PHILADELPHIA – A Bucks County newspaper received help in its fight to unseal documents related to the murder of Grace Packer, a girl who was raped and killed by her adoptive mother and the mother’s boyfriend.
Jacob Sullivan was sentenced to death and Sara Packer to life in prison for their crimes against Grace, whom they murdered then claimed had run away from home in 2016. Sullivan died from a heart issue in 2020, while Packer is housed at SCI Muncy currently.
Grace’s estate sued various defendants involved in her adoption in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, and the Bucks County Courier Times unsuccessfully moved to intervene to access settlement records following the case’s resolution.
On Oct. 15, the state Superior Court concluded those filings are judicial records, leaving the trial court to determine whether they should be revealed.
Wrongful death settlements must be approved by a judge, as do settlements involving distribution to a minor (some money was apparently given to Grace’s younger sibling), the paper argued. The trial judge was not there to rubber-stamp a settlement, the paper added, but was instead required to scrutinize them.
“Because the trial court found the Settlement Documents were not public judicial documents, it did not engage in a balancing of the factors to determine whether access to the documents was proper in this case,” the court said.
“We therefore remand for the trial court to conduct such a balancing test.”
The trial judge will also have to explain why the Courier Times wasn’t allowed to intervene.
Sara Packer and Sullivan wanted to live out a rape-murder fantasy with Grace. After doing so, they reported Grace missing though her body was in a closet in their attic
In fall of 2016, they began dismembering her body and spreading her remains in Luzerne County. Hunters found the evidence.
Sullivan and Sara Packer unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide and were arrested in January 2017 after Sullivan confessed. He had raped Grace then, the two bound her with zip ties, stuffed a ball gag in her mouth, administered what they hoped was a lethal dose of over-the-counter medication and left her in a hot attic to die.
Grace survived for 12 hours. Sullivan strangled her.
Sara Packer looked on and later said Grace was a “very difficult child” and wanted her dead. Sara Packer was a former county adoptions supervisor who had taken in foster children before her ex-husband David went to prison for sexually assaulting Grace and another girl.
