Jacob Sullivan, 46, is facing first-degree murder and the possibility of the death penalty.
Sullivan is accused of raping and killing 14-year-old Grace Packer.
According to charging documents, after he tried to kill himself, he gave a full confession to police, implicating the girl’s foster mother and his girlfriend, Sara Packer.
The complaint says he and Sara Packer began planning the murder of her foster daughter, Grace, back in the fall of 2015. In July 2016, police say he sexually assaulted the girl in the attic of their Quakertown home while Sara Packer watched. The two then drugged and gagged her and left her for dead. In the morning, when they found her still alive, the complaint says Sullivan told police he choked her to death.
The complaint says the couple stored the body in a bin filled with cat litter for months, until a police officer came to the home to follow up on a missing persons report. They dumped the body in a Luzerne County field where it was found on Oct. 31, 2016.
Sullivan and Sara Packer will be tried separately.
Jury selection starts Tuesday, but the trial won’t start until March 14.