February 03, 2017
Source/Bucks County District Attorney's Office
Grace Packer, left, allegedly raped and killed in a plot carried out by Sara Packer, right, and Jacob Sullivan.
A Bucks County woman accused of participating in the rape and murder of her adopted daughter is facing additional criminal charges, according to court records.
Sara Packer, 42, of Richland, was charged last month with nine felonies, including criminal homicide, and eight misdemeanors for her role in the death of 14-year-old Grace Packer, of Abington Township, Montgomery County.
Prosecutors tacked on two more felonies and another misdemeanor on Thursday, charging Sara Packer with theft, tampering with public records and misapplying entrusted government property.
Packer allegedly continued to cash her daughter's monthly Social Security Disability benefit checks after she was reported missing, leading to the new charges, according to the Bucks County Courier Times.
Packer and her boyfriend, Jacob Sullivan, are also accused of brutally killing Grace in their Quakertown home on July 8.
Prosecutors say Sullivan, 44, of Horsham, admitted to raping Grace while Sara Packer watched in the attic. The couple allegedly then gave Grace pills to sedate her, bound and gagged her, and left her to die. Sullivan admitted to later strangling Grace to death after the couple returned to find her alive, prosecutors say.
The couple allegedly stored Grace's body in the attic until mid-October, packing it in cat litter. Sullivan told police that the couple later dismembered and disposed of Grace's body in a wooded area of Luzerne County, prosecutors say.
Sara Packer reported Grace missing on July 11, but failed to give Abington police a photo or their new address.
As police closed in on the couple, they allegedly forged a suicide pact and were found unconscious from an apparent drug overdose on Dec. 30.
Sara Packer, a former adoptions supervisor, adopted Grace when the girl was three years old. The girl allegedly had been abused or neglected in at least three homes during her life.
Grace Packer was known to look out for lonely children at school, regularly eating lunch with a boy with autism at Abington Junior High School. Her favorite things included butterflies, the colors purple and pink, and signing "Gracie" with a heart in place of the dot.
Sara Packer and Sullivan have a preliminary hearing slated for Feb. 24 at the Bucks County Courthouse in Doylestown.
