The mother who pleaded guilty a rape-murder plot that killed her 14-year-old adopted daughter testified in court Wednesday that the plan had not been to kill Grace Packer right away — but to keep her imprisoned, essentially as a sex slave, so that her boyfriend could repeatedly rape the girl.

As CrimeOnline previously reported, Sara Packer is expected to enter into a plea deal to avoid the death penalty after her boyfriend Jacob Sullivan told detectives that he had raped and murdered the girl, with Packer’s participation and encouragement. Grace Packer died in July 2016 but her dismembered remains were not found until October of that year, as Sullivan and Packer reportedly kept the girl’s body in a Bucks County home for months until they feared police would find her there. They then cut up the body in a bathtub and dumped the remains in a remote field, Sullivan told investigators.

Sullivan also reportedly indicated that the rape and murder was primarily Packer’s idea, and that she “got off” on denying her daughter’s pleas for help. But Packer, testifying at Sullivan’s sentencing hearing on Wednesday, said that she “got wrapped up in Jake’s fantasy … I didn’t think I could tell him no without losing him,” according to the Morning Call.

The local news outlet also reported that Packer said the plan was never to kill Grace right away, though Sullivan had earlier said that he expected her to be dead 12 hours after the initial assault, as he and Packer had locked her in a sweltering hot cedar closet, bound with zip-ties. Sullivan reportedly told investigators he then strangled Grace to death upon finding her still alive and conscious in the closet.

But Packer reportedly said in court yesterday that she and Sullivan had planned to keep Grace alive and confined to an attic i the home “for years” so that Sullivan could rape her at will.

“I think he just panicked,” Packer said in court. “The reality of what he had done set in, and there was no going back. So he decided that it was time for her to die.”

Sullivan is facing the possibility of the death penalty, while his defense attorneys are reportedly asking for life in prison.