'Suitcase Killer' Heather Mack demands reduced sentence for time served overseas as she faces 28 years in US prison for brutally murdering her mom in Bali

Heather Mack, 27, the Bali 'suitcase killer' faces 28 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to murder her motherHer mother was bludgeoned to death in a hotel room with a fruit bowl by Mack's the-boyfriend Tommy Schaefer Mack has now demanded a reduced sentence, arguing she already spent seven years in an Indonesian prison in relation to her mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack's murder in 2014 

‘Suitcase Killer’ Heather Mack is seeking a reduced sentence for conspiring to murder her mother, hoping to avoid nearly three decades in prison.

Mack, 27, pleaded guilty to conspiring to murder her mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, while on vacation in Bali in 2014, in a Chicago court in June. She had been charged in Indonesia with the same crime, but was charged in the US after her release.

Mack helped her then-boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, gain access to Wiese-Mack’s room where he bludgeoned the Illinois native with a fruit bowl.

Her body was later found stuffed in a suitcase. At the time of the murder, Mack was 18 years old and pregnant.

The prosecution is calling for a sentence of up to 28 years, but Mack’s lawyers are seeking 15 years with credit for the seven years she spent in an Indonesian prison for being an accessory to her mother’s murder.

Earlier this month, Heather Mack, 27, pictured here with her prison-born child, announced that she was striking a deal with Illinois prosecutors

Mack and her former boyfriend – Stella’s dad – were convicted in 2015 of plotting together to kill Mack’s mom, socialite Sheila von Wiese-Mack (with her left,) at a luxury resort on Bali during a family trip, and then stuffing her body in a suitcase (right)

She spent seven years in prison in Indonesia before being deported November 2021 following her early release for good behavior.

Upon her arrival back in the US, she was arrested at O’Hare Airport and charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

US Prosecutors said the recommended 28-year sentence ‘is warranted and sufficient, but not greater than necessary to serve a just and appropriate punishment for Mack’s heinous crime.’

But Mack’s lawyers said: ‘For the taxpayers to incur the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars to incarcerate Ms. Mack for an extended period of time within the BOP is particularly unnecessary.’

Custody of her daughter, Stella, 7, was given to a maternal cousin in Colorado. Since then, Mack has been held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Authorities allege Mack committed the crime so that she could gain control of her $1.5 million trust fund.

Mack’s wealthy mother was married to the late James L. Mack, a renowned composer who died during a family trip to Greece in 2006 – was killed and stuffed in a suitcase before being left in a taxi on the island of Bali.

Schaefer’s cousin Robert Bibbs was sentenced to nine years in a US prison for advising Mack and Schaefer on how to kill von Weise-Mack. Schaefer remains in prison in Indonesia.

Mack stood before US District Judge Matthew Kennelly in orange jail garb and orange slippers as he asked her questions before she was set to enter a plea.

She spoke confidently and calmly as the judge asks her that she was giving up her rights to remain silent at the motion hearing. ‘Yes, your honor,’ she responded from a podium.

Mack in 2015 when she was on trial for her mother’s murder in Indonesia

Sheila Von Wiese Mack who was murdered by her daughter and her boyfriend in 204

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

The judge set a Dec. 18 sentencing date for Mack. Her plea deal calls for a sentence of no more than 28 years.

Von Wiese-Mack’s siblings William Wiese and Debbi Curran released a statement declaring that they were ‘relieved’ that Mack decided to plead guilty.

‘After almost nine years, we are very relieved that the mastermind of Sheila’s murder admitted her guilt today. We will continue to be our sister Sheila’s voice throughout the sentencing process to ensure that real justice is achieved,’ the statement read.

‘It has been devastating to witness the corruption in Indonesia which prevented true justice from being obtained eight years ago. Thanks to the incredible efforts of the US Attorney’s Office and FBI, we are hopeful for a sentence that more appropriately reflects the heinous and premediated nature of the crime,’ the release read.

Speaking to The New York Post earlier this month, Mack laid bare her plans to strike a deal with prosecutors ahead of her trial in the US.

‘We were offered a good plea. First, it was 15 to 35 [years]; now they are saying zero to 25 years, including time served,’ Mack, who was also sentenced in Indonesia but was released early for good behavior, told the paper Wednesday.

‘I have served nearly ten years in prison. I felt that I had done my time, so I was gung-ho for trial,’ the convicted criminal added of her decision.

‘Now, after sitting for so long, I know what I have to do.’

Mack is seen inside an immigration car after being released from Kerobokan Prison in Bali, Indonesia on October 29. She was released 34 months early for good behavior after being found guilty of plotting to kill von Wiese-Mack

Currently in Indonesian prison on an 18-year bid, Tommy Schaefer shares a child with Mack – born after the pair were convicted in 2015 – and was the one to brutally beat von Wiese-Mack to death with a metal bowl in a bid to get a hold of her millions

Mack gave birth to daughter Stella during the couple’s 2015 trial in Indonesia. She was allowed to live with the child during her incarceration overseas, but her daughter now lives with her mother’s relative

Mack’s attorney Michael Leonard agreed with his high-profile client’s assessment, but conceded he was unsure how severe a sentence Mack.

‘The hope is that the judge will seriously consider the time she has already served and all the underlying circumstances of her life and her relationship with her mom,’ Leonard said.

‘Any federal criminal case requires a constant reassessment of risk and reward. Balancing risk in terms of a potential sentence and trying to minimize the risk to yourself.’

This uncertainty, the lawyer said, is still preferable to taking a chance of fighting the case in court – after prosecutors presented texts that showed how Schaefer encouraged Mack to suffocate her mom in her sleep during what was meant to be a relaxing Indonesia vacation – a task she could not bring herself to go through with.

In previous statements to the court, Mack claimed she hid in a bathroom a few days later at Bali’s Regis hotel, as Schaefer bludgeoned her mom to death with a fruit bowl.

Mack was eighteen and pregnant at the time, and prosecutors contend she helped him cram the body into the case and wheel it downstairs where they hailed a cab and loaded it into the trunk.

The pair ran away when the driver became suspicious something foul was afoot, and were arrested shortly afterward at a nearby budget hotel and put on trial.

Both were convicted the next year, as US prosecutors filed their own case that accused Mack of conspiring with Schaefer prior to their Bali trip, stealing her mom’s credit card and using it to fly him out in a $12,000 business class seat.

In text messages presented during those proceedings, Schaefer urged his teen lover to suffocate von Wiese-Mack so they could claim her estate, which he believed was worth up to $11million.

A younger Stella is pictured here with her father, Tommy Schaefer. Mack said Stella, now seven, does not know why both her mother and father are imprisoned, and she wants to keep it that way

He ended up doing the job himself – in gruesome fashion – battering the political strategist with the metal bowl until she suffocated on her own blood after sustaining a broken nose.

Schaefer later testified that Sheila had racially abused him and tried to strangle him during an argument about the pregnancy.

In reality, the besotted lovers had plotted to kill her for months and had already tried but failed to kill her by overdose, prosecutors were able to prove.

Speaking to the Post in June, 20 months after she was cuffed by federal agents in front of her daughter after stepping off the plane at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, Mack explained how she looked forward to assimilating into society after serving the duration of her US sentence.

‘I’m going to be a felon in America, and that is fine. I understand from [the US government’s] perspective that, if I don’t plead guilty and they didn’t indict me, I wouldn’t be a felon. I could become a police officer and work for the government.’

She even added: ‘I could carry a firearm on the street.’

Prior to her mother’s death, Mack reportedly had a fraught and often violent relationship with her mother. According to the Associated Press, police responded many times to the family’s Oak Park, Illinois house.

Hotel cameras show the three arguing in the lobby of the St. Regis on August 12, 2014, the night he arrived.

Stella, meanwhile, lives in Colorado with Lisa Hellman, a teacher who is the niece of the late von Wiese.

Under Indonesian law, Stella was allowed to live with her mother in her cell until she turned two when Mack gave custody of her to Australian native Suartama, whom she befriended during her trial.

Behind bars in Bali, Mack – who enjoyed a privileged upbringing in Chicago’s upscale Oak Park suburb, growing up in a $1.5 million mansion – was said to have left her life of crime behind, going to church, organizing fashion shows and teaching other inmates to dance.

In her a 2019 interview with DailyMail.com she said felt ‘more Indonesian than American’, could speak their language and had no desire to return to the US.

‘My daughter is more Indonesian than American. She has a good life here,’ Mack said.