Crime & Law
Man Accused With Heather Mack in Bali Suitcase Murder Now in Federal Custody
In this March 12, 2015 file photo, Heather Mack, left, and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, both from Chicago, Ill., who are accused of of murdering Mack's mother Sheila von Wiese-Mack whose body was later found in a suitcase, enter the court room prior to the start of their trial hearing at the district court in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati, File)
Tommy Schaefer, the man who in 2014 allegedly beat to death Sheila von Wiese-Mack in Bali as part of a plot with her daughter Heather Mack to gain access to a $1.5 million trust fund, has been returned to the U.S. and is in federal custody.
Schaefer was deported back to the United States from Bali International Airport on Tuesday evening after spending 11 years in prison there following his conviction in von Wiese-Mack’s murder, said Felucia Sengky Ratna, head of the Bali Regional Office of the Directorate General of Immigration, in a statement.
He has now been returned to Chicago and taken into federal custody, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, where he’ll face federal charges of conspiracy to kill someone in a foreign country, conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with a victim.
Schaefer, 32, is scheduled to make an initial appearance on those counts in a Chicago courtroom Thursday morning.
Schaefer was previously convicted in Bali and sentenced to 18 years in prison for the 2014 murder of von Wiese-Mack, a wealthy Chicago socialite, during a luxury vacation in what became known as the Bali “suitcase murder.” Schaefer and Heather Mack were allegedly trying to gain access to a $1.5 million trust fund, prosecutors have said.
The battered body of 62-year-old von Wiese-Mack was found in a suitcase in the trunk of a taxi parked at the upscale St. Regis Bali Resort in August 2014.
Heather Mack, nearly 19 at the time and a few weeks pregnant, and her then-21-year-old boyfriend, Schaefer, were arrested on the island a day later. Prosecutors said Mack covered her mother’s mouth while Schaefer bludgeoned her with a fruit bowl.
Mack, 30, served seven years of a 10-year prison sentence in Bali for helping to kill her mother and was deported in October 2021.
She was also sentenced to 26 years in prison in Chicago in January 2024, after she pleaded guilty to helping kill her mother and stuffing the body in the suitcase.
Mack is currently serving her sentence at a medium-security facility in West Virginia. Federal records show she has a projected release date in March 2044.
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