CHICAGO — Heather Mack has already spent nearly every day behind bars since her mother’s bludgeoned body was found stuffed in a suitcase in the Bali resort where they’d been vacationing nine years ago, sparking international headlines and leading police on a trail that began in suburban Chicago.
Later this year, Mack, 27, will undoubtedly be facing many years more in prison: She pleaded guilty Friday morning in the federal murder conspiracy case against her in Chicago federal court.
Mack, 27, entered her guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to kill a U.S. citizen on foreign soil during an in-person hearing before U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. Her sentencing hearing was scheduled for December.
While Mack is eligible for a life sentence, the written plea agreement includes a provision saying that Mack could not withdraw her plea if Kennelly agrees to sentence her to 28 years in prison or less. Kennelly is not obligated to go along with that; if he goes above a 28-year sentence, Mack could withdraw her guilty plea.
At the brief plea hearing Friday morning, Mack signed the agreement, then stood before Kennelly’s bench in bright orange jail scrubs. She fidgeted slightly, shifting her weight from side to side, but answered the judge’s standard questions in a loud, steady voice.
“How do you plead, then?” Kennelly asked.
“I plead guilty, your honor,” she responded.
In the lobby of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse afterward, Bill Wiese and Debbi Curran, the siblings of von Wiese-Mack, stood before a crush of television cameras as they have so many times before and read a short statement to reporters, saying they were “in agreement” with the terms of Mack’s deal.
“We are hopeful (Kennelly) accepts the plea,” Wiese said.
“After almost nine years, we are very relieved that the mastermind of Sheila’s murder admitted her guilt today,” Wiese said. “We will continue to be our sister Sheila’s voice throughout the sentencing process to ensure that real justice is achieved.”
As they have before, the siblings pointed to what they believe is a corrupt criminal justice system in Indonesia, where Mack purportedly used her own inheritance money to shave years off her sentence.
“It has been devastating to witness the corruption in Indonesia which prevented true justice from being obtained eight years ago,” Wiese said. “Thanks to the incredible efforts of the U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI, we are hopeful for a sentence that more accurately reflects the heinous and premeditated nature of the crime.”
Mack’s attorney, Michael Leonard, told reporters after the hearing that the defense was hopeful the judge goes along with the deal, but if he doesn’t, they’ll be “back to square one” and will either try to negotiate a new plea or get “back on a trial track.”
The plea agreement does not include any requirement for Mack to cooperate and testify against Schaefer, Leonard said.
Leonard said that now that Mack has made the decision to plead guilty, she was “anxious but optimistic” that there was a path towards closure.
He said despite the way Mack has been “characterized” in the media, she is a completely different person than she was nine years ago and has taken advantage of self-help programs while incarcerated at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago’s Loop.
“She’s much more mature, she’s much more empathetic,” he said. “She’s grown as a human just as we all would do over almost 10 years. We are all different people than we were from (age) 18 to 28.”
While Mack’s Chicago sentencing won’t occur for months, attorneys on Friday previewed some of the major points that will likely be in dispute.
Defense attorneys believe Mack should get a shorter sentence because she already spent about seven years in custody in Indonesia after being convicted in that country. Prosecutors disagree, arguing that 28 years is appropriate regardless of the foreign conviction.
Leonard told reporters after the hearing that he would not speculate on what specific sentence the defense would ask for, but said there was significant mitigation on Mack’s side, including her age at the time of the crime, her father’s sudden passing, the tumultuous relationship she had with her mother, and the fact that she herself is now mother to a young child
The sentencing date was scheduled for December to accommodate the schedules of attorneys as well as potential witnesses, including the victim’s family, who could testify at the sentencing hearing.
Mack was convicted in Indonesia in 2015 of helping her boyfriend with the murder and served about seven years in prison, only to be arrested by the FBI when she landed at O’Hare International Airport in 2021 on a federal indictment that had been filed under seal while she was still overseas.
The indictment charged her with conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and obstruction of justice in the killing of her mother, whose bludgeoned body was found stuffed into a suitcase outside the St. Regis resort in August 2014, sparking months of international headlines.
Also charged with the same counts was her boyfriend at the time of the murder, Tommy Schaefer, who is still in prison in Bali.
The allegations in von Wiese-Mack’s horrific slaying are well known by now. Authorities alleged Mack conspired with Schaefer to kill her mother in order to gain access to a $1.5 million trust fund set up after her father’s death. Mack was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Indonesia for the crime, but was released early for good behavior.
In pleading guilty, Mack admitted to a gruesome set of facts outlined in a lengthy plea agreement. Mack flew Schaefer to Bali using her mother’s credit card, and they texted each other repeatedly about their plan, right up until Mack and her mother were alone in their hotel room.
“i need your help,” Mack texted Schaefer, according to the plea agreement. “you could just put your hand over her and i could grab her body.”
“must knock her out,” Schaefer replied. “... I’m finding something right now ... I’ll do it.”
Not long afterward, Schaefer entered the hotel room and beat von Wiese-Mack to death with the metal handle of a fruit bowl.
Together, he and Mack put the body into a suitcase, then put the suitcase in the trunk of a taxi outside the hotel. They tried to get away in the taxi, but the driver wouldn’t accept their fare; instead, they left the cab and abandoned the suitcase inside.
Mack has been held without bond at the Metropolitan Correctional Center since she was arrested by the FBI in November 2021 as she left the Delta Air Lines flight at O’Hare’s Terminal 5.
Schaefer, who admitted to fatally beating von Wiese-Mack, was sentenced to 18 years and remains behind bars overseas.
Federal prosecutors in Chicago had previously charged Schaefer’s cousin, Robert Bibbs, with helping in the murder plot. The FBI learned of Bibbs’ involvement after analyzing text messages found on Schaefer’s phone.
Bibbs, 32, is serving a nine-year prison sentence in Michigan for coaching the defendants on how to carry out the murder in return for a share of the anticipated multimillion-dollar estate. He is eligible for parole in 2025.
Mack’s daughter, now 7, has been placed with a relative in the U.S. after a lengthy and bitter custody battle in Cook County Circuit Court.
At a bond hearing for Mack in 2022, Bill Wiese said Mack continues to be a danger to anyone who crosses her, saying in a statement to the court that as recently as 2019, she threatened the life of a journalist who’d told her he thought she was being untruthful in a jailhouse interview.
“Heather said, and I quote, ‘You trust me not to come after you with a big pineapple knife or a fruit bowl when I get out on parole?’” Wiese said.
Weise and his sister, Debbi Curran, also decried the sensationalism and profiteering that has continued in the years since their sister’s murder, but said they had to come to court to communicate the truth about Mack.
“Facing Heather at the hearing was one of the necessary steps for justice and healing for our entire family,” Weise said in the lobby of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse.
Prosecutors, however, argued in a motion to deny bond that Mack has a history of violent and erratic behavior brought on by mental health issues. They also detailed the brutality of von Wiese-Mack’s slaying, including how Schaefer allegedly struck the victim with a heavy fruit bowl in their hotel room while Mack covered her mother’s mouth with her hand.
In a recorded phone call, with Schaefer’s cousin, Mack explained that she covered her mother’s mouth to make sure she died, “because Schaefer would have been in even bigger trouble if (von Wiese-Mack) survived,” prosecutors wrote.
“These and other admissions indicate that Mack didn’t just conspire to kill her mother, but was directly involved in her mother’s murder,” prosecutors wrote in the motion.
In arguing for detention, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Marie Ursini said prosecutors were prepared to play a four-minute video from the hotel that allegedly depicted Mack and her boyfriend as they tried to get the bloody suitcase with her mother’s body into a cab. After the driver became suspicious, Mack and Schaefer fled and checked into another hotel using fake names but were quickly arrested.
Kennelly, however, said he didn’t need to see the video because there is no real dispute about what happened.
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