Heather Mack faces a dramatic sentencing hearing later this year after she finally pleaded guilty Friday in a federal courtroom to plotting the 2014 killing of her mother during an exotic vacation to Bali when she was a teenager.
Mack, now 27, struck a deal with federal prosecutors that would cap her prison sentence at 28 years. But key questions remain. Among them is whether U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly will credit Mack with the seven years she spent imprisoned in Indonesia.
Another is whether Kennelly will accept the deal at all.
Kennelly set Mack’s sentencing hearing for Dec. 18 after she pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill a U.S. national. Mack stood before the judge wearing an orange jumpsuit in Kennelly’s 21st floor courtroom. She has been held in Chicago’s downtown Metropolitan Correctional Center since she returned to the United States in November 2021.
Sheila von Wiese-Mack’s body was discovered in a suitcase left outside the St. Regis Bali Resort on Aug. 12, 2014. Federal prosecutors have long said she was bludgeoned to death with the metal handle of a fruit stand so Mack, her then-boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, and Schaefer’s cousin could enrich themselves with the proceeds of von Wiese-Mack’s $1.5 million estate.
Mack’s plea agreement alleges that “Schaefer repeatedly beat [von Wiese-Mack] in the head and face” and that she “died shortly thereafter.”
Prosecutors have previously alleged that Mack covered her mother’s mouth with her hand during the killing, but Mack did not admit to it in the plea deal.
The charge Mack pleaded guilty to carries a maximum sentence of life, but her deal includes an agreement between her lawyers and prosecutors that her sentence would not exceed 28 years.
That said, sentencing is ultimately up to the judge. Kennelly could choose to reject the arrangement outright. If he does, that would leave Mack and her lawyers to either try to negotiate a new deal or go to trial.
However, the odds that Kennelly will accept the arrangement went up when von Wiese-Mack’s brother, William Wiese, told reporters her family is supportive of the agreement. He and his sister, Debbi Curran, also said in a statement they were “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,” they said. “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 U.S. attorney’s office and FBI, we are hopeful for a sentence that more appropriately reflects the heinous and premeditated nature of the crime.”
Despite the cap on Mack’s sentence, she still seems to face a wide range of outcomes in December. That’s largely because prosecutors have taken the position that Mack should not be credited for the time she spent imprisoned in Indonesia. Mack’s lawyers disagree.
As a result, Mack could potentially walk free after her sentencing. Or she could wind up serving a sentence that would keep her behind bars for another 20 years. It’s more likely her sentence will land somewhere in between.
Defense attorney Michael Leonard told reporters he’ll likely point to Mack’s age and pregnancy at the time of the killing, “her very long and troubled relationship with her mother” and the death of her father when she was a child.
He also said Mack has grown as a person.
“She’s certainly not the same person she was,” Leonard said of Mack. “She’s much more mature.”
Mack and Schaefer have already faced trial in Indonesia. Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison overseas for beating von Wiese-Mack to death, and Mack was sentenced to 10 years for helping. Mack gave birth to the couple’s daughter, Stella, during the 2015 trial.
But signs long pointed to a separate prosecution in the United States if the pair ever returned. For Mack, that day came in late 2021, after she served seven years and two months in Indonesia. She was deported with Stella and, as expected, an indictment was unsealed in U.S. District Court as their plane neared O’Hare Airport.
It charged Mack and Schaefer with conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Schaefer remains locked up overseas. Stella, now 8, is in the custody of a maternal cousin of Mack’s.
Mack has given varying explanations over the years of what happened to her mother in August 2014. In a series of videos on YouTube in 2017, Mack confessed to the killing and seemed to absolve Schaefer of wrongdoing. More recently, Leonard has argued that Schaefer killed von Wiese-Mack, and any conspiracy actually existed between Schaefer and his cousin, Robert Bibbs.
