How Could You? Hall of Shame-Grace Packer case-Child Death UPDATED

An interim investigation by the state Department of Human Services has determined that Impact no longer allows its employees to also be foster parents through the agency — a loophole that gave Packer access to several foster children when she worked there from 1999 to 2002 — follows state regulations, addresses complaints made by children and can continue to be licensed in Pennsylvania.

Despite the report, which counties were notified of last week, Lehigh, Montgomery and Northampton counties have not resumed referring children to Impact, officials for those counties said.

The review, which focused on current Impact activities and did not investigate its relationship with Sara Packer, came after at least four counties cut ties with the Emmaus provider amid revelations in March that two former Impact foster children said they had reported concerns about Sara Packer and her then-husband, David, more than a decade ago, when they were living with the couple.

The foster care agency came under scrutiny after Sara Packer, 42, and her boyfriend, Jacob Sullivan, 44, were arrested in January and charged with killing the Packers’ 14-year-old adopted daughter, Grace, in July in a rape-murder fantasy. Police allege they stored Grace’s body for months in their rented Richland Township home before dismembering it and dumping it in Carbon County, court records say. Sarah Packer, who police say watched as Grace was raped and killed, has pleaded not guilty. Sullivan, who police say raped and strangled the child, has not entered a plea. Both are awaiting trial.

FBI investigators are attempting to track down all of the children fostered by the Packers, who took at least 30 children into their home through Impact over a period of 10 years, state child welfare officials have said, including Grace and her two siblings in 2004.

“We are assisting because many of these fosters are now adults that have moved around the country,” said FBI spokeswoman Carrie Adamowski. “Some of them are in their 30s and have moved out of state or don’t have a current address.”

Adamowski would not say how many foster children the FBI is looking for or how many had been located so far.

“There’s no time frame for how long this could take,” she said. “It’s just going to take a lot of legwork.”

While police and agents search, Impact will be trying to win back its longtime county clients.

The review of the agency, performed by senior investigators from DHS units in Scranton and Philadelphia, included an audit of randomly chosen files for 17 children currently placed with Impact, and interviews with two foster families, according to the three-page DHS report. Investigators determined that Impact was following state policies and procedures.

Impact’s executive director, Courtney Wagaman, said the result signals that counties can again contract with the provider that for more than two decades has specialized in placing troubled adolescents in foster homes.

“We welcomed a state review because we knew the result would be confirmation that we’re following all regulations and have stringently, and without exception, maintained a high standard,” Wagaman said. “The past few months have been very difficult. We know who we are as an agency and we know the positive impact we’ve had on the lives of children and families.”

Wagaman said the report has been sent to the 11 counties that have referred children to Impact in recent years, along with a letter asking the counties to reconsider their decision to cut off Impact. Some remain cautious.

“We’re not using Impact at this time,” said Kevin Dolan, Northampton County director of Children, Youth and Families. “They are not on our list of agencies we use, and there is no time frame to add them.”

Dolan, while noting that Impact had long been among the county’s most trusted private agencies, said he was aware of the review but declined to comment on why the county was not resuming use of Impact. Dolan also would say on how many children were with Impact before the cutoff.

Lehigh County, which had no placements with Impact when it cut ties with the agency two months ago, still has no youths under Impact’s supervision, said Pam Buerle, Lehigh County director of Children & Youth Services. Berks, Bucks and Monroe counties did not return callsBut at least one of Impact’s biggest clients, Delaware County, after cutting off referrals to Impact in March, has returned.

“Delaware County resumed referrals to Impact in April after a thorough and extensive review process,” said Emily Harris, spokeswoman for Delaware County. “Currently there are 16 children in placement at Impact.”

After leaving Impact, Sara Packer went to work for Northampton County in 2003 as an adoption caseworker. She became a supervisor in 2007 but was dismissed in 2010, county records show, when David Packer was investigated for sexually abusing Grace and an older foster daughter in the couple’s Allentown home. David Packer ultimately pleaded guilty and served about five years in prison. He and Sara Packer divorced last year.

Among the revelations since Grace’s death is that Sara Packer was working for Impact while she was getting foster children through the agency — which is contrary to industry best practices. The review referred to that history, but also noted that no current employees have foster children through Impact, and that Impact’s handbook “does not condone the use of current employees as foster parents for the agency.”

Speaking for the first time since the Impact Project came under review for its association with Sara Packer, Wagaman said the agency never considered suspending operations, even as many counties with which it had longstanding relationships cut ties.

“It was difficult, but we know who we are and the good work we are doing,” said Wagaman, who declined to discuss any details involving the agency’s relationship with Sara Packer. “We remain the best option for children who need loving homes.”

Wagaman said Impact did not lay off any of its 20 employees, and that it has 65 to 70 children under its supervision.

“That is not substantially less than we had when some counties paused referrals,” Wagaman said. “Most of the counties that use us the most have come back.”

The review was launched after two former Packer foster children, who were teenagers when they lived with the couple, alleged their complaints to Impact counselors were not addressed. Jessica Rotellini Law said recently that an Impact employee seemed concerned when told that Grace, who was about 4 years old at the time, would cry behind a locked bedroom door that was rigged with an alarm and that she was made to pick up the family dog’s feces.

Crystal Rodack recently said an Impact worker shrugged off concerns about David Packer seeming overly affectionate with another teenage foster daughter. Shortly after making that report, Rodack found cellphone pictures of David Packer having sex with a 15-year-old foster daughter and reported what she saw to relatives who then told police in 2010.

Impact has not addressed Law’s and Rodack’s accounts. It’s not clear if Impact workers reported those incidents at the time.

Rachel Kostelac, spokeswoman for the state Department of Human Services, said those issues are part of larger investigations, led by the DHS, but were not part of the interim review, which is more of a present day snapshot of Impact and a reinvestigation of its past actions. The larger investigation, routinely launched by DHS after the death of any child while under state supervision, is scheduled to take six months, but could take longer if necessary, she said.

Child welfare experts raised several questions about the tragic path that led to Grace’s death, including how, after David Packer’s conviction, Sara Packer was able to retain custody of Grace and her younger brother, both of whom the Packers adopted in 2007. Some wondered whether Sara Packer’s familiarity with the child welfare system helped her escape scrutiny.

Kostelac said Sara Packer hasn’t fostered any children since 2010.”

Emmaus foster care agency trying to recover from ties to Sara Packer

[Mcall 5/27/17 by Matt Assad]

Update 4:“A Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty on Tuesday in the rape, murder and dismemberment of a 14-year-old girl, and the victim’s adoptive mother has agreed to plead guilty and serve a life sentence.

Jacob Sullivan, 46, pleaded guilty to all charges in the 2016 death of Grace Packer. A jury outside Philadelphia will determine a sentence of either life in prison or death.

Grace’s adoptive mother, Sara Packer, 44, is expected to testify against Sullivan during the penalty phase of his trial. Packer has agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence, according to her attorney, Keith Williams.

Sullivan was Sara’s boyfriend.

Prosecutors have said that Sara Packer, a former foster parent and county adoptions supervisor, watched Sullivan act out a rape-murder fantasy they shared.

Sullivan’s plea hearing was interrupted Tuesday afternoon after he fell ill and was taken to a hospital. The hearing is scheduled to resume Wednesday.

Grace’s death raised questions about whether child welfare agencies could have done more to protect her. Packer and her husband at the time, David Packer, cared for dozens of foster children before David was arrested in 2010 and sent to prison for sexually assaulting Grace and a 15-year-old foster daughter at their home in Allentown, about an hour north of Philadelphia. She lost her job as a Northampton County adoptions supervisor in 2010 and was barred from taking in any more foster children.

The Pennsylvania Department of Human Services launched an investigation after Grace Packer’s murder but its findings have not been made public.

Sullivan beat and raped Grace, and she was bound, gagged and left to die in a sweltering attic, authorities have said. Returning the next day and finding Grace was still alive, Sullivan strangled her, court documents said. The couple stored her body in cat litter for months, then hacked it up and dumped it in a remote area where hunters found it in October 2016, police have said.

Sullivan, whose attorney had said Sarah Packer masterminded the killing , entered his plea as jury selection was about to get underway. Packer’s trial was expected to begin next month.”

Man pleads guilty in rape, murder of Pennsylvania teen
[Fox News 2/19/19 by AP]

“Jacob Sullivan started his rape of Grace Packer by punching the 14-year-old girl in the face and ripping her pajama shirt. Crying, her mouth bloodied, Grace turned toward her adoptive mother, Sara Packer, and pleaded for help.

Packer just watched as the attack continued.

“She wanted Grace to see that she wasn’t going to save her. She got off on that,” Sullivan told a detective. “I did too, to tell you the truth.”

When it was time to strangle Grace, Sullivan said he tried to soothe the frightened teen, who was fighting against his chokehold despite the zip ties he and Packer had used to restrain her.

“Just go, honey, just go,” Sullivan recalled telling Grace. “It’s OK honey, it’s time to go.”

A Bucks County jury on Tuesday heard several hours of Sullivan’s taped confession, which he made while still hospitalized for a failed suicide attempt just before he and Packer were charged in Grace’s murder.

Sullivan, 46, pleaded guilty last month to 18 crimes, including first-degree murder, rape of a child and kidnapping. Sara Packer, 44, is expected to plead guilty after Sullivan is sentenced. As part of a plea deal, she will serve life in prison with no chance of parole.

It was revealed in court Tuesday that Packer gave a 12-hour statement to detectives last summer. She is scheduled to testify for the defense Wednesday. Sullivan’s attorneys say she “groomed” Sullivan to rape Grace and that he should get the same sentence she does.

Sullivan spent several days in intensive care at Abington Memorial Hospital after swallowing handfuls of pills. Prosecutors say he first confessed to hospital staff that he murdered Grace, then talked to detectives from his hospital bed.

During the rambling Jan. 7, 2017, interview, Sullivan gave detectives details about how and where he and Packer dismembered and dumped Grace’s body, and described the rape and murder in excruciating detail.

In exchange, Sullivan asked to be placed in protective custody in jail, saying he was a “coward” and feared other inmates.

“I don’t want to be killed in jail,” he said.

Sullivan told detectives that he and Packer convinced Grace — who suffered from emotional problems from being sexually molested by Sara Packer’s ex-husband, David Packer — that they were bringing her to their rented home in Richland Township on July 8, 2016, because police wanted to question her about inappropriate social media posts.

That was a lie, Chief Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Schorn said.

Sullivan told detectives that Packer, a former Northampton County adoption supervisor, didn’t physically participate in the rape but stayed in the room.

She was enjoying herself voyeuristically,” Sullivan said.

He and Packer believed they had given Grace a fatal dose of sleep medication after the rape, he said, and expected to find her dead when they returned 12 hours later to the sweltering attic closet where they left her tied up.

Despite the drugs and heat, Grace was still alive, and had wriggled out of some of the zip ties binding her. On the tape, Sullivan was heard complaining to detectives that Grace was harder to strangle than he expected.

“It took a really long time,” he said, chuckling at times. “It was extraordinarily physical for me. It was a fight kind of thing.”

Sullivan told the detectives that raping someone was a longtime fantasy he had, one which Sara Packer wanted to see him act out on Grace, who was rebellious.

“She was really mad at Grace. It was a ‘I can finally control you’ type of thing,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan called Grace a “maelstrom” and said he and Packer decided that killing the teen as part of their fantasy would bring peace to their home, which they shared with Grace’s younger brother and Kate Albright, the third partner in their polyamorous relationship.

Sullivan said Albright did not know about the rape and murder.

“The thought was, that if we were going to exercise some kind of taboo, Grace was going to experience it,” he said. “Grace was destined for this.”

The hearing before Judge Diane E. Gibbons resumes Wednesday. Prosecutors are expected to rest their case before Packer takes the witness stand.”

Sullivan’s confession: Grace Packer looked to mom for help during rape
[The Morning Call 3/19/19 by Laurie Mason Schroeder]
“After reaching their verdict of a death sentence for Jacob Sullivan, his jurors were free to leave the Bucks County Justice Center and return to their lives, hopefully putting the horrific story of 14-year-old Grace Packer’s rape and murder behind them.

Instead, all 12 jurors and several alternates walked down the hall to the larger courtroom opened for Sullivan’s sentencing, to bear witness as Judge Diane E. Gibbons sent him to death row.

“We wanted to see it through,” said jury foreman Kevin McDermott. “You see stuff like this on television, but you’re never immersed in it. For two weeks, we were.”

McDermott and his colleagues deliberated for 12 hours over three days before choosing capital punishment for Sullivan, who 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.

As part of his plea, 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. Packer is expected to plead guilty to identical charges Friday and be sentenced to life in prison.

“You have no soul,” Gibbons told Sullivan, who sat stone-faced at the defense table. “I have never said that to another human being in my life, and I hope to not say it again, though I expect to say something similar to Sara Packer.”

The verdict capped a seven-day penalty phase hearing that featured horrific crime scene photos and Sullivan’s chillingly jovial confession to detectives. Calling them back into the room three times to add details, Sullivan was heard on tape laughing as he described the teen looking to her mother for help during the assault.

The pair then fed Grace what they believed to be a fatal dose of over-the-counter sleep medication before leaving her, gagged and hog-tied, in a sweltering attic for 12 hours.

Gibbons told the jurors that the evidence has kept her awake at night, and told them not to feel ashamed to seek counseling after their experience in court.

“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 as the death verdict was read, or when deputy sheriffs surrounded him and handcuffed him seconds later. He declined to make a statement, and did not look at Grace’s grandparents and other relatives who sat in the front row of the courtroom.

Gibbons called Sullivan a “monster,” and taunted him for asking detectives to make sure he was placed in protective custody in prison.

“Like the little baby you are, you asked them to protect you, because you’re scared of having done to you what you did to this child,” Gibbons said.

The judge told Sullivan he was also guilty of ignoring the way Sara Packer treated Grace. Witnesses testified that Packer, a former Northampton County adoption supervisor and foster parent who adopted Grace and her younger brother when they were toddlers, kept Grace mostly confined to her bedroom or a basement, hit her and spoke to her cruelly.

Yet in the family photos shown during the hearing, the judge noted, Grace was always laughing and smiling.

“Grace has a beautiful soul,” Gibbons said. “I believe there is a special place for Grace, and it’s not where you’re going.”

Gibbons said she was struck and saddened to learn during the hearing that Packer’s abuse of Grace had been going on for years before the murder, yet no one intervened.

“So ends the story of Grace Packer. We all let her down,” Gibbons said.

In addition to the death sentence, Gibbons imposed an additional and consecutive life sentence for Sullivan, plus 44 to 88 years in prison. Those sentences will only become relevant if Sullivan successfully appeals the death sentence. Death sentences in Pennsylvania trigger an automatic appeal.

District Attorney Matt Weintraub said Sullivan earned the harsh sentence.

“You could not write a horror movie with a worse script than what was done to Grace Packer,” he said.

Sullivan’s public defenders, Jack Fagan and Christina King, declined to comment after the verdict.

Abington police detective Cindy Pettinato called Sullivan’s death sentence “appropriate.” Pettinato started the case against Packer and Sullivan in July 2016, after Sara Packer reported Grace missing to her department, claiming the teen stole $300 and ran away from home. Prosecutors say it was Pettinato’s tenacity in hounding Sara Packer for information and then showing up, unannounced, at Sullivan and Packer’s home, where they were storing Grace’s body, that eventually led to the pair’s arrest.

“That was actually one of Sara’s biggest faults, thinking that it was not going to followed up properly,” Pettinato said. “It’s part of my job to protect kids, and I’ll make sure I always do that.”

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.

McDermott, the jury foreman, said that after hearing Sullivan’s taped confession, he was not surprised by Sullivan’s apparent lack of remorse in court.

“He met my expectation of a monster,” he said.

McDermott, a father of two from Wrightstown, said he watched Sullivan’s face closely throughout the hearing and only saw emotion when Sullivan’s relatives were testifying on his behalf. Sullivan even smiled, McDermott said, when one of his cousins verbally sparred with Chief Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Schorn, accusing her of getting facts wrong.

“I saw enjoyment of his face,” he said.

Dustin Hughes of Quakertown was juror No 12. When the jurors were polled on the death verdict, his voiced cracked with emotion as he confirmed that he agreed. Hughes said afterwards that he wasn’t upset. In fact, he said, despite the length of the deliberations, there wasn’t a lot of tension among jurors. It took time to go over the facts, he said, and everyone wanted to be sure they were making the right choice.

“I sounded like I was crying, but I think I was just feeling closure,” Hughes said. “Hearing the judge talk, I knew that I did do the right thing.”

McDermott said he hoped his work on the jury ensured that Grace Packer would be remembered.

“At the end of the day, I hope we gave her a voice,” he said.”

Judge in sentencing Jacob Sullivan to death for Grace Packer murder: ‘You have no soul’
[The Morning Call 3/29/19 by Laurie Mason Schroeder]

“Of all the missed opportunities before 14-year-old Grace Packer was horrifically murdered, one has long stood at the center of scrutiny as Pennsylvania asks why its child welfare network failed to protect her.

In 2010, Grace’s adoptive father, David Packer, was arrested for sexually abusing her and an older foster daughter in their Allentown home. Yet state and Lehigh County authorities ultimately allowed Grace to return to the care of Packer’s wife, Sara Packer, her adoptive mother who would go on to kill her six years later as part of a rape-murder fantasy.

If Grace had been removed from the home, her life may not have ended in a sweltering attic in Richland Township, Bucks County, where she was bound, gagged and eventually strangled by Sara Packer’s new paramour, Jacob Sullivan. But officials have long said that when they investigated the 2010 abuse allegations, they couldn’t prove that Sara Packer was part of her then-husband’s crimes.

Two separate child-fatality investigations released this month, however, show that authorities knew far more in 2010 about Packer’s role than they had publicly disclosed. In an interview with a forensic evaluator at the time, Packer confessed to having three-way sex with her husband and the older foster daughter, albeit after the foster daughter was over the legal age of consent, the reports said.

Lehigh County social services was aware of that admission before it returned Grace and her younger brother, Joshua, to Packer’s care, said the reports, one by the state Department of Human Services, the other by the children and youth agencies of Bucks and Montgomery counties.

The investigations charged that Lehigh County and Forensic Treatment Services, the Allentown practice that evaluated Packer, mishandled her confession, treating her sexual relationship with the foster daughter as consensual and not as a warning sign that Packer was willing to violate parent-child boundaries.

The reports were both heavily redacted, with almost all names and many details blacked out. But The Morning Call reviewed an unredacted version of the counties’ report.

“The nature of Ms. Packer’s involvement in the sexual abuse of a foster child, per her own admission and documented in the sexual offender’s evaluation, did not result in the removal of Grace from her care and did not prevent Grace from returning home,” the report said. “Despite the history of sexual abuse, numerous unfounded and indicated sexual abuse reports, and Ms. Packer’s admission of active involvement in sexual abuse of a foster child, Grace and Joshua were returned to Ms. Packer’s care.”

One expert in child welfare called the handling of Packer’s self-admitted behavior “absurd.”

“Best practice would suggest at that moment, with this highly sexualized household and worrisome adult-child relationships going on, they should have taken a deep breath and asked some deep questions,” said Frank Cervone, a Philadelphia lawyer and executive director of the Support Center for Child Advocates, which provides legal representation to abused and neglected children.

Kerry Freidl, the supervising attorney for Lehigh County Children and Youth Services, released a prepared statement Thursday that did not directly address the findings of the reports. He declined a request for further comment.

“The death of any child is tragic and we are committed to protecting children from abuse and neglect,” Freidl wrote. “The Lehigh County Office of Children and Youth operates within the regulations and statutes dictated by the Pennsylvania State Office of Children, Youth, and Families that also mandate, among other things, strict confidentiality of the information in our possession.”

That authorities were aware Packer engaged in sex with a foster child was not disclosed by Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin during a January 2017 interview with The Morning Call about David Packer’s prosecution, which was sparked by the allegations involving the older foster daughter and was expanded six months later after Grace revealed that she had also been abused.
Could a new commission help Pennsylvania better protect kids like Grace Packer? »

At the time, Martin said investigators did not turn up any evidence that Sara Packer knew her husband had molested Grace. She did admit knowing that David Packer had sexual contact with the older foster daughter, but after the girl turned 18, Martin said.

On Tuesday, the Lehigh District Attorney’s Office acknowledged that investigators were aware Sara Packer was a participant in that sexual activity.

“Yes, the police knew but there was nothing to prosecute because the girl was over 18,” said Chief Deputy District Attorney Matthew Falk, who oversees sex crimes prosecutions. “After that, Allentown police notified Lehigh County Children and Youth, and Lehigh County Children and Youth notified Northampton County Children and Youth.”

According to the counties’ report, the older foster daughter claimed she was “tied up during sex with Mr & Ms. Packer” and “believed she was going to be Mr. Packer’s second wife.”

When the 2010 investigation began, both Grace, then 8, and Joshua, then 5, were initially removed from the house, the reports said.
What changes should be made at the state level in the wake of Grace Packer’s death? »

Caseworkers from the state and Lehigh County placed Grace with David Packer’s parents and Joshua with Sara Packer’s parents, under an informal “safety plan” that did not require court involvement, the counties’ report said. Both reports raised concerns about the appropriateness of Grace’s placement after she disclosed she’d been abused by David Packer, considering she was living with his parents.

Sara and David Packer were referred for sex offender evaluations at Forensic Treatment Services. In describing Sara Packer’s evaluation, the counties’ report gives these details:

“Ms. Packer had photographs of a 17-year-old foster child with her hands tied and holding a rope and said it was for a Goth clothing line that Mr. Packer was starting,” according to the report, which unlike the state report and Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office, gave the girl’s age as 17, not 18.
“Ms. Packer admitted to engaging in sex with her husband and a foster daughter.”

The reports said that despite Packer’s admissions, she was referred to “non-offending parent” treatment. The state report said the evaluation concluded Packer could serve as a caretaker for her adopted children and did not identify it as an abusive matter given the older foster child’s age.

“The evaluation failed to speak to the parent/child relationship within the context of this sexual activity,” the state report said.

Psychologist Veronique Valliere, the president of Forensic Treatment Services, which conducted the evaluation, defended her company’s work, saying it has a reputation with the courts of being overprotective of children.

“All I can say is that it would be a misstatement that that behavior wasn’t taken seriously or wouldn’t be taken seriously,” Valliere said.

The reports called for greater information sharing between child welfare agencies and the evaluators they contract with. When Forensic Treatment Services assessed Sara Packer, it was aware only of the older foster child’s allegations against David Packer, and not Grace’s and her larger history of abuse, they noted. That prevented “a more throughout evaluation and more appropriate recommendations concerning the safety and well-being of Grace,” the state report said.

“Each time something like this happens, my staff and I examine what we know about the situation,” Valliere said. “If we were involved in any way, we agonize about what we might have done differently and do case reviews to see if we missed anything or failed with our part of the responsibility. We make changes if we see anything.”

Sara and David Packer were prolific foster parents, taking in dozens of children over the years. Sara Packer was also a social worker, and was working at the Northampton County Children, Youth and Families Division as its adoption supervisor when the investigation began in January 2010.

A day after the probe was launched, Northampton County suspended Packer from her job, and she was fired three months later. The Impact Project of Emmaus, a former employer of Packer’s who placed foster children with her and her family, immediately closed the house on North Fulton Street in Allentown as a foster home.

Kevin Dolan, the administrator of Northampton County Children and Youth, said his office was not involved in the Lehigh County investigation and was not privy to its findings.

“All I can tell you is we released her the first moment we knew anything and that was the last I saw her,” Dolan said.
Many red flags

David Packer, now 42, ultimately received an 18-month to five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2011 to sexually abusing both girls. Authorities said the abuse against the older foster daughter, who was from Delaware County and had intellectual disabilities, began when she was 15.

Sara Packer and Sullivan, her boyfriend, murdered Grace in July 2016, dismembering her body and dumping the remains in Luzerne County, where they were found by hunters. Packer, 44, was sentenced last month to life in prison under a plea agreement; Sullivan received a death sentence from a Bucks County jury.

The two child-fatality reports were required under a 2009 law known as Act 33, which mandates an investigation by the state and county whenever a minor dies or nearly dies while passing through child protective services. The release of the reports came as lawmakers in Harrisburg are calling for reforms to ensure that Grace’s fate doesn’t befall other children in Pennsylvania.
From the newsroom: Why reporting horrid details of Grace Packer murder was necessary »

The investigations found that many red flags were raised about Grace’s safety up until her death, yet as her family moved from county to county, child welfare agencies were unable to share their findings with each other, the services provided to Grace were ineffective and clear warning signs were ignored.

The reports proposed a slew of changes to the child welfare system, including improving documentation, slowing the process in which child abuse complaints are destroyed, and addressing the high-turnover and chronic understaffing of agencies.

In both reports, Lehigh County was given credit for having one caseworker who consistently worked with the family, saying that they were provided many professional services.

When Grace and her brother were allowed to return to Sara Packer’s home, it was done without Lehigh County consulting its solicitor or seeking court intervention, the reports said.

After David Packer moved out of the house in July 2010, Joshua returned, followed in August 2010 by Grace, who had been hospitalized at KidsPeace, which treated her for aggressive and self-injurious behavior.

Whether a judge would have kept Grace and Joshua from the home is an unanswered question, two experts in child welfare told The Morning Call. Because they were Sara Packer’s adopted children, she had parental rights that are difficult to remove, they said.

While an allegation of sex with an older foster daughter is inappropriate and troubling, it may not have been enough to prove in court that Packer was a danger to Grace, said George Kovarie, an instructor of social work at Kutztown University and the former director of Berks County’s child welfare agency.

“Remember that the system is replete with due process rights and burdens of proof that must be met,” Kovarie said.
Sara Packer sentenced to life and then some for killing daughter with boyfriend. “Evil attracts evil,” judge tells her. »

“As nasty as it sounds, they are the parents now,” he said.

Cervone, the Philadelphia attorney who advocates for neglected children, said the county would have needed to prove that Packer’s treatment of the older foster daughter showed she was also a danger to Grace.

Cervone said that argument should have been made in court, even if it wasn’t guaranteed to be successful.

“The county should have valued this problem. They should have valued this fact as a problem, something that shouldn’t be ignored,” Cervone said.

Cathleen Palm, founder of the Center for Children’s Justice, a nonprofit advocacy group in Berks County, said the reports’ revelations are heartbreaking.

“Could she be safe if her adoptive mother did not seem to have a problem with such a boundary being crossed by having sex with a foster child?” Palm asked. “Any reasonable person reading this, even with all the blacked out redactions, says, ‘What? You left her in the home?'”

Some state lawmakers have called for a comprehensive review of the child welfare system, modeled on a juvenile justice commission created after the 2008 “kids for cash” scandal, in which Luzerne County judges accepted kickbacks for steering children to for-profit detention centers.

Last week, the chairs of two powerful House panels ― Rep. Rob Kauffman, R-Franklin, of the Judiciary Committee and Rep. Karen Boback , R-Luzerne, of the Children and Youth Committee — asked the state’s inspector general to review how the Department of Human Services handled Grace’s case, saying the state needs to find out why the system failed her.

“It’s something that I think as folks in government we should be ashamed of,” Kauffman told his committee on Monday.

Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub, who prosecuted Packer and Sullivan, said he has long been focused on winning their convictions and seeing that justice was done. But it has always been in the back of his mind, he said, that once that happened, the attention needed to shift to preventing deaths like Grace’s from happening again.

“Clearly, if more were done, she would be alive today,” Weintraub said. “I think that conclusion is inescapable.”
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