Jacob Sullivan told detectives investigating 14-year-old Grace Packer’s murder that he was a “closeted rapist,” newly filed court documents say.
He also watched violent pornography to prepare for the crime, prosecutors say in the documents, filed Wednesday in Bucks County.
Sullivan, 44, is awaiting trial on a long list of charges stemming from Grace’s July 2016 killing in Richland Township.
Prosecutors say he raped Grace then left her in an attic closet overnight to die. They say that when Sullivan returned the next day to find Grace alive, he strangled her. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Sullivan.
They said they also may seek the death penalty against Grace’s mother, Sara Packer, 42, who also is charged in the homicide. Prosecutors say Sara Packer watched as Sullivan raped and strangled Grace and that she helped him cut up the girl’s body.
In his motion, Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub is asking a judge to try Sullivan and Packer together.
The motion says Katherine Allbright — whom prosecutors described as being in a “polyamorous relationship” with Sullivan and Packer — told detectives that “in the days leading up to and following the rape and murder of [Grace], Sullivan would stream and watch a pornographic video involving a violent rape.” Allbright is not charged in the case.
Sullivan admitted to detectives that he took a Viagra pill in preparation for the rape, the motion says, and that he and Sara Packer fantasized about the crime.
Sullivan is charged with homicide, rape, kidnapping, abuse of a corpse and more than a dozen other offenses. His attorneys at the Bucks County public defender’s office could not be reached for comment Friday.
Sara Packer is charged with homicide, kidnapping, abuse of corpse and conspiracy to commit rape. She is a former adoption supervisor at Northampton County’s Children, Youth and Families Division. Packer and her ex-husband adopted Grace and Grace’s younger brother in 2007, three years after becoming their foster parents.
Prosecutors say she and Sullivan killed Grace on July 8, 2016, in a Richland Township house they rented. A few days later, Packer reported Grace missing, telling police the teen stole $300 and ran away, according to police reports.
The couple hid Grace’s body in the attic of the rental home for months, packed in cat litter, according to prosecutors.
After a police detective came to the house asking questions about Grace that October, Sara Packer and Sullivan allegedly dismembered the girl’s body and dumped it in rural Luzerne County, where hunters discovered the remains Oct. 31, 2016.
Sullivan and Sara Packer were charged in January after allegedly attempting suicide by overdose. Both have pleaded not guilty.
They are being held in the Bucks County Jail without bail. Their trial is set for April.
