A Chicago woman is facing federal time in connection to helping her boyfriend kill her mother and hiding her body inside a suitcase in a decades-old slaughter.
Heather Mack pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill her mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, back in 2014. Police say the two arrived in Bali for vacation but Mack, who was 18 at the time, stole her mother’s credit card to fly in her boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer. Prosecutors claim the two made a scheme to access a $1.5 million trust fund and accused Schaefer of beating Wiese-Mack to death with a fruit bowl. Prosecutors claimed the two stuffed her body into a suitcase but say Mack was the “driving force” behind the killing.
The nation had their eyes on the alleged killer couple after photos of the suitcase circulated the media, featuring the luggage smeared with blood and seeming too small to fit the body of an adult woman.
Mack spent seven years in Indonesian prison on charges stemming from the incident, per The AP’s report. She also had a child behind bars, which she was pregnant with around the time of the murder. When she was deported to the US in 2021, she was arrested once she landed in Chicago and charged with federal counts.
Now, prosecutors are trying to determine how much time she deserves to spend behind bars over here.
Read more from The Associated Press:
Federal prosecutors in Chicago are recommending a 28-year prison sentence for an American woman who pleaded guilty to helping kill her mother and stuffing the body in a suitcase during a luxury vacation at a Bali resort nearly a decade ago.
The government also is seeking five years of supervised release for Mack, a fine of $250,000 and restitution of $262,708. In a filing Wednesday, prosecutors said the recommended sentence “is warranted and sufficient, but not greater than necessary to serve a just and appropriate punishment for Mack’s heinous crime.”
As for her boyfriend, Schaefer was found guilty of murder and remains in Indonesian prison serving an 18-year sentence, the report says. Once deported back to the US, he faces additional charges. Mack’s daughter, now 6 years old, was placed in custody of a relative upon her mother’s arrest.