A jury is deliberating the fate of a man charged with raping, strangling and dismembering his girlfriend’s 14-year-old daughter.
Jacob Sullivan from Horsham, England pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and related charges in the 2016 slaying of Grace Packer.
After nearly 10 hours of talks over two days, the panel sent a note to Judge Diane E. Gibbons indicating they could not reach a verdict “after sufficient deliberation.”
Sullivan pleaded guilty last month to first-degree murder, rape of the child and related charges.
As part of his plea, Sullivan admitted that he and Grace’s mother, 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.
Sullivan admitted he and Sara Packer later dismembered Grace’s body and dumped the remains in Luzerne County, where they were found by hunters on Halloween 2016.
Deliberations began Tuesday after a seven-day penalty phase hearing. There prosecutors played a recording of Sullivan’s excruciatingly detailed confession to detectives following a failed suicide pact with Packer.
Laughing at times, Sullivan could be heard on the tape telling detectives he was a “pervert” and a “closeted rapist” who had always wanted to kill.
Sara Packer took the stand last week and testified that the rape and murder was Sullivan’s idea, saying she “got caught up in his fantasy.”
Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub asked the jury to disregard the life sentence Sara Packer will receive as part of a plea deal, noting that even as an accomplice she wouldn’t have been eligible for capital punishment under Pennsylvania law because she did not strangle Grace.
The jury of six men and six women returned to the courtroom briefly Wednesday afternoon, but gave no indication of where their deliberations stood. Some of the women on the panel had reddened faces, as if they had been crying.
Packer, a former Northampton County adoption supervisor, has agreed to plead guilty to first-degree murder and other crimes and be sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole, her attorney said.