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
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“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.
Full story: 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.
Heather Mack’s mother feared her daughter would kill her. Police couldn’t stop it
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. A retired police officer tells Rachel Sharp how authorities were helpless to save her