10/29/2021- 8:40 p.m.
Chicago -Heather Mack infamously convicted of helping her boyfriend brutally kill her socialite mother in a luxury Bali hotel room before hiding the victim’s body in a suitcase and attempting to flee.
She stepped out of Indonesia’s Kerobokan prison a free woman after serving seven years of a 10-year sentence for the 2014 murder of her mother, 62-year-old Sheila von Wiese-Mack.
CCTV footage from the hotel reportedly showed Shaefer and Wiese-Mack arguing in the hotel lobby.
Hours later, Schaefer, then 21, beat Wiese-Mack to death by repeatedly hitting her in the head with a fruit bowl.
Mack, who was pregnant at the time, then reportedly helped wrap her mother’s remains in a sheet and stuffed the victim’s body in the luggage. Mack and Schaefer placed the suitcase in the trunk of the taxi before fleeing.
Schaefer would later admit to killing Wiese-Mack, though he maintained that the killing was in self-defense. He said the the victim attacked him after learning her daughter was pregnant. Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
Wiese-Mack and her daughter reportedly had a troubled relationship. Law enforcement authorities were called to their home in the upscale Oak Park, Illinois suburbs at least 86 times between 2004 and 2013.
Mack was sentenced to 10 years in prison by an Indonesian court, but her sentenced was cut by 34 months due to good behavior, Kerobokan’s prison warden told The Associated Press.
Warden Lili—who only goes by the single name, which is common in Indonesia—reportedly told the AP that Mack was very involved in the facility’s programs; she taught dancing classes, and organized fashion shows featuring clothing designed by inmates.
“Heather used to say that prison has changed her life a lot, she loves Indonesia and the people who have surrounded her all these years. She will miss us so much and so do we here,” Lili said, adding that “we all cheered her on and reassured her that everything would be all right.”
Amrizal, the chief of the Bali immigration office for the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, told the AP that Mack will spend several days at the Immigration Detention Center until her travel itinerary back to the U.S. is finalized.
