Indonesia to free US woman who helped boyfriend kill her mother in Bali

A US woman, who was convicted in Indonesia of assisting her then-boyfriend to kill her mother and stuffing the body in a suitcase, will be released from prison in October, her Indonesian lawyer and a government official said. Heather Mack was 18 when she was arrested a day after Sheila von Wiese-Mack’s body was discovered in the boot of a taxi parked near the St Regis Bali Resort in 2014. She was handed a 10-year sentence. Her Indonesian lawyer and a government official on Thursday said she would be freed six years into her sentence, and be deported back to the US on the day of her release. Rika Aprianti, a spokesperson for the corrections department at the Justice and Human Rights Ministry, declined to give the date of Mack’s release. Mack and her boyfriend at the time, Tommy Schaefer, then 21, were convicted in 2015. Schafer received an 18-year sentence. Her Indonesian lawyer, Yulius Benyamin Seran, said the early release from prison was in part the result of a six-month remission of sentence awarded to her by the Indonesian government during the country’s Independence Day celebration this month, he said. “Heather Mack has significantly changed in prison,” Yulius said. “She was involved in activities arranged by correctional officers, she was entitled to the sentence reduction and will be a free person again in October.” The pending release is the latest chapter in a story that has generated national and international attention for years in large part because of photographs of the suitcase that appeared far too small to hold an adult woman’s body. Before Mack was convicted, she gave birth to her and Schaefer’s daughter, Stella Schaefer. There were also reports of a troubled relationship between Mack and her mother, with officials confirming that police had been called to the family’s home dozens of times. In 2016, Robert Bibbs, a cousin of Schaefer, pleaded guilty to helping to plan the killing in exchange for US$50,000 of money that Mack was expected to inherit. Bibbs was sentenced the next year to nine years in prison. He remains in prison. US couple get long jail terms for 'sadistic' murder of mother, stuffed in suitcase at Bali resort Then in 2017, the Chicago Tribune reported that court documents revealed the FBI was investigating whether others were involved in the conspiracy of Mack and Schaefer to kill Mack’s mother. After seeing reports about Mack’s pending release, von Wiese-Mack’s brother, William Wiese reiterated his suspicion that Indonesian officials had imposed the seemingly light sentence in exchange for money. “I believe Heather’s original 10-year sentence was a travesty of justice and likely influenced by the outrageously large amount (US$150,000) that the Chicago judge ordered to be sent to Indonesia for her defence,” he said in a statement. Mack’s immediate deportation upon release leaves open the question of whether she will face charges when she sets foot in the US. The US Attorney’s office in Chicago declined to comment, but one legal expert said there as a possibility – though slim – that she could face charges if an investigation revealed she was involved in paying a bribe before sentencing. “Charging her with murder again is impossible, but as a US citizen you can’t pay bribes to anyone, so that’s how they could try to prosecute her,” said Phil Turner, a former federal prosecutor. But Turner said such charges are unlikely. Upon her release from prison, Mack can under Indonesian law be reunited with her daughter, who is now six years old. But Yulius said Mack, who has not seen the girl for more than 18 months due to halts in prison visits amid the Covid-19 pandemic, has asked Indonesian authorities to let the girl remain with her foster family until she can return to Bali. “She doesn’t want to come back to the US with her daughter as she scared that media will expose her and Stella to what happened,” Yulius said. “She will protect her daughter from media as best she can for the sake of her future because she had nothing to do with what her parents were doing.”