Heather Mack.
Heather Mack, the woman dubbed the “suitcase killer,” pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges in connection with the high-profile 2014 killing of her mother — 62-year-old Chicago socialite Sheila von Wiese-Mack — during a luxury family vacation in Bali,The New York Times,Associated PressandBBCreports.
After Mack pled guilty in the U.S. to one charge of conspiring to kill her mother, Wiese-Mack’s relatives said in a statement they were “very relieved that the mastermind of Sheila’s murder admitted her guilt today,” the AP reports.
In 2015, Mack and her now-former boyfriend Tommy Schaefer were found guilty in Indonesia of killing her mother at an upscale hotel in Bali in 2014.
The pair then stuffed Wiese-Mack’s body into a suitcase and left the suitcase in a taxi before fleeing. At the couple’s trial, Schaefer confessed to the killing and admitted to hitting von Wiese-Mack repeatedly with a metal fruit bowl.
In 2017, while Mack and Schaefer were still in prison in Indonesia, they were charged in U.S. Federal Court in Chicago with conspiring to kill Mack’s mother.
In 2021, after serving nearly seven years of her sentence, Mack was approved for early release from Indonesia’s Kerobokan Prison due to good behavior, Mack’s U.S.-based attorney, Vanessa Favia,told PEOPLE at the time.The BBC reportssentence reductions are common in Indonesia.
The federal indictment filed in 2017 charged Mack and Schaefer with conspiring to kill von Wiese-Mack and obstruction of justice charge, theChicago Sun-Timesand the Associated Press report.
Schaefer confessed to the killing at his trial in Indonesia.
After killing von Wiese-Mack, the couple stuffed her lifeless body in a suitcase. Hours later, they placed the suitcase in the trunk of a taxi outside the St. Regis Bali Resort. Then, they fled.
The driver notified police after he spotted blood leaking from the luggage.
Mack gave birth to her daughter, Stella, in 2015, while she was behind bars. The child was allowed to live with Mack in prison until she turned 2. Mack then turned her daughter over to a woman living in Bali who befriended Mack after her arrest. Stella now lives in Colorado with Mack’s cousin, Lisa Hellman, who was named the child’s guardian in February, according to theChicago Sun-Times.
Mack will be sentenced on Dec. 18, the AP reports.
source: people.com
