As more details emerge about the brutal rape and murder of 14-year-old Grace Packer, the more horrifying — and surreal — the story becomes.
As Crime Online previously reported, Grace’s adoptive mother, Sara Packer, and Sara’s boyfriend Jacob Sullivan are in custody, charged with numerous crimes connected to the sexual assault, strangulation death, and dismemberment of the teenage girl in rural Pennsylvania this past July.
Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub characterized the horrific crime as the fulfillment of a “rape-murder fantasy,” one that Sullivan reportedly told authorities the couple had been plotting since 2015. Given all of that, one might expect Ms. Packer to be a hardened career criminal — but it turns out that she had a yearslong career in child services, and had taken in several foster children in addition to adopting Grace.
Sullivan reportedly confessed to the brutal assault and killing while hospitalized late December, nearly two months after Grace’s remains were found in the woods by hunters, after a failed suicide pact with Sara — the couple took an overdose of prescription drugs but were found by a housemate who called for medical help. PennLive.com published a summary of Sullivan’s account based on charging documents obtained from law enforcement. In it, Sullivan is reported to have said he took Viagra in preparation for the rape, which had been planned with Sara. Before taking her upstairs to rape her, Sullivan said he punched Grace in the face, splitting her lip. He also said that his girlfriend was sexually aroused watching the rape, as the two had previously discussed.
After drugging Grace and placing her in a hot cedar closet on a higher floor of the house, Sullivan and Packer expected to find her dead when they returned hours later. When they found her not only alive but conscious, Sullivan reportedly told police, he wrapped his arm around her and “slowly squeezed the life out of her.” He said “it was more physical and took much longer than he expected.”
Packer and Sullivan have been in custody since the weekend. Police reportedly returned to their home to search it as recently as Tuesday night.
Photo: Bucks County District Attorney
