After spending more than a decade in prison overseas, the former boyfriend of Heather Mack is set to appear in a Chicago courtroom on Thursday on conspiracy charges stemming from the infamous 2014 murder of Mack’s mother at a Bali resort.
Tommy Schaefer was released from prison in Indonesia last week and is scheduled to appear at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Thursday for his arraignment before U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly, court records show.
The Bali ‘suitcase murder’: Heather Mack’s murder conviction, Indonesian imprisonment, deportation
Schafer’s former attorney on the case, Thomas Anthony Durkin, died in 2025, and it was unclear from the court docket whether he’d hired new counsel.
The murder of Sheila von Wiese-Mack, whose bludgeoned body was found stuffed inside a suitcase, made international headlines as the sordid details of the crime — and the underlying family turmoil — were splashed on tabloid covers for years.
Authorities alleged Schaefer and Mack conspired to kill her mother in order to gain access to a $1.5 million trust fund set up after her father’s death.
Mack was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Indonesia but released early for good behavior. She was arrested by the FBI when she landed at O’Hare International Airport in 2021 on a federal indictment that had been filed against her and Schaefer under seal while they were overseas.
In pleading guilty in 2023, Mack admitted to a horrific set of facts outlined in a lengthy plea agreement, including that she secretly flew Schaefer to Bali using her mother’s credit card and that they texted each other repeatedly about their plan, right up until Mack and her mother were alone in their hotel room.
“i need your help,” Mack texted Schaefer, according to the plea agreement. “you could just put your hand over her and i could grab her body.”
“must knock her out,” Schaefer replied. “I’m finding something right now … I’ll do it.”
Not long afterward, Schaefer entered the hotel room and beat von Wiese-Mack to death with the metal handle of a fruit bowl, according to the plea. An autopsy determined she suffered multiple facial and skull fractures and also had defensive injuries, the plea stated.
Together, Schaefer and Mack put the body in a suitcase and loaded it into the trunk of a taxi at the hotel. They tried to get away in the taxi, but the driver wouldn’t accept their fare; instead, they left the cab and abandoned the suitcase inside. Mack later tried to claim that armed men had broken into their room and kidnapped her mother.
While they were in custody together in Indonesia, Mack gave birth to their daughter, Stella, who by local custom was allowed to live with her mother behind bars until the age of 2. At that point, she gave the toddler to a foster parent.
After a lengthy custody battle in Cook County, Stella was placed with Mack’s cousin in Colorado.
In January 2024, Kennelly sentenced Mack to 26 years in federal prison. Records show she’s serving her time at a medium-security facility in West Virginia and is eligible for release in March 2044, when she’ll be 48 years old.
Schaefer, meanwhile, admitted in Indonesia criminal court to fatally beating von Wiese-Mack and was sentenced to 18 years. He was released early for good behavior and ordered deported to the U.S. earlier this week, records show.
Federal prosecutors in Chicago also charged Schaefer’s cousin, Robert Bibbs, with helping in the murder plot. The FBI learned of Bibbs’ involvement after analyzing text messages found on Schaefer’s phone.
Bibbs served a nine-year prison sentence in Michigan for coaching the defendants on how to carry out the murder in return for a share of the anticipated multimillion-dollar estate.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
