The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

After 7 years in a Bali jail for helping murder her mom, ‘suitcase killer’ Heather Mack faces new charges in U.S.

Heather Mack, an American woman jailed in 2015 with her boyfriend for playing a role in murdering her mother and stuffing the remains in a suitcase, is seen inside an immigration car after being released from Kerobokan Prison in Bali, Indonesia, on Oct. 29. (Johannes P. Christo/Reuters) (Johannes Christo/Reuters)
5 min

After spending seven years in an Indonesian prison for allegedly helping her boyfriend kill her mother and stuff the body in a suitcase, all Heather Mack wanted to do when she returned to the United States with her 6-year-old daughter, Stella, was enjoy the banalities of normal life.

“Little things like going to the grocery store, the park, and the swimming pool with Stella will be wonderful,” Mack told the New York Post. “Even paying an electricity bill will be nice.”

But minutes after she landed at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Wednesday, immigration officers escorted Mack, 26, off the airplane and into federal custody, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Mack faces charges of conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, conspiracy to commit foreign murder of a U.S. national and obstruction, according to a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday. If convicted, she could face life sentences for the first two charges, 20 years for the third and also be fined $250,000.

Mack pleaded not guilty in a federal courthouse in downtown Chicago on Wednesday. Her lawyer Keith Spielfogel plans to request that Mack be released on bond pending trial, according to the Tribune.

Mack’s California-based lawyer, Brian Claypool, said the government’s case, which alleges Mack and her ex-boyfriend planned the murder in the United States, is weak.

“It’s all sour grapes, all high drama and no legal traction,” he told the Tribune. “We will be filing a motion to get these charges thrown out.”

Mack, who became known as the “suitcase killer” following her 2014 arrest in Indonesia, is the daughter of esteemed jazz and classical composer James L. Mack and Chicago socialite Sheila von Wiese-Mack. The family lived in Oak Park, an upscale Chicago suburb. Mack and her mother had a contentious relationship, with police visiting their home 86 times between 2004 to 2013, according to the Tribune.

Mack’s feelings of animus toward her mother intensified when her father died in 2006 while the three were on a family vacation in Athens, she told the New York Post. Instead of returning home, Mack claims her mother left her father’s body at the morgue and insisted they continue on their vacation to Santorini.

“It was in Santorini that my anger at my mother started,” Mack told the New York Post. “It never really stopped. It grew.”

Tensions mounted in 2014 when an 18-year-old Mack started dating Tommy E. Schaefer, a then-21-year-old unemployed aspiring rapper. Mack began skipping school and running away with her mother’s credit card to book pricey hotel rooms for her and her boyfriend, the Tribune reported. One argument between the two that became physical left von Wiese-Mack with a broken arm.

The trip to the Indonesian island of Bali was booked not long after Mack dropped out of high school and got pregnant, according to the New York Post. Mack said the August 2014 vacation was her mother’s attempt to persuade her to have an abortion.

But about a week after the two arrived, Mack stole her mother’s credit card and bought a high-priced ticket for Schaefer to join her in Bali, according to the indictment. In the days following Schaefer’s arrival, he and Mack allegedly texted his cousin, Robert Ryan Justin Bibbs, to discuss ways to kill von Wiese-Mack.

“Court documents reveal that Mack also asked Bibbs if he knew anyone who would kill her mother in exchange for money,” prosecutors said in a news release, adding that Bibbs pleaded guilty in 2016 to conspiracy to commit foreign murder of a U.S. national. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.

On Aug. 12, 2014, Schaefer entered Mack and von Wiese-Mack’s St. Regis Bali Resort hotel room and killed the 62-year-old woman, prosecutors said. Mack and Schaefer then allegedly stuffed von Wiese-Mack’s body in a silver suitcase and put the bag in the trunk of a taxi before fleeing the hotel.

About two hours later, the taxi driver went into the St. Regis and spoke with the manager, noting that the couple’s actions were suspicious, the Tribune reported. When they opened the trunk, they noticed blood on the luggage. Police arrested the couple hours later at another hotel a few miles away.

Mack, then 19, and Schaeffer were convicted of murder in Indonesia in 2015. Mack was sentenced to 10 years, and Schaeffer received 18 years. Mack gave birth to their daughter, Stella, while in prison. After living for two years with her mother in prison, as permitted in Bali, Stella was sent to a foster family in Indonesia.

Mack was released early from prison for good behavior on Oct. 29, prosecutors said. She was deported to the United States and brought along her daughter, who is now in the custody of a family attorney, the Tribune reported. Schaeffer is still in Indonesia serving his sentence.

In interviews leading up to her release, Mack told the New York Post that she regrets what happened to her mother.

“I loved my mom — I still do,” she said. “She wasn’t evil, and she didn’t deserve to die the way she did.”

She added that, despite theories that she killed her mother so she could access her $1.5 million trust fund, “I didn’t kill her for the money.”

“It was for my freedom and Stella’s freedom, or so I thought at the time,” Mack said. “I think of her a thousand times a day.”

Mack originally planned to fly to Los Angeles after being released from Indonesian prison, Claypool, one of her lawyers, told the Tribune. But the FBI instructed her to arrive in Chicago, a move Claypool said meant to create a “spectacle.”

“Let’s do this the right way, not in front of everybody, in front of the whole world,” Claypool said. “They were playing hide-and-seek. Everything about how this has been handled has been inappropriate and reprehensible.”

Mack is due back in court next Wednesday for a detention hearing.

Loading...