'Suitcase Killer' Heather Mack to plead guilty in US trial for mother's murder
Two years after her release from a Bali prison and return to the United States, Heather Mack, known as the 'suitcase killer,' will face a new trial where Mack plans to plead 'guilty.'
Heather Mack was raised in a $1.5 million Italian Renaissance-style home in Oak Park with her socialite mother and Jazz musician father, James L. Mack, until the father's untimely death in 2006.
The Mack family was known for their arguments, with police records showing that the authorities were frequently called to the apartment for domestic disputes.
Heather's mother, did not approve of her then-relationship with Schaefer, who was an aspiring rapper. When Mack dropped out of school and became pregnant in 2014, the mother took her daughter for a Bali vacation where she attempted to talk her daughter into terminating the pregnancy.
Heather Mack in a holding cell at a court in Denpasar, Indonesia (AFP via Getty Images)Instead, Mack used her mother's credit card to buy her boyfriend a plane ticket, and video surveillance showed the three arguing in a hotel lobby in August of 2014, the same day of Sheila von Wiese Mack's murder.
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Heather Mack and her boyfriend reportedly spent a few hours plotting the mother's murder, hoping to take off with an inheritance. Mack was reportedly supposed to suffocate her mother in her sleep, but was unable to do so. Instead, it turned out that Schaefer had bludgeoned the older woman with a fruit bowl.
Heather Mack was detained after becoming an accessory to her mother's murder (Getty Images)The two then panicked, shoveling the body into a suitcase and snapping the woman's neck in the process. They proceeded to get into a taxi cab and flee, but the cab driver was able to report the incident and the two were arrested at a budget hotel hours later.
Mack's plea deal is scheduled six weeks before her trial, on June 15th.
Heather Mack and Tommy Schaefer seen grinning on a beach (© Instagram)Mack and her boyfriend at the time, Tommy Schaefer, were arrested in 2014 and sentenced 10 and 20 years, respectively. Mack was released three years early for good behavior and made the decision to return to her native Chicago. Upon her return, she was arrested by U.S. authorities and has been waiting for her trial date in Chicago's Metropolitan Correctional Center.
“We were offered a good plea. First, it was 15 to 35 [years]; now they are saying zero to 25 years, including time served,” Mack told The New York Post.
(© NBC)Mack arrived to the U.S. escorted by federal authorities, with her daughter Stella, who was born during Mack's original prison stint, and raised by a Bali foster family for five years, while Mack served her term.
Schaefer is still imprisoned in Indonesia for his role in the murder, while Mack was considered an accessory to murder. She's facing similar charges in the U.S., including two counts of conspiring to kill her mother and a third count of corruptly destroying, mutilating, and concealing evidence “by forcing the body of Sheila A. Von Wiese into a suitcase."
The case gathered international media attention in 2014, as multiple countries became involved with Mack's legal proceedings. Legal experts say that while Mack served a prison sentence, Indonesia's laws do not affect ours, which does not violate our prohibitions on being tried for the same crime twice.
Heather Mack escorted by immigration guards as she was deported to the U.S. after serving 7 years of her 10-year sentence (AFP via Getty Images)Michael Leonard, Mack's attorney, told the media, "We anticipate that the parties will be in a position to enter a written plea agreement, and proceed with a change of plea hearing on June 15." Details of any agreements are still unclear.
“The hope is that the judge will seriously consider the time she has already served and all the underlying circumstances of her life and her relationship with her mom. Any federal criminal case requires a constant reassessment of risk and reward. Balancing risk in terms of a potential sentence and trying to minimize the risk to yourself," continued Leonard.
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