Heather Mack, convicted in Bali of killing mum and stuffing body in suitcase, pleads guilty in US

Name: Bali ‘suitcase killer’ Heather Mack granted early release from prison and to be deported to the US
Uploaded: 2023-06-16T16:56:02.000Z
Duration: 1 min 21 s
Description: Bali ‘suitcase killer’ Heather Mack granted early release from prison and to be deported to the US

The US woman was convicted in Indonesia in 2015 of helping her boyfriend murder Sheila von Wiese-Mack in a bid to gain access to a US$1.5 million trust fund

After Tommy Schaefer bludgeoned the victim to death with a fruit bowl, the couple stuffed the body into a suitcase

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Heather Mack (centre) is surrounded by reporters as she arrives in the courtroom in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia in April 2015. Photo: AP

Associated Press

Published: 12:56am, 17 Jun 2023Updated: 1:03am, 17 Jun 2023

The American woman accused of helping to kill her mother and stuffing her body in a suitcase during a luxury holiday to Bali nine years ago changed her plea to guilty in Chicago federal court on Friday.

Heather Mack, 27, was convicted in Indonesia in 2015 of being an accessory to Sheila von Wiese-Mack’s murder with her then boyfriend in a bid to gain access to a US$1.5 million trust fund. Mack, then 18 and pregnant, covered her mother’s mouth in a hotel room while Tommy Schaefer bludgeoned Wiese-Mack with a fruit bowl, prosecutors say.

Mack stood before US District Judge Matthew Kennelly in orange jail garb and orange slippers as he asked her questions. She spoke confidently and calmly as the judge asked whether she was giving up her right to remain silent at the motion hearing. “Yes, your honour,” Mack responded from a podium.

After the judge explained the charge against her, Mack pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to kill a US national.

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Bali ‘suitcase killer’ Heather Mack granted early release from prison and to be deported to the US

The change-of-plea hearing is the latest chapter in a story that garnered international attention in part because of photographs of the suitcase, which seemed too small to hold an adult woman’s body. Mack’s Chicago trial on conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and obstruction of justice had been set for August 1.