance. After that, Mr. Zandstra mentioned, he struck Gretchen together with his fist and she or he started bleeding from her head. Realizing that Gretchen seemed to be useless, Mr. Zandstra instructed the police, he “attempted to cover up her half-naked body with sticks and then he left the area,” the grievance mentioned.

“He murdered, with his bare hands, this poor young girl and then lied about it for 48 years,” Mr. Stollsteimer mentioned on the news convention on Monday.

Alain Delaquérière contributed analysis.