On Friday, November 21, 2014, Jessica Padgett, a 33-year-old mother of Whitehall Township, Pennsylvania, who worked at a daycare center in Northampton, vanished in the middle of her workday.
A Routine Friday
Jessica began the Friday before Thanksgiving with her usual routine. She dropped her two older children at school, then took her two-year-old son to Duck Duck Goose, the daycare center where she worked and where he spent his days. They arrived at 8:30 a.m.
That afternoon, Jessica told her co-workers that she needed to leave on her lunch break to send a fax to her health care provider. The daycare’s fax machine was not working, but she knew where she could find another.
Her mother, Danelle, and stepfather, Gregory Graf, lived four miles away and ran a fencing business from their property. Jessica worked there part time and knew they had a fax machine.
Her break lasted only 30 minutes, and the round trip was expected to take a little more than 20. She left at 12:50 p.m., telling her colleagues she would be right back.
Within minutes of leaving, she sent a Facebook message to her sister, Kristi, who was nine months pregnant, saying she wanted to be present when her niece was born. At 1:00 p.m., she phoned her husband, Michael, who goes by Micah. No one heard from her again.
By 2:00 p.m., her co-workers had grown worried and called Micah, a construction worker. The two had been together for eight years and had married on September 6, two months earlier.
They had two children together. Jessica was known for staying in close contact with the people in her life, so her silence alarmed him. He called her cell phone repeatedly and received no answer.
Micah then reached Danelle, who was in Florida shopping for carpet for a house she and her husband were building there. She told him to call Graf. When Micah did, Graf said Jessica had not stopped by that day and that he had not seen her.
Danelle, unable to reach her daughter herself, boarded the first flight back to Pennsylvania. Micah reported his wife missing, and police issued an attempt to locate.
An Abandoned Car
Police pinged Jessica’s cell phone, and the signal led them to a Dollar General on Main Street, about a mile from the daycare. In a space far from the store sat Jessica’s white Subaru Outback. It was unlocked. Inside were her car keys, her cell phone, and her wallet, which still held her bank cards and identification.
The discovery alarmed her family and friends further. Jessica was known as consistent and dependable, and they were certain she would never willingly leave her husband and children.
Search parties formed in the community. Because Northampton’s police department was small, it quickly requested help from the Pennsylvania State Police.
District Attorney John Morganelli said, “I believe the state police are moving in the right direction. We’re treating this as a criminal investigation. We’re still optimistic that Miss Padgett will resurface, hopefully without any harm or injury.”
Investigators then turned to surveillance footage. The Dollar General’s cameras did not capture the Subaru because it was parked too far back, but Tanczos Beer Distributor, across the street, had cameras aimed directly at it.
The video showed the Subaru entering the lot at 1:13 p.m. and parking. A figure stepped out, stood alone beside the vehicle for a time, and then walked away through an alley between a pet store and the town magistrate’s office. The figure was not seen returning to the car.
Detectives next considered the route Jessica would have taken between the daycare and her parents’ home, which passed many businesses with cameras.
An Exxon station at 2428 Main Street, about a mile and a half from the daycare, recorded the white Subaru driving toward the Graf home at 12:56 p.m.
It moved at a normal speed and obeyed traffic rules, and the timing matched Jessica’s departure at 12:50. At 1:10 p.m., the same station’s cameras recorded the Subaru traveling back from the direction of the home toward the daycare. This time it moved faster and cut through the station’s parking lot to avoid a red light.
Conflicting Accounts
Detectives also interviewed Jessica’s family, including Danelle and Graf. Graf said Jessica had asked earlier to use his fax machine, but that he had been out on errands for his business when she would have arrived.
She had her own key, he said. He added that his fax machine was not working and had not worked for some time. He described his stepdaughter as someone who attracted “losers” and said he disliked her husband.
Micah was questioned as well. He had been driven to work that morning by a friend, leaving his truck at home, and did not have access to it until after 2:00 p.m. His co-workers and managers confirmed that he was at work during the period in which Jessica vanished.
With no leads, investigators revisited the footage of the Subaru in the Dollar General lot, this time on a high-definition screen. The clearer image showed that the figure leaving the car was not Jessica but a much larger person, a man at least six feet tall. After stepping out, he crouched beside the driver’s seat and moved it forward.
Detectives then searched for the man’s means of escape. Footage from nearby roads showed a white truck driving west toward the Graf home 50 seconds after the man disappeared into the alley.
The truck was distinctive: a white Ford F-150 with a camper attached and a black stripe along the bottom. One officer recalled seeing an identical vehicle at the Graf residence while questioning Graf about Jessica’s disappearance.
Graf was brought in for questioning again and asked to explain the presence of his truck at the same place and time as Jessica’s abandoned car. He said he had driven into town to have the truck repaired at a service station behind the alley.
He had asked his neighbor and friend, Karen Gundrum, to help with the drop-off and bring him home, he said, but at the last minute he decided against the repair and left.
Karen told detectives that she had not driven Graf anywhere that day, that he had not asked her to, and that she had not even seen him. After Jessica went missing, she added, Graf had asked her to lie to Jessica’s brother, Jeremy, about it.
Graf had also said that he stopped at the Exxon station around 1:30 p.m. for lunch before going home to pay his employees. Station footage showed his truck passing without stopping. His employees confirmed he was home at 3:30 p.m. handing out paychecks, in good spirits, talkative, and even joking.
On November 24, Graf was interviewed a third time about the holes in his account. He now admitted that Karen had not driven him into town. When he got home on November 21, he said, Jessica’s car was in his driveway, but she was nowhere to be found.
Frightened, he moved the Subaru to the Dollar General lot. Jessica had previously told him, he said, that she was in financial trouble and that people were after her.
Detectives concluded that Graf was the person seen driving Jessica’s car on the surveillance video and that he had been home when she would have arrived.
That same day, Danelle gave police permission to search the home she shared with Graf. She had returned from Florida on November 22, and Graf, who met her at the airport, had assured her that everything would be fine and that Jessica would be found.
She now directed officers to a pair of tan sandals her husband always wore. Since her return, she had noticed, the straps were missing.
Officers found the straps in a basement garbage can beside the washer and dryer. A chemical test indicated that they were stained with human blood.
The can also held a product made for cleaning the inside of washing machines and a paper towel that tested positive for human blood.
Elsewhere in the house, the fax machine worked, and its history showed that a fax bearing Jessica’s signature had been sent successfully to a local health care facility.
The home computer had also been used on November 24 to search for local landfills, and only Danelle and Graf had access to it that day. Early that morning, Graf had called Marth’s Disposal Service and asked it to collect his trash.
On November 25, Graf gave his wife yet another version. He said that after arriving home on November 21 he had seen Jessica’s car and then found bloodstains inside the house, and that he had moved the car out of fear that no one would believe him.
Turning Point
On November 25, troopers returned to the Graf home to ask about the bloody paper towel found in the basement garbage can. Graf did not answer Trooper Barton’s question.
Instead, he paused and asked for a cigarette, and Barton accompanied him upstairs to get one. There Barton mentioned Graf’s two German pointers, Nash and Jade, and Graf replied, “It’s a shame I’m not going to get to see them anymore.” Barton then took him to the police station, where Graf gave a full and detailed confession.
He said Jessica had asked in advance to use the fax machine, so he knew she was coming. She sat down at the office computer with her back to him.
Graf went to a nearby closet, took out a .22-caliber semi-automatic weapon he often used for hunting, and shot her in the back of the head, killing her instantly. He dragged her body to a spare bedroom at the back of the first floor.
Knowing he had little time, Graf said, he drove Jessica’s Subaru to the Dollar General. “I drove like a madman,” he told police, describing how he cut through the Exxon parking lot.
He returned the driver’s seat to its earlier position so that it would appear Jessica had been the last person to drive the car. He then left in his truck and went home.
When he was alone again, Graf said, he went to the back bedroom. He put a bag over Jessica’s head because he did not want to see her and the blood unsettled him.
He placed her body on a bed, set up two video cameras, and filmed himself committing sexual acts on her. Graf admitted that he had killed his stepdaughter in order to do this. The detectives in the room, who had not anticipated such a motive, were shocked.
Graf then wrapped Jessica’s body in a blanket and left it on his property next to a shed, covering it with leaves and debris. The property spanned seven acres, and Graf drew investigators a diagram showing where she lay. On November 26, state police recovered her body from that spot.
That day, District Attorney Morganelli announced that Jessica was dead, the victim of a homicide, and that he had authorized a charge of criminal homicide against her stepfather.
The investigation had focused on Graf early, he said, because of inconsistencies between his statements and the information state police were developing.
Graf was charged with first-degree murder, which requires premeditation, and abuse of a corpse, which prosecutors described as a misdemeanor.
At a brief court appearance, Graf asked for a publicly funded lawyer, saying his assets were held jointly with Danelle and he did not want to deplete them. Morganelli rejected the argument, noting that Graf’s own financial statements showed he could afford counsel.
On December 9, 2014, Morganelli announced that investigators had been trying to determine whether the sexual abuse occurred only after Jessica’s death or before it as well.
They had concluded that it happened only afterward, so he could not seek the death penalty. Under Pennsylvania law, a murder committed during a felony is an aggravating factor that allows prosecutors to seek capital punishment, and rape qualifies, but necrophilia and desecration of a corpse do not.
In the Courtroom
On December 19, Graf hired Philadelphia attorney Jack McMahon, who had spent 12 years in that city’s district attorney’s office, the last eight in its homicide unit.
On February 1, 2015, Graf waived his right to a preliminary hearing after his defense team viewed the recorded video. McMahon said he would seek a mental health evaluation, although he knew of no prior mental health problems, and that he believed his client had suffered an instantaneous breakdown.
Morganelli replied that he saw no illness or diminished capacity that would have prevented Graf from forming a specific intent to kill, and that he would seek a first-degree murder conviction, which requires proof of premeditation.
In August, McMahon asked Judge Steven Barata to postpone the September trial, citing a death penalty case he was to begin in Philadelphia. Morganelli objected that the state was ready, with 40 witnesses interviewed and cleared, but jury selection was moved to November 2.
In October, Morganelli complained that the defense psychologist’s report, due by court order on October 1, had not been delivered.
Opening statements began on November 10. Morganelli told the jury that Graf had planned the killing for a time when his wife would be out of town. The day before the murder, Graf had bought sex toys, which Danelle said the couple had never used, and cleaning supplies including a mop from Miller Supply Ace Hardware.
The store’s manager, who knew Graf as a regular customer, said the items were unlike his usual purchases. On the day of the murder, he had also left his truck near the spot where Jessica’s car would be abandoned.
McMahon conceded that Graf had killed Jessica and was responsible for what the video showed, but argued that he should not be convicted of first-degree murder. “Something snapped in this good man’s mind on that date,” he said. “Something happened that wasn’t planned.”
At trial, Shannan Tumini, a co-worker, testified that Graf had called Jessica repeatedly on November 21, saying he needed help with a computer program.
Kaylee Hilligrass, a friend, said she saw Graf at his home that evening wiping his hands and foot with a paper towel, and that blood remained on it when he threw it away.
Graf’s daughter, Heather Fuches, said he had steered searchers away from his backyard by claiming it had already been checked. Roger Marth, the company’s owner, said Graf’s early-morning request for a pickup surprised him, because Danelle typically called, and always in the afternoon.
His employee, Shawn Holland, said the bin was only half full and that items usually stuck out of the top. It held Jessica’s bloody clothing.
Danelle, now using the surname Bitner, testified that when Graf was arrested, his last words to her were “I love you,” and that he had called her from jail three times. She never asked him for an explanation.
When McMahon asked whether anything in Graf’s relationship with Jessica had ever concerned her, she answered that it had all been a complete and utter surprise.
Audio of Graf’s police interview was played for the jury. Asked why he had gotten the gun, Graf said only that a “crazy thought” had come into his head. He said he had not spoken to Jessica beforehand, and when asked whether he knew he was going to shoot her, he answered, “No, absolutely not.”
He also said he regretted not choosing Karen Gundrum, then 46, as his victim: “I would have gotten away with it. No one would have known.”
On the last day of the trial, the jury of nine men and three women watched the video, which consisted of eight recordings made over two hours with two cameras. One juror’s eyes filled with tears, and another sat motionless with a hand over his mouth.
The defense called no witnesses. After deliberating for only six minutes, the jury found Graf guilty of first-degree murder, which brings life in prison without parole, and of abuse of a corpse, which added one to two years, the maximum for that charge.
The verdict came on Friday, November 13, 2015, and Graf was sentenced immediately, with the two sentences to be served consecutively.
Asked by the judge whether he had anything to say, Graf answered, “All I can say is I’m sorry and I wish this hadn’t happened.” Judge Barata then told him, “This is a crime against human nature. What you did violates basic family bonds.”
Jessica’s sister, Kristi, called Graf the most selfish person in the world, saying he could have accepted the punishment he knew was coming instead of forcing her family to endure a trial.
A week after the trial ended, a bench was dedicated to Jessica at Riverwalk Park, where she had spent many afternoons playing with her children. “Jess brought her kids here,” Danelle said. “This was their special spot.”
After the Verdict
In October 2016, Micah filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Graf in Northampton County Court on behalf of himself and the children he shared with Jessica, seeking funeral expenses, lost wages, retirement benefits, and punitive damages.
The suit was filed in hopes of reaching Graf’s assets for the benefit of Jessica’s children, and the extent of his remaining wealth was unclear.
In July 2017, Graf also contested the terms of his divorce from Danelle. Appearing by video feed from prison at a hearing on July 17, he said he had never agreed to terms that would give him 25 percent of the couple’s shared assets.
McMahon said Graf had been happy with the agreement when it was reached in February; Graf said he felt abandoned by his lawyer.
That same day, Graf filed a 12-page handwritten petition seeking a new trial on the ground that McMahon had been ineffective. In it, he claimed for the first time that he had been high on mushrooms and marijuana and drunk, had argued with Jessica, and had blacked out in anger before shooting her.
Morganelli called the claims frivolous and noted that Graf omitted what he did afterward. News reports at the time said a judge was reviewing the petition. As of May 2025 reporting, Graf was serving his sentence of life without parole in a state prison in Fayette County.
The case also prompted legislation. In May 2025, State Representative Zachary Mako (R-Lehigh, Northampton) announced “Jessica’s Law,” which would make the desecration or mutilation of a corpse an aggravating circumstance that may qualify a defendant for the death penalty in Pennsylvania.
A bill with that language, House Bill 1952, was introduced on October 16, 2025, with Mako as prime sponsor and seven co-sponsors, one of them a Democrat, and was referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
Who Jessica Was
Jessica spent her life in a small town where neighbors know one another and families tend to stay. She graduated from Whitehall High School in 1998. Her parents, Danelle and Thomas, divorced when she was young, but she stayed close to both.
Her stepfather had been part of her life since she was 11, and she regarded his son and daughter as her own siblings.
As children, Jessica and a cousin were constant companions because their parents lived on the same street. As adults, Jessica bought her parents’ house and her cousin bought her own parents’ house, so they stayed close in every sense.
Her children were the center of her world. She was a devoted mother and a loving stepmother, and she gave them all the time and energy she had.
She was studying early childhood education at Lehigh Carbon Community College to build a better future for them, and at Duck Duck Goose her gentle nature and bright smile made her a favorite with co-workers and children alike.
Before her honeymoon, a friend recalled, she struggled so much to leave her children that she returned repeatedly for more kisses before she could finally drive away.
Those who knew Jessica describe her as lighthearted and trusting, someone who made the people around her feel safe and loved. She believed that family meant safety.
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