‘Suitcase killer’ Heather Mack sentenced to 26 years for mother’s Bali murder: Updates
Mack, now 28, appeared in federal court in Illinois, where she was given a 26-year prison sentence for the Bali murder of Sheila von Wiese-Mack
The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday
Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US
Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US
“Suitcase killer” Heather Mack was back in court in Illinois on Wednesday to be sentenced over the 2014 murder of her mother at a luxury Bali resort.
Mack, 28, was sentenced to 26 years in prison.
In the courtroom, she was confronted by her family members who told the judge she should not be granted any leniency over Sheila von Wiese-Mack’s murder.
Prosecutors sought a 28-year sentence while Mack’s attorneys are asking for 15 years with credit for seven years spent in an Indonesian prison.
The tragic case began in August 2014 when Illinois socialite von Wiese-Mack, 62, took her then-18-year-old pregnant daughter on vacation to the St. Regis resort.
Mack’s boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, 21, flew out to the island and the pair bludgeoned von Wiese-Mack to death, stuffed her body in a suitcase and left it in the trunk of a taxi.
Both Mack and Schaefer were convicted of murder in Indonesia in 2015.
Mack served 7 years in prison before being deported and arrested as soon as she stepped foot on US soil.
After two years in federal prison awaiting trial, Mack reached a plea deal in June, pleading guilty to conspiracy to kill a US national.
Body in a suitcase, Bonnie and Clyde fantasy and baby born in Bali prison: The chilling case of Heather Mack- ‘Suitcase killer’ Heather Mack pleads for leniency in US over mother’s Bali murder
Heather Mack’s mother told police she feared her daughter would kill her. They were powerless to prevent it
‘Suitcase killer’ Heather Mack is sentenced to 26 years in US prison for Bali murder
Heather Mack’s mother was ‘inhaling her own blood'
In asking for a 28-year sentence, the prosecutor Frank Rangoussis emphasised how Heather Mack’s mother died.
Mr Rangoussis said, “Ms. von Wiese died a painful death. She suffocated after repeated blows to her face fractured her nasal bone and her jaw bone, resulting in an obstructed airway.” In her last moments, von Wiese-Mack “was inhaling her own blood,” the prosecutor said.
“She struggled to stay alive and in that moment the defendant showed no mercy,” he added.
The prosecutor also noted the texts Mack and her boyfriend exchanged ahead of the murder. Mack allegedly texted Tommy Schaefer that she “literally cant wait” for her mother’s death.
‘Web of lies'
“This was a vicious beating of a defenseless, vulnerable, older woman as she lay in her hotel bed,” the prosecutor argued.
After the murder, he said, Mack “plotted a web of lies.”
Mack’s alleged lying has become a theme. Wiese-Mack’s brother, Bill Wiese, told the court that Mack is “so accustomed to lying that she doesn’t even know what is true.” He also described her as a “master manipulator.”
Chillingly, he said, “If it were up to me, Heather would spend the rest of her life behind bars. She has lied so many times about her life and her mother’s murder that I’ve stopped counting.”
Up now: Mack’s defense attorney is now speaking to the judge
Mack’s attorney, Jeffrey Steinback, argued that “Heather Mack was abused.”
The lawyer said that it is “human nature” to “deify” someone lost in a “tragic and horrible way” and to “completely eradicate any of the good” exhibited by the perpetrator.
The defence is trying to portray Mack as a victim
Mr Steinback, Mack’s attorney, told the court: “The government would have us believe that Heather Mack suddenly just grew up into a teenager and somewhere around 15 or 16 started, without provocation or any kind of reason, attacking her mother.” He previously said that Mack was “abused.”
He added, “ “It doesn’t strike people as unusual, that that just happened unprovoked? She chose to do this?”
Defence attorney talks up Mack
Mack’s lawyer said: “We’re blaming Heather Mack because she finally got big enough and strong enough to say: ‘I’m not going to take this anymore. I won’t be beaten. I won’t be humiliated. I won’t be forced to do things that are humiliating.’”
Mr Steinback then, seemingly trying to portray Mack in a favourable light, said that his client aided in preventing a fellow inmate’s suicide attempt at Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Center.
Mack’s Bali prison time
Mr Steinback is now discussing Mack’s time in Bali prison. The attorney claimed that the photos taken of Mack smiling while at the facility were staged. He added that his client was told to speak highly of the prison to improve its reputation.
He also tried to paint a contrast to the prosecution’s description of Mack’s time in Bali, saying that the facility held 25 inmates per room, had no beds, and a provided hole in the floor for a toilet.
“Seven years in that hell hole and we want to dismiss it as though it was nothing,” Mr Steinback said.
Judge rejects defence’s argument
Mack’s attorney argued that she could have benefitted had the US government indicted her sooner.
Judge Kennelly replied, “It’s baloney. It’s just baloney. There’s no way that she was going to come back here until her time was over.”
ICYMI: Why is Heather Mack in court?
Heather Mack, 28, was infamously dubbed the “suitcase killer” after she and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, then 21, bludgeoned her socialite mother Sheila von Wiese-Mack, 62, to death and stuffed her body in a suitcase.
After serving seven years in an Indonesian jail for murder, Mack was extradited to the US where she was arrested and hit with fresh charges of conspiracy to murder in November 2021.
Prosecutors have said that Mack, then 18 and pregnant, covered her mother’s mouth in a hotel room while Tommy Schaefer bludgeoned Wiese-Mack with a fruit bowl.
In June, she pleaded guilty to a federal charge of conspiracy to kill Wiese-Mack to get access to a $1.5 million trust fund.
Now, federal prosecutors in Chicago are recommending a 28-year prison sentence for Mack.
Read the full story...
‘Suitcase killer’ Heather Mack pleads for leniency in US over mother’s Bali murder
Heather Mack and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer murdered her mother Sheila von Wiese-Mack at a luxury Bali resort in 2014
Mack’s relationship with her mom revisited
Mr Steinback called Mack’s relationship with her mom “an ugly, toxic relationship in the main. And it cannot be discarded with a narrative that would suggest that it was only hate by Heather and love by her mother. That’s not true.”
‘There was no plan’: defence attorney claims
Mr Steinback said that when Mack left for Bali with her mother, she had told others that “she wasn’t going to go through with” the murder.
He added, “There was no hand over the mouth. There was no plan.”
Talking about her boyfriend, he said, “There was no plan ahead of time for Tommy to come over.”
“This was not what the government talks about as being a very meticulous and sophisticated plan. What happened, as heinous, violent, brutal as it was, occurred on the fly, ad hoc, and essentially unplanned,” Mr Steinback argued.