Heather Mack plea hearing: ‘Suitcase killer’ pleads guilty in US over Bali murder of socialite mom

Heather Mack – whose father was late musician James L Mack – and boyfriend Tommy Schaefer murdered her mother Sheila von Wiese-Mack at a luxury 5-star resort in Bali in 2014

Woman's body found in suitcase

“Suitcase killer” Heather Mack has pleaded guilty in a Chicago court today over the 2014 murder of her socialite mother in Bali, bringing some sort of conclusion to the shocking case.

In August 2014, Mack, then 18 and pregnant, and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, then 21, bludgeoned Sheila von Weise-Mack, 62, to death with a metal fruit stand while on vacation at the luxury 5-star St Regis resort on the Indonesian island.

The couple, who described themselves as “Bonnie and Clyde” in chilling text messages, then stuffed her body in a suitcase and left it in the trunk of a taxi.

They were both convicted of premeditated murder in Indonesia – narrowly escaping death by firing squad.

After serving seven years in a Bali jail (where her daughter was born), Mack was extradited to the US where she was arrested on arrival in Chicago and hit with fresh charges of conspiracy to murder in a foreign country in November 2021.

Since then, she has been behind bars fighting the charges but had a change of heart and decided to take a plea deal.

Key points

• Heather Mack pleads guilty in Chicago court
• ‘Suitcase killer’ reveals gives reasoning for plea deal
• Sheila von Wiese-Mack’s body found in suitcase in Bali in 2014

[17 June 2023 03:45 · Oliver O'Connell]

Prosecutors revealed that she had flown her lover out on a $12,000 business-class ticket just hours earlier charged to her mother’s credit card. Surveillance footage later captured the trio arguing in the hotel lobby after he arrived.

Less than 12 hours after he flew in, Mack was dead.

Chilling text messages later surfaced showing how the couple likened themselves to the notorious duo Bonnie & Clyde and plotted methods of murder with the help of Schafer’s cousin.

They were both convicted of premeditated murder in Indonesia and narrowly avoided facing the firing squad.

[17 June 2023 04:45 · Oliver O'Connell]

After Mack served seven years in an Indonesian jail, she was extradited to the US where she was arrested on charges of conspiracy to murder in a foreign country in November 2021.

Since then, she has been behind bars in Illinois awaiting trial and had been fighting against the charges, insisting that she had served her time for her crime in Indonesia.

Earlier this month, she then revealed her intentions to take a plea bargain in the case.

[17 June 2023 05:45 · Oliver O'Connell]

Speaking to The New York Post last week, Mack said: “I have served nearly 10 years in prison. I felt that I had done my time, so I was gung-ho for trial,” she said.

“Now, after sitting for so long, I know what I have to do. I’m going to be a felon in America, and that is fine. I understand from [the US government’s] perspective that, if I don’t plead guilty and they didn’t indict me, I wouldn’t be a felon.”

She added: “I could become a police officer and work for the government… I could carry a firearm on the street.”

The exact terms of the plea deal were unclear, but Mack said she is looking at a sentence of zero to 25 years, including time served.

“So if they gave me 15 or even 18 years. I wouldn’t even have that much more time because of time served,” she told Business Insider.

“A good thing about my plea is that the maximum supervised release used to be ten years, and now it’s five years. If I did get the full five years of supervised release, I could be out in a year and a half or two years with good behaviour.”

[17 June 2023 07:45 · Oliver O'Connell]

Mack’s family reacts to ‘mastermind’ killer’s guilty plea

The devastated family of murdered socialite Sheila von Wiese-Mack have welcomed the plea deal reached with her “mastermind” killer daughter Heather Mack.

William Wiese and Debbi Curran, von Wiese-Mack’s siblings, released a statement on Friday after Mack finally pleaded guilty to her part in her mother’s murder, more than eight years after the 62-year-old’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase at a luxury 5-star resort in Bali.

Here’s what they said:

[17 June 2023 09:45 · Oliver O'Connell]

In-depth: Heather Mack’s mother feared her daughter would kill her. Police were powerless to prevent it

The world first heard the story of American teenager Heather Mack and her mother Sheila von Wiese-Mack when the 62-year-old’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase in Indonesia.

But the story actually begins many years earlier.

Behind the headlines about the so-called “Suitcase Killer” is a tragic story of a mother who endured years of domestic violence at the hands of her child inside the home they shared in the Oak Park suburb of Chicago.

Abuse which ultimately escalated to that day in 2014 when the 18-year-old and her 21-year-old boyfriend bludgeoned her to death at a 5-star resort in Bali.

Rasul Freelain, a retired Oak Park Police sergeant who arrested Mack multiple times for allegedly abusing her mother, tells The Independent that the warning signs were there as soon as he met the pair for the first time back in 2010.

Rachel Sharp reports.

[17 June 2023 10:45 · Oliver O'Connell]

History of violence

In the years leading up to the murder, police records reveal that officers responded to a string of violent incidents committed by Mack against her mother at their home in Illinois.

Oak Park Police records show at least 35 interactions with officers since 2008 including reports of Mack breaking her mother’s arm, biting her and punching her. The records also include reports of stealing credit cards and money – an apparent motive for the murder.

While only Mack now knows when the violence first began, the first record of police being called to the home came in April 2008 for a report that the then-13-year-old had locked her mother in a room and threatened her.

The next police report came in January 2010 when Mack allegedly punched her mother’s broken ankle.

Sgt Freelain first met von Wiese-Mack in November of that year when she reported that her daughter had stolen her credit card and $1,060 cash.

A detective specialising in youth and family issues at the time, he was assigned the case and says he met von Wiese-Mack in person and spoke with her on the phone several times. It was also the first time he met Mack, then aged 15.

After interviewing her, Mack admitted that she stole her mother’s credit card but denied stealing the cash.

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[17 June 2023 11:45 · Oliver O'Connell]

“In that first meeting, I certainly saw how Sheila was torn in terms of what to do about Heather,” Sgt Freelain recalls.

“She suspected and then knew that she had stolen from her but didn’t want to follow through on pressing charges against her daughter which is understandable but as things progressed that infliction would make things very difficult for us to be able to help Sheila.

“In that first meeting it was clear something was wrong – in terms of both the financial side of things but also her daughter’s behaviour.

“But it was the next time when I met Sheila in February 2011, that alarm bells really went off.”

Sgt Freelain says that von Wiese-Mack turned up at the police department that night with her right arm broken and in a cast.

In one violent incident that January, Mack had pushed her mother causing her to fall and break arm, according to a police report later filed.

“Her body language – she looked so beaten back,” Sgt Freelain says of that day in February 2011.

“In November, it was clear there was some kind of domestic dynamic that wasn’t good but Sheila hadn’t been forthright in elaborating about what was going on.

“But that night I got her more comfortable talking and she opened up about the physical and verbal abuse. We established a good rapport that night that stayed over the next two-and-a-half years.”

Von Wiese-Mack told him what had happened to her arm.

“I told her ‘I’ve worked with families where the kids abuse the parents and it doesn’t fix itself’,” he says.

“I told her about one case where a kid went on to murder their mother.”

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[17 June 2023 12:45 · Oliver O'Connell]

But when Sgt Freelain says he told von Wiese-Mack that they would have to arrest Mack and that she needed to press charges over the alleged attack, he says “reality hit” and she ran out of the police precinct.

“She was so fearful of the idea of Heather being arrested,” he says.

“I figured I would never see her again but she came back the next day to say she’d been attacked by Heather again.

“An officer came and got me from the detective division and said a ‘woman is asking for you’.

“I went out and it was Sheila Mack. She had been attacked and was crying and said ‘I’m sorry, I should have listened to you. Can you help me?’”

He adds: “And that was the first day that I arrested Heather.”

On 17 February 2011, Mack was arrested for the first time for domestic battery over the January attack on her mother that resulted in her broken arm.

This marked a major step forward for von Wiese-Mack.

Up until that point, Sgt Freelain says there was a pattern of her calling 911 to report Mack’s alleged attacks but then refusing to cooperate when police urged her to press charges.

But it was a cycle von Wiese-Mack ultimately couldn’t get out of.

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[17 June 2023 13:45 · Oliver O'Connell]

‘Suitcase killer’ Heather Mack pleads guilty to conspiracy to murder

“Suitcase killer” Heather Mack is facing up to 28 years in US prison after she pleaded guilty to conspiring to murder her socialite mother Sheila von Wiese-Mack at a luxury 5-star resort in Bali back in 2014 – finally bringing some sort of conclusion to a horrific case that has rumbled on for almost eight years.

Rachel Sharp reports.

[17 June 2023 14:15 · Oliver O'Connell]

Heather Mack’s family reacts to ‘mastermind’ killer’s guilty plea

The devastated family of murdered socialite Sheila von Wiese-Mack have welcomed the plea deal reached with her “mastermind” killer daughter Heather Mack.

William Wiese and Debbi Curran, von Wiese-Mack’s siblings, released a statement on Friday after Mack finally pleaded guilty to her part in her mother’s murder, more than eight years after the 62-year-old’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase at a luxury 5-star resort in Bali.

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