An initially peaceful family vacation turned into a horrific crime scene when a violent altercation broke out between a mother and her teenage daughter.
Heather Mack, enjoying a lavish lifestyle due to her parents’ affluent backgrounds, embarked on luxurious holidays to exotic destinations. During a trip to Bali, Indonesia, with her mother Sheila von Wiese-Mack and then-partner Tommy Schaefer, a gruesome act of violence occurred.
Schaefer viciously murdered Mack’s mother by bludgeoning her to death with a fruit bowl, then concealing her bloodied body in a suitcase left in a taxi trunk. Mack alleged that the murder stemmed from a heated argument with her mother over her pregnancy, fueled by racist remarks made by her mother that incited Schaefer’s violent response.
Mack claimed that the murder had been premeditated during their time in Chicago, citing her mother’s racist behavior as the catalyst. Despite her accusations, Mack acknowledged that her mother did not deserve such a fate.
Allegations surfaced that Mack’s mother was an abusive alcoholic, but conflicting accounts from family friends suggested that Mack was the aggressor in their tumultuous relationship. Schaefer, in his defense, stated that he killed Sheila in self-defense after she attacked him for objecting to their relationship, denying the label of murderer.
Mack, pregnant at the time of the crime, received a 10-year prison sentence for her involvement as an accessory to murder at 19. She gave birth in prison and raised her daughter until the child turned two, after which she was cared for by a foster family in Bali. Schaefer, convicted of premeditated murder in 2014, is serving an 18-year sentence. Mack, released from Bali prison in 2021 at 25, was subsequently arrested, charged, and imprisoned again upon returning to the US.
