Man Challenging Death Sentence For Grace Packer's Rape, Murder

BUCKS COUNTY, PA — The man on death row in connection with the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl in Bucks County is challenging his sentence, asking a judge to change it to life in prison.

Jacob Sullivan, 46, appeared at a hearing Wednesday, during which he asked the judge to give him a life term instead of the death penalty, the Associated Press reported.

In March, a Bucks County jury sentenced Sullivan to death for the rape and murder of Grace Packer in 2016.

But Sullivan is now using the jury's hesitation in their decision to challenge the sentence. The Allentown Morning Call reports Sullivan is claiming Bucks County Judge Diane Gibbons forced jurors to keep deliberating until they reached the verdict.

The Bucks County District Attorney's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Patch on the matter, but District Attorney Matthew Weintraub told the Morning Call he's confident "we’re on good legal ground here."

Sullivan had pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the gruesome case, including first-degree murder and child rape. He admitted he and his girlfriend Sara Packer, the girl's adoptive mother, strangled the teen after beating, raping, and poisoning her in Richland Township over an 18-hour period in July 2016.

According to authorities, Packer and Sullivan then preserved the girl's corpse for weeks in cat litter before dismembering and dumping it in a remote area of north central Pennsylvania.

Grace had been reported missing out of Abington, Montgomery County. Her remains were found by two hunters Oct. 31, 2016 in a wooded area near a reservoir in Bear Creek Township, Luzerne County.

Packer, who once served as a Northampton County adoption supervisor, was sentenced to life in prison.

Sullivan was arrested in January 2017 after telling workers at Abington Hospital-Jefferson Health, where he had been admitted following a suicide attempt, that he was responsible for killing the teen.

Packer was arrested soon after. She was found unresponsive the same day from a drug overdose, the result of a self-described "suicide pact" she had made with Sullivan, according to a probable cause affidavit.

When questioned by Bucks County detectives, Sullivan revealed in detail how the girl was assaulted and killed over the course of about 18 hours, the affidavit said.

Sullivan told investigators Grace's death was something he and Packer plotted in late 2015.

Sullivan told detectives he and Packer drove Grace from their residence in Abington to a new home in Richland Township.

After they entered the house, Sullivan told investigators he struck Grace several times in her face, splitting her lip, authorities said. The two adults then took the teen to the third floor of the residence, where Packer watched as Sullivan raped her daughter, prosecutors said.

Packer then allegedly left to buy Tylenol PM and other drugs to sedate her daughter. The adults then gave her an overdose of pills, then bound and gagged her and left her to die in the hot attic, prosecutors said.

When the pair returned the next day and Grace was still alive, prosecutors said Sullivan strangled and suffocated her, then packed Grace's body in cat litter to mask the odor and left it in the attic for three months.

Three days after the killing, Packer filed a missing person report with Abington Township Police, saying that her daughter had disappeared and likely had run away.

Authorities say Packer then allegedly withheld critical information and gave misleading statements to investigators working to find the teen, resulting in an arrest on charges of endangering the welfare of a child and obstructing the administration of law.

Two weeks before Grace's body was found with its arms and legs removed, Packer was captured on video buying a bow saw and two extra blades at a tractor supply store in Richland Township, the probable cause affidavit said.

A forensic anthropologist who examined the teen's body determined that the scarring and tool marks on her bones were made by an alternating tooth saw blade similar to that of the bow saw, authorities said.

RELATED:

• Mother, Boyfriend Charged With Murder Of 14-Year-Old Grace Packer
• Grace Packer Was Abused Multiple Times Throughout Her Life: Report