<P> On December 6 , 1973 , 14 - year - old Susie Salmon takes her usual shortcut home from her school through a cornfield in Norristown , Pennsylvania . George Harvey , her 36 - year - old neighbor who lives alone and builds doll houses for a living , persuades her to have a look at an underground den he has recently dug in the field . Once she enters , he rapes and murders her , then dismembers her body , putting her remains in a safe that he dumps in a sinkhole . Susie 's spirit flees toward her personal heaven , and in doing so , rushes past one of her classmates , social outcast Ruth Connors . </P>
what did the killer do to susie in the lovely bones
rapes murders dismembers her body