Heather Mack pleads guilty to conspiracy in mom’s murder

June 16, 2023

“Suitcase Killer” Heather Mack pleaded guilty in a federal court in Chicago Friday for her role in her mother’s cold-blooded murder during a luxury vacation to Bali in 2014.

Mack, 27, appeared before US District Judge Matthew Kennelly and entered a guilty plea to a single count of conspiracy to kill a US national.

Dressed in an orange jumpsuit and slippers, Mack spoke calmly and confidently, telling the judge she was giving up her right to remain silent during the hearing.

Mack, who had already served seven years in Indonesia after being convicted in 2015 of being an accessory to her socialite mom Sheila von Wiese-Mack’s killing, faces up to 28 years in federal prison when she’s sentenced on Dec. 18.

Mack exclusively told The Post earlier this month that she was planning to change her plea to guilty in the federal conspiracy case after being offered “a good plea” ahead of her trial, which had been set for August 1.

Heather Mack is mobbed by reporters as she arrives in the courtroom for her sentencing hearing at a district court in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, April 21, 2015. — “Suitcase Killer” Heather Mack, 27, on Friday pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to kill a US national.

An Indonesia police officer with a blood covered suitcase, in which the body of US woman Sheila von Wiese Mack was found in, at a police station in Nusadua, Bali, Indonesia, 13 August 2014. — Prosecutors said Mack helped her then-boyfriend bludgeon her mother to death and stuff her body into this tiny suitcase during a trip to Bali in 2014.

In August 2014, Mack, then 18 years old and pregnant, was vacationing with her then-boyfriend and her socialite mother at Bali’s luxury St. Regis resort when the pair attacked Wiese-Mack as part of a twisted plot months in the making to gain access to a $1.5 million trust fund, prosecutors said.

Tommy Schaefer bludgeoned Wiese-Mack with a fruit bowl as her daughter covered her mother’s mouth to muffle her cries in a hotel room.

The couple then stuffed the woman’s body into a tiny suitcase and placed it in the trunk of a taxi.

Sheila von Weise Mack — Sheila Wiese-Mack, a Chicago-area socialite, was beaten to death with a fruit bowl at a luxury Bali resort.

Heather Mack and Tommy Schaefer — At the time of the killing, Mack, then 18 years old, was pregnant with her and Tommy Schaefer’s daughter.

After the cabbie called the police, Mack and Schaefer, the father of her baby, were arrested a few miles away.

Schaefer was convicted of Wiese-Mack’s murder and is serving an 18-year sentence in Indonesia.

Mack had been sentenced to 10 years but was released early for good behavior in 2021 and swiftly deported to the US.

Heather Mack, 19, of the United States holds her baby daughter in a cell as she await her verdict hearing on April 21, 2015 in Denpasar, Bali — Mack gave birth in an Indonesian prison where she had served seven years for a murder conviction.

An Indonesian police officer escorts Tommy Schaefer, left, as he is brought to the police station for questioning in relation to the death of his girlfriend's mother, in Bali, Indonesia, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014. — Schaefer is serving an 18-year sentence for Wiese-Mack’s murder in Indonesia.

She was arrested by federal agents as soon as her plane landed at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. Mack has been in federal custody ever since.

Mack and Schaefer’s daughter, Stella, was born in prison and spent the first two years of her life there before being placed in foster care.

The 6-year-old was with her mother when Mack was arrested at the Chicago airport.

Stella is now living with Weise-Mack’s niece in Colorado after a custody battle.

With Post wires