A Pennsylvania man is accused of raping and killing a teen girl and the victim’s mother is accused of helping him dispose of the body.
Jacob Sullivan, 44, was arrested Saturday and charged with murder, rape, kidnapping, abuse of corpse, simple assault and other related offenses related to the death of Grace Packer, 14, of Abington, NBC Philadelphia reported.
Grace’s adoptive mother, Sara Packer, 41, was arrested three hours after Sullivan and charged with homicide, kidnapping, unlawful restraint, possessing instruments of crime, endangering the welfare of a child, abuse of a corpse, simple assault, tampering with physical evidence and conspiracy to commit rape.
Sullivan and Packer spent more than a year planning Grace’s murder before they killed her in July, stored her body in the attic of their rented home in Quakertown for nearly four months and later cut it up, according to an affidavit against Sullivan.
“This was a sexual fantasy that was shared between Jacob Sullivan and Sara Packer, and Grace Packer was the object of that rape-murder fantasy,” Bucks County District Attorney Matthew D. Weintraub said.
Packer reported her daughter missing in July. Three months later, hunters discovered Grace’s remains near a dam in Bear Creek Township, Luzerne County, two hours north of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Authorities alleged that Packer continued to collect social security payments on behalf of her daughter.
On Dec. 30, Packer and Sullivan made a suicide pact and attempted to overdose on prescription pills, the criminal complaint said.
Both were taken to the hospital after a woman who lived with them found them unconscious.
Sullivan admitted to healthcare workers at the hospital that he was responsible for Grace’s murder and that Sara Packer was his accomplice.
Sullivan was arraigned shortly after midnight in Newtown. He is being held without bail at Bucks County Correctional Facility.
Weintraub said the investigation is still ongoing to rule out additional alleged accomplices.
“She never had a chance with these people,” he said of Grace. “The question is, ‘Who will speak for Grace Packer, this forgotten child?’ and the answer is, ‘We will.. . . We are not done.”