BALI: An American woman convicted of killing her mother with her boyfriend and stuffing the body in a suitcase at a luxury Bali hotel was freed from prison on Friday after serving her sentence.
In the notorious case, then teenager Heather Mack was handed a 10-year jail term in 2015 while her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer got 18 years for the murder of Chicago socialite Sheila von Wiese Mack on the Indonesian island.
Schaefer beat the 62-year-old victim to death with a fruit bowl during a heated argument at the five-star St. Regis resort, before the couple abandoned the suitcase containing the battered body in a taxi and fled.
Mack, who was pregnant at the time of the crime, was found guilty on a lesser charge of assisting in the murder. Now 25, she was freed from Bali’s Kerobokan prison on Friday, the head of the prison’s female section said, saying Mack had been granted early release for good behaviour.
Kerobokan prison chief for women inmates Lili said on Friday that Mack was given a 34-month remission. She said Mack was religious and participated in fashion and dance activities in prison.
The 2014 murder shook the usually sedate holiday island, with details of the grisly killing emerging during the closely followed trial. The court heard how von Wiese Mack’s badly beaten body was discovered in the taxi outside the ritzy hotel where she had been staying with her daughter and Schaefer. The couple had fled to another part of Bali, where police arrested them.
Schaefer, who remained in prison, confessed to the killing during his trial but claimed he was defending himself during an argument with von Wiese Mack, who was unhappy that her daughter was pregnant.
Prosecutors alleged that Schaefer “blindly hit” von Wiese Mack with the fruit bowl in a fit of rage after she hurled a racial slur at him. During the attack, Mack hid in a bathroom but later helped Schaefer stuff the body into a suitcase, the trial heard.
Von Wiese-Mack’s body was found at the hotel with bruises on her arms and broken fingers. Evidence submitted to court included CCTV footage showing Schaefer and Heather Mack speaking to a taxi driver after dropping the bloodied suitcase.
