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Heather Mack, who, along with her boyfriend, Tommy Schafer, murdered her mother on August 12, 2014, pleaded guilty to her crime before a federal court in America. Mack and her then-boyfriend, Schafer conspired to kill the former's mother and ultimately carried out their plan when they were accompanying the victim, Sheila Von Wiese-Mack on a luxury vacation in Bali.
In August 2014, an 18-year-old Mack, along with her 21-year-old boyfriend, killed Wiese-Mack by bludgeoning her to death with a fruit stand. It is believed that Mack wanted to kill her mother in order to escape her control, while Schafer wanted to access Mack's inheritance which amounted to a hefty sum of $1.5 million.
Heather Mack was initially sentenced to prison in Indonesia, and subsequently extradited to the US, where she was put on trial. On June 16, 2023, Heather Mack pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to murder a US national as a result of a plea bargain agreement that she has entered into with the prosecution. Scafer is currently still serving his sentence in Bali.
Heather Mack has entered a guilty plea on charges of conspiring to kill her mother on foreign soil
Sheila Von Wiese-Mack was murdered at the St. Regis Hotel in Bali. After the murder, Heather Mack and her boyfriend packed the remains of the victim in a suitcase. Unable to check out of the resort, they ran away, abandoning the suitcase. Their cab driver notified the police of their whereabouts, and officials proceeded to arrest the duo at a nearby hotel.
Heather Mack and Tommy Schafer were tried for their crimes in Indonesia and were sentenced to 10 and 18 years in jail, respectively for premeditated murder. After serving seven years of her sentence, Mack, along with her daughter, who she was pregnant with at the time of the murder, were extradited to the US. Upon landing on US soil, Mack was arrested and put on trial for two counts of conspiring to kill Wiese-Mack and a separate count of corruptly destroying, mutilating, and concealing evidence.
Speaking to The Post regarding her decision to plead guilty in the lawsuit against her, Heather Mack said:
“We were offered a good plea. First, it was 15 to 35 [years]; now they are saying zero to 25 years, including time served”
Speaking about the duration of her sentence, her attorney Michael Leonard said:
“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…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.”
Mack is currently detained in Illinois.
Heather Mack had a history of abusing her mother, and the latter predicted her own murder
Sheila Von Wiese-Mack had been on the receiving end of abuse at the hands of her daughter, Heather Mack for several years before she was murdered. Rasul Freelain, a former police officer, while speaking to the Independent, revealed that he arrested Heather Mack several times in connection with parental abuse. Freelain recounted the victim's outlook towards the violence being perpetrated against her as follows:
“Her behaviour was completely consistent with other families I’ve worked with where kids have been abusive to the parents and in other broader situations of domestic or family abuse… It’s mirrored in what we see in intimate partner violence where the victim is very reluctant to speak out against their abuser.”
The violence steadily escalated over the years. In 2013, Wiese-Mack admitted that she suspected her daughter would kill her. However, there are no laws that regulate the abuse of parents at the hands of minor children in the state, which prevented the police from taking action against Heather. Freelain likened the gradual escalation of abuse to the derailment of a slow-moving train, outlining his helplessness in the situation.
Regarding the inability of the police to act on the victim's suspicions, he noted that the entire criminal justice system failed the victim. Recalling the moment he discovered that the victim had been murdered, he added:
“I was driving my car and it came out on the local news radio… I had to pull the car over to the side of the road… What Sheila said had happened. It was information overload. I started pounding the steering wheel and saying ‘no, no, no’ in the car. I couldn’t fathom that it had happened even though it was like watching a slow-moving train derailment.”
Wiese-Mack, who lost her life under tragic circumstances, would have turned 75 this year.
