A Chicago woman who served time in prison abroad for conspiring to kill her mother and left her body in a suitcase inside a taxicab while on vacation in Bali nearly a decade ago, pleads guilty in federal court on Friday.
Heather Mack at her sentencing in Indonesia in 2015
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Suspect Admits Guilt Seven Years After The Crime
The 27-year-old Heather L. Mack pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to kill her mother, Sheila A. Von Wiese, in U.S. District Court in Illinois, according to court documents. Mack was also charged in 2017 with conspiracy to kill in a foreign country and obstruction of justice however, it was dropped according to one of her lawyers, as part of a plea agreement.
Mack and her then-boyfriend, Tommy E. Schaefer, were convicted in Indonesia of crimes in relation to the death of her mother. Mack faced a sentence of 10 years in prison. She was then released seven years after and has returned to Chicago where she remains in custody, in 2021. Schaefer, however, remains in Indonesia, serving an 18-year sentence, according to The New York Times.Â
Heather Mack and Tommy Schaefer (Source: Fox32 Chicago).
The Bali Vacation
In August 2014, Mack and her mother traveled for a vacation to Bali, Indonesia. The then 18-year-old Mack used von Wiese’s credit card and paid for Schaefer’s plane ticket to Bali and helped her kill her mother, according to court documents.
On August 12, 2014, Schaefer went inside the hotel room and beat von Wiese to death in front of Mack, then they fled the hotel stuffing von Wiese’s body in a suitcase and leaving it in a taxicab, according to True Crime Daily.Â
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