“Suitcase Killer” Heather Mack was sentenced Wednesday to 26 years in prison in a Chicago court. It's been nearly 10 years since she helped bludgeon her mother to death during her luxury vacation in Bali.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly charged Mack, 28, with conspiring with her then-boyfriend to murder Sheila von Wiese-Mack in 2014 to obtain a $1.5 million trust fund. handed down the verdict.
She had already served seven years in prison in Indonesia after being found guilty in 2015 of covering her mother's mouth to muffle her cries as Tommy Schaefer hit her with a fruit bowl in a hotel room. .
Mack was 18 years old at the time and pregnant with Schaefer's baby.
Mack, wearing an orange jumpsuit, orange slip-on shoes and glasses, gave an emotional statement that his family said shocked the victim, saying he had never shown any remorse. I asked him to impose capital punishment, but he seemed expressionless.
For the first time, she broke down in tears when it was her turn to speak, telling her family that she accepted responsibility for the heinous crime.
“It breaks my heart to hear you cry,” she tearfully told Debbie Curran, her aunt and Wiesmack's sister.
“There is no excuse for trying to hurt her. I miss my mom and I love her.”
Mack's lawyers estimate that she will be incarcerated for about 20 years, given her credit for more than two years in custody in Chicago after completing her sentence in Indonesia.
Federal prosecutors recommended a 28-year sentence, but Mack's attorney asked for 15 years in prison and credit for seven years served.
“This was a brutal and premeditated crime,” Kennelly said before sentencing Mack. He also ordered her to pay $262,708 in restitution and a $50,000 fine.
“MS. Von Wiese may have been the worst parent in human history. She didn't deserve to die.”
Mack pleaded guilty in federal court in June to his role in the cold-blooded murder of his mother during a luxury vacation to Bali in 2014.
Mack pleaded guilty in June to one count of conspiracy to commit the murder of an American.
In August 2014, Mack, then 18 and pregnant, was vacationing with her then-boyfriend Schaefer and her socialite mother at the luxury St. Regis resort in Bali for several months. The pair attacked Wies-Mack as part of a twisted plot that had been in the works for some time. Prosecutors said she was due to inherit a $1.5 million trust fund.
The couple then stuffed the woman's body into a small suitcase and placed it in the trunk of a taxi.
Mack and Schaefer were arrested several miles away after a taxi driver called police.
Mack, who lived with his mother in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for aiding and abetting murder, but was granted early release in 2021 for good behavior and promptly deported to the United States.
Her 9-year-old daughter Stella was born in an Indonesian prison but is now in the care of relatives.
Schaefer was convicted of murder and is serving an 18-year prison sentence in Indonesia. He is also charged in the same indictment in the United States.
His mother, Kia Walker, was in court for Mack's sentencing Wednesday.
with post wire
