Bali Murder Suspect Says Boyfriend Killed Mother After She Threatened to Kill Their Unborn Child

By Margaret Paulson in News on Mar 11, 2015 8:35PM

Heather Mack (pictured), confessed to watching her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer murder her mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, in Bali. (AFP/Getty Images photo)

During her first day on the stand Wednesday in Denpasar District Court in Bali, Indonesia, Chicagoan Heather Mack, 19, who is on trial for the premeditated murder of her mother, told the court that her boyfriend killed Sheila von Wiese-Mack, 62, out of anger. Mack alleges her boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, 21, beat von Wiese-Mack with a metal soup bowl after she made a comment about killing their unborn child.

Heather Mack and Schaefer were charged with murder under Indonesian law a few days after von Wiese-Mack’s body was found stuffed in a bloody suitcase at a hotel on Bali, and the couple confessed to the murder a month later— Schaefer of beating von-Wiese Mack to death and Mack of helping dispose of the body.

Mack and Schaefer are being charged separately, though under the same prosecutors and judges. They face a possible death sentence, which would be carried out via firing squad under Indonesian law. The trials started Jan. 14 and could possibly last four months, as it is customary in Indonesia to have only one day of trial per week. In mid-January, a judge ruled that Mack could have access to the more than $150,000 in her trust fund in order to defend herself, provided none of it was spent on Schaefer’s defense.

The gruesome murder of von Wiese-Mack during a luxury vacation on Bali last August made international headlines. Von Wiese-Mack was a prominent Chicagoan who once worked for Studs Terkel, studied under Saul Bellow and was married to the late jazz musician James L. Mack— Heather’s father. There was reportedly much strife in Mack and von Wiese-Mack’s relationship. Police officers were called to their former Oak Park home 86 times for domestic disputes between 2004 and 2013.