US woman gets 26 years for Bali 'suitcase murder'

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - CHICAGO — An American woman who helped kill her mother and stuff her body in a suitcase during a 2014 holiday in Bali has been sentenced to 26 years in prison.

Heather Mack was convicted in Indonesia in 2015 and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but was released in 2021.

She was then arrested upon arriving in the US and charged with conspiracy to kill a US national.

Mack has spent the last two years in a Chicago prison as she awaited sentencing.

On Wednesday, Judge Matthew Kennelly ruled that Mack, 28, will receive credit for the time she has served thus far, reducing her formal sentence to around 23 years.

Prosecutors had recommended a 28-year prison sentence for Mack, who conspired with her then-boyfriend Tommy Schaefer to kill her mother, wealthy academic Sheila von Wiese-Mack.

The pair reportedly did so to gain access to a $1.5m (£1.17m) trust fund.

Prosecutors alleged that Ms Mack — who was 18 at the time of the murder and pregnant — covered her mother's mouth while Schaefer struck her in the head with a fruit bowl. The body was later discovered stuffed inside a suitcase.

After Wiese-Mack's murder at the hotel, Ms Mack and Schaefer left the suitcase with her remains in the boot of a taxi, prosecutors said. The driver later alerted police.

The couple was later discovered staying at another hotel in Bali.

Mack originally pleaded not-guilty to the US charges, but had changed her plea after a "good" deal was offered to her by prosecutors, who originally sought a longer sentence.

During her sentencing, Wiese-Mack's brother Bill Wiese asked the court to impose the maximum penalty possible, arguing that Mack has not shown remorse for the crime.

"If it were up to me, Heather would spend the rest of her life behind bars," Wiese said.

Schaefer, who is also named in the US indictment, remains imprisoned in Indonesia. — BBC