An American convicted of murdering his then-girlfriend’s wealthy mother during a luxury holiday in Bali has been deported to the US after an early release from prison, Indonesian immigration officials said.
Tommy Schaefer, 32, and his then-girlfriend, Heather Mack, were convicted of killing Chicago socialite Sheila von Wiese-Mack in Denpasar and stuffing her body into a suitcase in what was dubbed the 2014 “suitcase murder” case.
Ahead of his deportation on Tuesday, Schaefer said that he wished peace for Sheila’s family and apologised but claimed he was pushed into the situation.
“I am sorry. I have always been sorry. I have always been apologetic,” he told the news agency AFP. “I was pushed into the situation but I do take full responsibility for everything that I’ve done and I wish Sheila’s family peace.”
In 2015, an Indonesian court sentenced Schaefer to 18 years in prison and Mack to 10 years for assisting in the murder.
Schaefer was released last week from the Kerobokan prison on the island of Bali and sent to an immigration detention facility on Friday.
On Tuesday, he boarded a late-night flight to the US, where he was set to appear in a Chicago court to face additional charges. He’s due to appear at the Dirksen US Courthouse for his arraignment on Thursday.
“The court will make the necessary arrangements to have the defendant appear for the hearing,” judge Matthew F Kennelly wrote in a minute entry filed on Tuesday.
Schaefer’s return to the US marks a new phase in the legal saga, 12 years after the original crime made headlines.
Mack, who earned the nickname the “suitcase killer”, pleaded guilty in June 2024 to conspiring to murder her socialite mother at the five-star St Regis resort in Bali.
She reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors in Illinois, pleading guilty to a count of conspiracy to kill an American national so that she and her then-boyfriend could access a $1.5m trust fund.
At the time of the killing, Mack was 19 and Schaefer 21.
Mack gave birth to a daughter in 2015 while detained in Bali. She was released after serving seven years of her 10-year sentence for good behaviour and deported to the US, where she was arrested on federal charges upon arrival.
She was sentenced to 28 years in prison, with consideration given to the seven years she had already served in an Indonesian jail. However, the charge carried a maximum penalty of life in prison, and the judge hinted that he could ignore the prosecutors’ request.
At her trial, the court heard heart-breaking impact statements from von Wiese-Mack’s family where they begged for the harshest possible sentence, described Mack as a “monster” and spoke of the trauma they experienced when they were reminded of what the 62-year-old endured in her final moments.
The victim’s brother, Bill Wiese, branded his niece a “monster”, “master manipulator” and “morally reprehensible”.
“If it were up to me, Heather would spend the rest of her life behind bars,” he told the court. “She has lied so many times about her life and her mother’s murder that I’ve stopped counting.”
The court also heard that the victim was struck by the metal handle of a fruit stand while she was sleeping in her hotel bed.
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