She traveled half way around the world last summer with her teenage daughter with the hope of repairing their troubled relationship on the tropical resort island of Bali.
Instead of starting anew, Sheila von Wiese-Mack was found slain, her body stuffed in a blood-smeared suitcase just days after she emailed a friend complaining the trip was far from paradise. The wealthy Chicago woman’s only child stood accused.
Eight months later, under the glare of an international media spotlight, an Indonesian court in a unanimous verdict Tuesday convicted Heather Mack, 19, and her boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, 21, of the grisly slaying Aug. 12.
The three-judge panel in Denpasar District Court sentenced Mack to 10 years in prison. Schaefer, who admitted fatally beating von Wiese-Mack but claimed self defense, received an 18-year prison term.
Mack and Schaefer have one week to appeal to a higher court. Under Indonesian law, however, they risk a lengthier prison term should the country’s court of appeals rule a harsher punishment is just.
The young couple wept after learning their fate. Afterward, Schaefer told reporters: “Although I do take full responsibility for my actions, I’m not a murderer.”
Mack, who while in custody has a cellphone with video technology, did not respond to requests for comment.
In earlier Tribune interviews, she described her mother as “the person I loved most in the world,” and denied she plotted the murder beforehand or assisted with concealing the body afterward, as prosecutors alleged.
“I loved my mom with all my heart and miss her every day,” she told the Tribune recently. “I believe at the end of the trial, America will have a very different view of the true events.”
The charge of premeditated murder carries a maximum penalty of death. But the court said it decided to be lenient toward Mack, of Chicago, because she gave birth to the couple’s daughter, Stella, last month.
As for Schaefer, presiding Judge Made Suweda described his crime as “sadistic” but said the defendant’s politeness and expression of remorse during the trial warranted that the Oak Park resident be spared a harsher sentence.
The slain woman’s sister, Debbi Curran, of St. Louis, said the punishment does not fit the crime. She cited police reports in the years leading up to the murder that chronicle her sister’s troubled relationship with her daughter.
In dozens of public records and emails reviewed by the Tribune, von Wiese-Mack described a reign of terror by Mack. The mother filed dozens of complaints against her daughter for battery, theft, truancy and missing person reports in Oak Park and, later, after the two moved to a Chicago high-rise condo along the lakefront in 2013.
“My sister when she was alive was bruised, bitten and even had her arm broken by Heather and yet she loved her unconditionally and never gave up hope that Heather would be better,” said Curran, 60, adding: “Our family is grateful for some relief, but we’re very disappointed in the lenient sentences for premeditated murder.”
Von Wiese Mack was the widow of highly regarded Chicago jazz and classical composer James L. Mack, who died in August 2006 during a family vacation in Greece. Heather Mack was the couple’s only child and sole beneficiary of a $1.56 million trust fund.
This week, Mack signed legal paperwork to ensure one-third of the trust is dedicated to her newborn daughter. Mack has told the Tribune she is allowed to keep her baby with her in the Bali prison for up to two years, but it’s unclear what plans if any she has made since learning the verdict.
Attorney Ridarson Galingging, who practices in Indonesia and previously studied at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago, said the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta will assist with finding a home for the baby once she reaches 2.
Although the Indonesia court of appeals could impose a harsher sentence, he said it or the country’s highest court also could show mercy.
“Every year during Indonesian independence day and Christmas they may request remission of the sentences,” he told the Tribune in an email Tuesday. “If they behave well they will get sentences reduction that will be decided by the Indonesian justice ministry.”
Mack’s access to the trust has been a hard-fought battle in Cook County, where Judge Neil Cohen allowed up to $150,000 to be used for her criminal defense. Another estimated $300,000 of the trust has gone to lawyer fees, officials said, and the legal fight is certain to continue in light of Mack’s criminal conviction. Under Illinois’ slayer statute, a person who intentionally and unjustifiably causes the death of another person cannot receive property as a result of the death of that person.
Attorneys involved in the trust case said they are awaiting clarification of the actual charge Mack was convicted of under Indonesian criminal code. One legal expert not involved in the case said Illinois courts have not considered the issue of whether a conviction for being an accomplice or accessory to a murder would trigger the statute.
“If the conviction is for anything less than first- or second-degree murder there is going to be a major legal battle here,” said Northbrook attorney Mary Vanek, who has argued for the enforcement of the slayer statute in Cook County probate court. “But I think the trustee can make a good argument that Heather is not entitled to inherit if she was in any way involved in the murder, because the intent of the law is to prohibit wrongdoers from reaping the benefit of their wrongdoing.”
The body of Von Wiese-Mack, 62, was found last summer inside a suitcase the couple left abandoned outside the posh Bali resort where the mother and daughter had been staying. Schaefer arrived separately, one day earlier, unbeknownst to his girlfriend’s mother.
Schaefer testified at his trial that von Wiese-Mack was angry when she learned about her daughter’s pregnancy and tried to strangle him, prompting him to repeatedly strike her with a metal fruit bowl. Mack testified she hid in the bathroom after the melee began.
Prosecutors said Mack helped Schaefer stuff her mother’s body into the suitcase by sitting on it to enable Schaefer to close it — a point Mack vehemently denied to the Tribune.
The couple then placed the suitcase in the trunk of a taxi and told the driver they were going to check out of the hotel and would return, but they never did, prosecutors said. Instead, after being denied their passports in the mother’s security box inside the hotel, Mack and Schaefer slipped out a back door.
Prosecutors said Mack and Schaefer plotted to kill Mack’s mother because she didn’t support their relationship, and they said Mack once proposed that Schaefer hire a hit man for $50,000. Mack has denied anything was planned.
In earlier interviews, she told the Tribune they panicked afterward and repeatedly called police, only to receive an answering machine. Mack said they reached the U.S. Consulate, and they were told to come directly to the embassy.
Instead, police arrested the young couple that next day in a budget hotel about 6 miles away. According to police, they initially claimed an armed gang held them captive but they managed to escape.
Curran said her niece had not attempted to contact any relatives since her arrest. She said her family likely will never learn what really happened.
“Our family doesn’t feel we’ll ever know the truth because they’ve changed their story so many times,” Curran said.
Added longtime family friend Elliott Jacobson: “(Mack) has graduated in two years from troubled kid to criminal to convicted murderer.”
Days before her death, von Wiese-Mack repeatedly emailed Jacobson to report her daughter had grown violent and erratic, often disappearing for hours at a time without explanation.
“I worry every minute and just wish that I could enjoy this lovely vacation,” said von Wiese-Mack, according to an Aug. 6 email.
The last email came two days later. As she waited to hear from her missing daughter, von Wiese-Mack said she was “more frightened than ever.” Her body was found four days later.
Tribune news services contributed.
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