Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Two arrested in teen’s killing, dismemberment
BUCKS COUNTY >> A 44-year-old Horsham man was taken into custody Saturday night in connection with the gruesome killing of Abington teen Grace Packer, whose dismembered body was discovered in October months after being reported missing by her adoptive mother, and new details in the case alleged by Bucks County authorities Sunday were, in a word, horrific.
Jacob Patrick Sullivan, of the 400 block of Summit Avenue, was arraigned in Newtown district court in the early morning hours of Jan. 8 on 19 criminal counts, including homicide, rape, kidnapping, abuse of a corpse and conspiracy, then committed to Bucks County jail after bail was denied.
Investigators said that Sullivan has confessed to beating, raping, drugging, tying up and then suffocating the 14-year-old girl in July — all with the help of Packer’s mother, 41-year-old Sara Packer, with whom he was in a relationship, authorities said — as part of a rape-murder plot the pair had planned for nearly a year.
Sara Packer was also charged Saturday with 17 criminal counts, including homicide, kidnapping, abuse of a corpse, several counts of conspiracy and other offenses, and was expected to be arraigned in district court on Sunday afternoon.
Sullivan and Packer allegedly concealed the slain girl’s body in the attic of their Quakertown home for several months before dismembering her and dumping the remains nearly 100 miles away in a wooded area in Luzerne County in October, where they were found by hunters on Oct. 31, authorities said.
Packer, who was declared a “person of interest” in the case at a Dec. 22 press conference held jointly by Bucks, Montgomery and Luzerne county authorities, had been jailed in November on child endangerment and misdemeanor obstruction charges filed by prosecutors who alleged she “withheld critical information and gave misleading statements to police after reporting her daughter missing, inhibiting efforts to locate her.”
However, Packer was freed from custody on Dec. 23 after
posting bail.
Sullivan made his confession Jan. 7 at Abington Memorial Hospital, where he and Packer had been taken on Dec. 30 after the two intentionally overdosed on prescription pills as part of a suicide pact, authorities said.
Investigators have said that on the evening of July 11, Sara Packer went to Abington police headquarters to report Grace Packer missing and that the girl had last been seen at the family’s residence on the 800 block of Tennis Avenue on the night of July 8 after Packer sent her daughter to her room following an argument over her daughter’s request to go to a friend’s house.
But according to what Sullivan told detectives on Saturday, by that time Grace Packer was already dead.
Sullivan said that on the morning of July 8, he and Packer drove Grace Packer from the Tennis Avenue home to their new home on the 900 block of Cherry Road in Quakertown, and once there he began beating the girl before the pair took her up to the attic and, as planned, Sullivan raped her while Packer watched, according to the complaint.
Afterward, they gave the girl pills, then tied her up and gagged her and left her to die in the closet of the attic, which was “extremely hot,” but after returning at 3 the next morning they found her still alive, and Sullivan put his arm around her neck and “slowly squeezed the life out of her,” the complaint states.
Sullivan and Packer then concealed the teen’s lifeless body in the attic for more than three months, packing her in cat litter to mask any odors, authorities alleged. After investigators came to the house in October to follow up on the investigation into the missing girl, the pair — worried that her body would be found — brought the remains down to a second floor bathroom and dismembered her in the tub using a saw that Packer had purchased, according to the complaint.
Then, court documents indicate, they drove to upstate Pennsylvania via back roads, intentionally avoiding the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and disposed of the remains near the Francis Walter Dam in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, where two hunters came across the body parts on Halloween and immediately notified authorities.
The remains were positively identified as those of Grace Packer on Nov. 8, according to the complaint, and pathologists determined then that because there was no insect infestation on the torso that the girl had been killed elsewhere and her body stored for a period of time before being dumped, and that scarring and other marks on her remains showed that a saw had likely been used to cut her bones.
During the investigation, court documents show, a search of the Quakertown home uncovered a receipt dated Oct. 16 for a bow saw and two extra blades, and Bucks County detectives later obtained store video footage of Sara Packer buying the items.
Sullivan told police Saturday that in the weeks after they dumped the girl’s remains in the woods, he and Packer “intentionally discarded evidence of the murder in various locations to avoid detection,” the criminal complaint states.
Sara Packer also attempted to stymie the police investigation into Grace Packer’s disappearance at every turn, authorities have said.
Between Aug. 8 and Sept. 7, detectives made numerous attempts to contact Sara Packer about missing person investigation but got no response, and on Sept. 7, police went to Packer’s Abington home and found it vacant.
That same day, according to previously filed court documents, investigators learned that Grace and her younger brother had been withdrawn from the Abington School District on Aug. 2.
Detectives then found out that on Aug. 24, Packer had enrolled her 12-year-old adopted son in the Quakertown School District but that no records were found indicating that Grace Packer had been enrolled for the fall 2016 semester, police said.
In October, court documents state, several relatives of Sara and Grace Packer told investigators that they had last seen Grace alive around July 4, and that Sara Packer had only just recently told them Grace was missing, even though she had allegedly told police in early September that she had already informed family members that the girl was missing.
In November, according to court documents, agents with the United States Social Security Administration informed investigators that Sara Packer was receiving $712 monthly to care for Grace Packer; that in August Packer had completed a Continuing Disability Review Report relating to her daughter but did not disclose that her daughter was missing; and that between July 1 and Nov. 10, Packer spent more than $3,616 of the disability funds intended for her daughter.
And on Nov. 3, Abington detectives located a typed letter from the girl’s Abington school records that was recovered in March, which was addressed to Grace’s family, “discussed her being ‘sorry’ for (being) a burden and leaving the family,” and closed with a typed “Sincerely, Grace” but with no written signature, according to court documents.
Investigators said that after reviewing the letter, they determined the language and content “to be inconsistent with being written by a 14-year-old with the academic and social skill level of Grace Packer.”