“Suitcase Killer” Heather Mack was sentenced to 26 years in prison in a Chicago court on Wednesday — nearly a decade after she helped beat her mother to death during a luxury vacation in Bali.
US District Judge Matthew Kennelly sentenced Mack, 28, for conspiring to kill Sheila von Wiese-Mack with her then-boyfriend in 2014 in order to obtain $1.5 million in trust funds.
He has served seven years in Indonesia after being convicted in 2015 of covering his mother’s mouth to silence her cries while Tommy Schaefer hit Wiese-Mack with a bowl of fruit in a hotel room.
Mack was 18 and pregnant with Schaefer’s baby at the time.
Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, orange flip flops and glasses, Mack looked expressionless as his family delivered an emotional victim impact statement and asked for the maximum sentence, saying Mack had never shown remorse.
He was only upset when it was his turn to speak, telling his family he accepted responsibility for the heinous crime.
“It breaks my heart to hear you cry,” she told Debbi Curran, her aunt and Wiese-Mack’s sister, through tears.
Heather Mack was sentenced to 26 years in prison for her role in the cold-blooded murder of her mother. Getty Images
“There is no reason to try to hurt him. I miss and love my mother.”
Mack’s attorney estimated that he would serve about 20 years in prison, taking into account the credit he was given for the two-plus years he spent in custody in Chicago after serving his sentence in Indonesia.
Federal prosecutors had recommended a 28-year prison sentence, while Mack’s attorneys sought a 15-year sentence and credit for seven years served.
Mack killed Sheila von Wiese-Mack’s mother to get $1.5 million in trust funds.
“This was a brutal and organized crime,” Kennelly said before sentencing Mack. He also ordered him to pay $262,708 in restitution and a $50,000 fine.
“Ms. Von Wiese could be the worst parent in the history of mankind. She does not deserve to die.”
Mack pleaded guilty in federal court in June to his role in the cold-blooded murder of his mother during a luxury vacation to Bali in 2014.
Mack and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer had been planning the murder for months.
Mack pleaded guilty in June to one count of conspiracy to murder a US citizen.
In August 2014, Mack, then 18 and pregnant, was vacationing with then-boyfriend Schaefer and his socialite mother at the luxury resort of St. Regis in Bali when the pair attack Wiese-Mack as part of a months-twisted plot. to inherit a $1.5 million trust fund, prosecutors said.
The couple then put the woman’s body in a small suitcase and put it in the trunk of a taxi.
After beating von Wiese to death with a bowl of fruit, Mack and Schaefer stuffed his body into a suitcase which they tried to throw in a cab. AFP via Getty Images
After the cab driver called the police, Mack and Schaefer were arrested several miles away.
Mack, who lives with his mother in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, was sentenced to 10 years for being an accessory to murder but was released early for good behavior in 2021 and quickly deported to the US.
Her 9-year-old daughter, Stella, was born in an Indonesian prison but is now in the care of a relative.
Mack tearfully tells his family that he accepts responsibility for the murder and misses his mother. AFP via Getty Images
Schaefer was convicted of murder and is serving an 18-year sentence in Indonesia. He is charged in the same US indictment.
His mother, Kia Walker, was in the courtroom Wednesday for Mack’s sentencing.
With Postal wire
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
