Heather Mack.Photo:Agung Parameswara/Getty
Agung Parameswara/Getty
Heather Mack, the Chicago woman who helped kill her mother and stuffed her body in a suitcase during a luxury family vacation in Bali, was sentenced to 26 years in prison on Wednesday,CBS News,TheChicago TribuneandThe Chicago Sun-Timesreport.Mack, 27, pleaded guilty last June to aiding the 2014 murder of her mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack.
Schaefer admitted to the killing during his trial in Indonesia, saying he bludgeoned Mack’s mother to death with a metal fruit bowl.
Mackwas released from the Indonesian prisonin 2021 for good behavior, Mack’s U.S.-based attorney, Vanessa Favia,told PEOPLE at the time. Mack had served seven years of her 10-year sentence.
Heather Mack.Agung Parameswara/Getty
Dubbed the “Suitcase Killer,” Mack had a tempestuous relationship that only became more strained when Mack’s father, renowned musician and composer James Mack, left behind a $1.5 million trust for his daughter.
Interviews with Mack, family, and friends revealed that the mother and daughter had a co-dependent, dysfunctional relationship. “She never wanted to be separated from me, and yet she also hated everything about me,” Mack once told PEOPLE in ajailhouse interview. “It was complicated.”
A family friend told PEOPLE Mack’s relationship with her mother “was like a disaster waiting to happen.”
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Heather Mack.SonnyTumbelaka/AFP via Getty
SonnyTumbelaka/AFP via Getty
The couple then allegedly stuffed Mack’s mother’s body into a suitcase and placed it in the trunk of a taxi before fleeing the hotel. The driver called the police after he noticed spotted blood leaking from the luggage.
In 2017, Mack gave birth to her and Schaerfer’s daughter Stella while behind bars. She was forced to give up custody of the child, first to a friend in Indonesia and later to a cousin after being extradited back to the U.S.
“She is everything,” Mack had told PEOPLE from jail. “She has taught me what love is.”
source: people.com
