Who Is Grace Packer? Man Charged With Raping, Poisoning And Killing Girlfriend's Young Daughter

A Pennsylvania man was charged with murder Sunday for allegedly killing his girlfriend’s 14-year-old daughter, Grace Packer. Jacob Sullivan’s girlfriend, Sara Packer, allegedly watched as Sullivan, 44, beat, raped and poisoned Grace before asphyxiating her to death in what authorities are calling a “rape murder” fantasy.

The couple reportedly drove their sleepy child to a new home they had purchased in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, on July 8. When they entered the home, Sullivan immediately punched Grace in the face numerous times, splitting her lip. They then slammed Grace’s body to the ground and Packer watched while Sullivan ruthlessly raped her.

Packer, 41, then went to a local drug store to pick up Tylenol PM among other drugs and told her daughter they "would help minimize pain." The couple later bound and gagged Grace before leaving her body in the hot attic.

The couple reportedly left Grace to suffer until 3 a.m. on July 9 when they returned to find her barely grasping to life. Sullivan then choked the child to death.

The two preserved Grace’s rotting body in the attic for more than three months by immersing it in cat litter in order to mask the odor. They eventually dismembered the corpse before dumping it in remote woods in Northern Pennsylvania where hunters discovered it on Halloween 2016 and alerted the police.

Quakertown is located 48 miles north-west of Philadelphia.

Sullivan confessed to the July murder to hospital staff members while he was admitted there following a failed suicide attempt with Sara Packer. The couple attempted to kill themselves on Dec. 30 by overdosing on prescription pills. But they were discovered alive by a female neighbor and rushed to a hospital.

A suicide note penned by Sullivan was discovered by local police. It said people’s lies “made it impossible for us to live.”

Packer adopted Grace when she was one years old. After reporting her daughter missing to authorities on July 11, Packer was arrested in November for hindering police efforts to find Grace by issuing false statements while also withholding vital information about the case.

Packer told the police that Grace fled the apartment over a fight with her mother on July. 8 and traveled to a friend’s house. But Packer could name neither the name nor the address of Grace's supposed friend.

Packer was named a person of interest in the case in December and was charged with criminal homicide, rape conspiracy, kidnapping and abuse of a corpse. Sullivan was charged with criminal homicide, rape, kidnapping and abuse of a corpse.

“(Grace) never had a chance with these people,” Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub told local reporters. “The question is, ‘Who will speak for Grace Packer, this forgotten child?’ and the answer is, ‘We will. … We are not done.”