OAN’s Geraldyn Berry
5:36 PM – Tuesday, May 16, 2023
During a federal court hearing in Chicago, a U.S. woman accused of aiding in her mother’s murder and hiding the body while on a lavish trip to Bali nine years ago, has decided to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to kill a United States citizen.
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Mack’s sentence was scheduled on December 18th, 2023 by the judge. A sentence of no more than 28 years is stipulated in her plea agreement.
Judge Matthew Kennelly of the U.S. District Court asked Mack if she planned to waive her right to stay quiet, and Mack said “Yes.”
In August 2014, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, 62, a rich Chicago socialite, was found deceased inside the trunk of a cab parked at the opulent St. Regis Bali Resort. Her corpse had reportedly been brutally battered.
At the age of 18, Heather Mack had purportedly covered her mother’s mouth as her boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, attacked her mother with a fruit bowl in a hotel room. Reports say that at the time of the murder, Mack was pregnant with Schaefer’s child.
Mack had been hoping to gain control of a $1.5 million trust fund.
She was officially convicted as an accomplice in the killing of Sheila von Wiese-Mack in Indonesia in 2015.
Mack and Schaefer’s daughter Stella Schaefer was born not long before they were found guilty in 2015. She was permitted to stay with her mother in her cell at the Kerobokan Female Prison until she became 2-years-old in accordance with Indonesian law. Later on, Mack granted custody of her small daughter to an Australian lady up until her release from prison.
According to Lili, the prison chief warden who only goes by one name, Mack’s sentence was reduced by 34 months as a result of reductions that are frequently given to inmates on significant holidays because of their good behavior, including a six-month remission of sentence awarded during Indonesia’s Independence Day in August.
As a result of her good behavior and participation in activities planned by the correctional authorities, Lili claimed that Mack was entitled to a sentence reduction under Indonesian law.
Prosecutors successfully argued against Mack’s release on bail by claiming that she and Schaefer had been plotting the murder for months. Additionally, they claimed to have video proof of Mack and Schaefer attempting to load Wiese-Mack’s body into a taxi in Indonesia.
Mack completed seven years of her ten-year Indonesian sentence while residing in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, with her mother.
After her flight touched down at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in 2021, she was deported and promptly taken into custody by American authorities.
The Indonesian penalty was deemed by some of Wiese-Mack’s relatives to be far too mild. Prosecutors claimed in documents that the U.S. accusations do not violate constitutional provisions prohibiting the prosecution of a person twice for the same offenses, in part because the U.S. counts involve conspiracy and other offenses that are not included in the Indonesian case.
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