Judge in sentencing Jacob Sullivan to death for Grace Packer murder: 'You have no soul'
By Laurie Mason Schroeder
Allentown Morning Call
Jacob Sullivan is headed to death row for the rape and murder of 14-year-old Grace Packer.
A Bucks County jury deliberated for 12 hours over three days before reaching their verdict. On Wednesday, the panel appeared to be struggling with their life or death decision, but the judge refused to declare them deadlocked — a move that would have triggered an automatic life sentence for Sullivan.
Gibbons ordered the jurors to return to the Justice Center in Doylestown Thursday morning, and they promptly delivered their verdict: death.
“You have no soul,” Gibbons told Sullivan in sentencing him to an additional life sentence on the conspiracy account to commit first-degree murder. “I have never said that to another human being in my life, and I hope to not say it again, so I expect to say something similar to Sara Packer.”
Sullivan, 46, of Horsham, pleaded guilty last month to first-degree murder, rape of a child and related charges. Sullivan admitted he and Sara Packer, Grace’s adoptive mother, dismembered Grace’s body and dumped the remains in Luzerne County, where they were found by hunters on Halloween 2016.
Sullivan admitted that he and Sara Packer plotted Grace’s rape and murder for months and carried it out on July 8, 2016, in a Richland Township home they had rented.
Gibbons thanked the jurors and urged them to get counseling if they needed. One juror, a man, appeared to be crying as the panel was being polled on the verdict.
“The butchery in this case was beyond my ability to describe,” Gibbons said. “To live through it vicariously through the photos and the tapes and the recordings ... must have taken a toll.”
Sullivan did not react to the verdict. Seconds after it was read, deputies surrounded him and handcuffed him.
The jurors noted some mitigating factors in Sullivan’s case, such as his lack of a criminal history, but found they were outweighed by the aggravating factor, which was that the murder was committed in the course of another felony.
As part of a plea deal, Sara Packer will plead guilty to first-degree murder and other crimes and be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. That hearing was supposed to happen Wednesday, but has been postponed until Friday.
After the sentencing, District Attorney Matt Weintraub said the case has been an arduous, 2 ˝ year journey.
“You could not write a horror movie script worse than what happened to Grace Packer,” Weintraub said. "[Sullivan] got what he deserved plain and simple. Death is the appropriate sentence for this man.”
Sullivan will join 142 inmates on Pennsylvania’s death row, though Pennsylvania has not executed anyone since 1999. Gov. Tom Wolf imposed a moratorium on the death penalty in 2015.
The last person to be executed in Pennsylvania was Gary Heidnik, the Philadelphia "House of Horrors" murderer, in 1999.
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