After 2 years in US custody, 'Suitcase Killer' Heather Mack is ready to take a plea deal in her mom's homicide

• Heather Mack, accused of killing her mom in 2014 in Bali, is ready to take a plea deal within the homicide case. 
• She was deported to Chicago in 2021 after 7 years in a Bali jail – and was instantly arrested. 
• Mack instructed Insider she’s served her time and is able to transfer on together with her life. 

It is an Eleventh-hour about-face for Heather Mack – the 27-year-old Chicago girl who brutally killed her mother throughout a luxurious vacation in Bali.

Subsequent week, as a part of a plea discount, Mack stated she’s going to settle for guilt for her function within the slaying.

“I am anxious. I do not know what the federal government will do. I am able to get it (sentencing) over with. I am anxious about how the plea will go,” Mack instructed Insider about her resolution to take a plea discount. 

Mack turned notorious after she was accused of killing her mom, Sheila Von Wiese Mack, with the assistance of her then-boyfriend Tommy Schaefer.

For the final 19 months, Mack has been remanded in Chicago’s Metropolitan Correctional Heart. Mack served seven years of a ten-year sentence in Indonesia and was arrested by the FBI when she landed at O’Hare airport in November 2021 after deportation.

Since Mack’s return to the US, she has held out for a trial – represented by Chicago lawyer Michael Leonard – contending that she has already served her time.

“I simply really feel like irrespective of how mad they (the federal government) are at me, I really feel like proper is true and mistaken is mistaken, and I already did my time,” Mack stated.

Mack was indicted on three federal expenses of conspiracy and obstruction within the US, whereas Schaefer continues to be in Indonesia serving a homicide sentence.

Insider understands that a part of the plea negotiation with Mack’s lawyer Jeff Steinbeck consists of decreasing the indictment to a single conspiracy cost. Contracting a number of expenses to 1, normally probably the most nominal offense, is customary observe for the Division of Justice.

“What would usually occur is that you just plead responsible to a depend after which the opposite counts can be dismissed as a part of the method. The important thing right here is that the penalty is as much as life for 2 of the counts,” Leonard stated. 

Such reductions of expenses and, due to this fact, lighter sentencing signify the “discount” for the accused within the plea discount. Within the Mack case, the Division of Justice would face the big value of bringing practically two dozen witnesses from Indonesia to Chicago for testimony if it pushed for a trial.

Throughout her incarceration in Bali’s harsh Kerobokan jail, Mack gave start to child Stella in 2015 and stored the toddler behind bars together with her for 2 years. After {that a} foster mom took Stella to settle together with her household.

For good conduct, Mack’s sentence was lower by three years. Besides has nonetheless spent the most effective a part of a decade incarcerated since her preliminary arrest in 2014.

Mack hopes that even when the decide leans in the direction of the utmost sentence for one cost, she’s going to quickly be free.

“So in the event that they gave me 15 and even 18 years. I would not even have that rather more time due to time served,” she instructed Insider. “In America, I would not have a prison file, so the place of the federal government is comprehensible.”

“A benefit of my plea is that the utmost supervised launch was ten years, and now it is 5 years. If I did get the complete 5 years of supervised launch, I might be out in a yr and a half or two years with good conduct,” she stated.

If convicted of a federal change, the regulation calls for that felons serve 85% of their sentence.

“Bonnie and Clyde”

In August 2014, Mack was 18 and pregnant. She and Schaefer, 21, had been arrested after the horrific killing of Sheila Von Wiese Mack, and the nation was transfixed.

Mack’s mom was a beloved Chicago socialite, and her father was the celebrated musician, the late James L Mack.

Schaefer bludgeoned Sheila to dying with a heavy fruit bowl, and the pair pressured her physique right into a suitcase, the Indonesian trial heard.

Mack claimed the slaying was to free herself of her overbearing mom, whereas for Tommy, it was a homicide for cash — a slice of a $1.5 million inheritance.

Refusing presents of assist from St. Regis lodge workers, the couple loaded the suitcase into the trunk of a taxi and tried to take a look at of the status resort.

Nonetheless, the day gone by Sheila had instructed reception to not let Mack use her bank card, so once they couldn’t take a look at, the couple fled the scene. The taxi driver sounded the alarm over the suspicious suitcase wrapped in lodge sheets within the trunk of his automotive. Following the horrible discovery, police discovered bloodied sheets and towels stashed in a fire-hydrant field exterior of Sheila and Heather’s room. Three luggage full of garments belonging to the pair had been additionally discovered discarded within the lodge gardens.

Schaefer and Mack — who referred to as themselves Bonnie and Clyde after the murderous Melancholy-era robbers — used Tommy’s passport to verify into the price range Risata Lodge in Kuta after the homicide.

The next morning, workers on the lodge acknowledged the couple from information stories and contacted police. The pair had been arrested and charged with homicide shortly after as surveillance footage confirmed Schaefer lurking exterior of Sheila’s room with a big merchandise stuffed below his t-shirt. There was additionally footage of Heather and her mom arguing within the foyer hours earlier than the homicide occurred.

Mack paid $12,200 for a enterprise class flight to Bali for Schaefer, plus a single evening on the St Regis utilizing Sheila’s bank card. Lower than 12 hours after his arrival, Sheila was lifeless, and Schaefer was texting his cousin Ryan Bibbs concerning the tens of millions of {dollars} they might get from Heather’s inheritance.

In 2017, Ryan Bibbs was sentenced to 9 years in jail for his involvement within the conspiracy to kill Sheila Von Wiese Mack by teaching Mack and Schaefer in homicide strategies.

Throughout Mack and Schaefer’s 2015 trial in Bali, she was discovered responsible of serving to her boyfriend kill her mom.

Schaefer, then 21, entered a responsible plea for the homicide of Sheila Von Wiese Mack. He claimed that Sheila attacked him after she realized her daughter was pregnant by him.

Mack is because of seem subsequent week for her plea listening to in Chicago Federal Court docket.