The man who admitted to brutally raping and killing 14-year-old Grace Packer, his girlfriend’s adopted daughter, is awaiting his fate, and jurors at his sentencing hearing heard the confession he gave investigators in January 2017 as he was recovering from a suicide attempt.
As CrimeOnline previously reported, Packer was raped, drugged, and left for dead in a sweltering locked closet in a Bucks County, Pennsylvania, home in the summer of 2016. Sullivan reportedly confessed to raping Packer and strangling her when he returned to the home several hours after the rape, surprised to find her still alive. Packer’s adoptive mother Sara Packer allegedly came up with the twisted rape-murder plot with Sullivan, and was present for the attack, encouraging him.
The couple allegedly kept Packer’s body packed in cat litter for months until they were spooked by a visit from police. According to Sullivan’s reported confession, he and Sara Packer then dismembered the teen’s body in a bathtub and disposed of her remains in a remote field, where hunters found the body parts on October 31, 2016.
Both Sullivan and Sara Packer reportedly attempted suicide months later with an overdose of pills, and both survived. Sullivan gave a confession to police on January 7, 2017, as he was recovering in a hospital.
According to the Morning Call, a recording of that confession was played in a Bucks County courtroom on Tuesday. In the recording, Sullivan reportedly told investigators that Grace Packer begged her mother for help after he punched her in the mouth and began sexually assaulting her, but Sara Packer refused.
“[Sara] wanted Grace to see that she wasn’t going to save her. She got off on that,” Sullivan reportedly said. “I did too, to tell you the truth.”
Sullivan also revealed that he and his girlfriend lured Grace to their rented but unoccupied home in Richland Township by claiming that police wanted to meet her there to talk about some “inappropriate” social media posts, according to the report.
The defendant also discussed coming back to the home about 12 hours after the rape to find Grace, bound with zip ties, still alive and having broken free of some of the ties. It was then that Sullivan said he strangled her.
“It took a really long time,” Sullivan reportedly said. “It was extraordinarily physical for me. It was a fight kind of thing.”
According to the report, Sullivan “chuckled” as he described the struggle to murder Grace.
WFM-TV reports that Sara Packer is expected to testify at Sullivan’s sentencing hearing on Wednesday. The death penalty is under consideration.
