Just a few days ago, Heather Mack was basking in her release from an Indonesian prison and talking excitedly about returning to the U.S. to start a new life with her 6-year-old daughter.
Instead, Mack found herself Wednesday in a stark federal courtroom in downtown Chicago, shackled at the ankles, facing new charges stemming from the 2014 death of her mother in Bali that could land her back behind bars for life.
Dressed in a tan turtleneck sweater, black tights and white sneakers, Mack, 26, pleaded not guilty to an indictment charging her with conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and obstruction of justice. Also charged with the same counts was her boyfriend at the time of the murder, Tommy Schaefer, who is still in prison in Bali.
The murder conspiracy counts carry up to life in prison if convicted, while the obstruction charge has a maximum term of 20 years behind bars.
The arraignment capped a wild three days for Mack and added another stunning chapter to a story that has made international headlines ever since the body of her mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, was found stuffed in a suitcase at the upscale St. Regis Bali Resort.
Mack looked tired and jet-lagged and did not speak during the 10-minute hearing other than to say her name, answering with a firm, “Heather Mack, your honor.” She kept her hands clasped in front of her in court, pausing to ask her attorney something before deputy U.S. marshals escorted her back to the lockup.
Her lawyer, Keith Spielfogel, said he planned to ask that she be released on bond pending trial but needed more time to prepare.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Terry Kinney also asked for more time, telling the judge prosecutors planned to subpoena medical and psychiatric records for Mack that allegedly describe previous “violent attacks” on her mother before the murder. “It goes to the element of her being a danger to the community,” Kinney told the judge.
U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle set a detention hearing for next Wednesday.
Mack was released from prison in Indonesia and ordered deported earlier this week after serving seven years and two months of a 10-year sentence for helping Schaefer kill her mother, allegedly to gain control of Mack’s $1.5 million trust fund.
As recently as Friday, Mack was quoted in a report in the New York Post that she was looking forward to “adjusting to life outside of prison.”
“Little things like going to the grocery store, the park, and the swimming pool with Stella will be wonderful,” Mack was quoted as saying. “Even paying an electricity bill will be nice.”
On Wednesday morning, while a horde of media assembled at O’Hare International Airport’s Terminal 5 awaiting Mack’s flight, the federal indictment was made public at the request of prosecutors. FBI agents took Mack into custody shortly after 9:30 a.m. as she left the Delta Air Lines flight.
In a written statement Wednesday, von Wiese-Mack’s siblings said they were “forever thankful” for federal investigators who stuck with the case, “finding and preserving evidence as well as searching for the truth in order to obtain meaningful justice for Sheila.”
“We have been simultaneously mourning the loss of our beautiful sister Sheila, keeping her spirit alive, assisting in the quest for justice, and advocating for the well being of Stella,” the statement from Bill Wiese and Debbi Curran read. “Sheila can no longer speak for herself, so we have become her voice.”
The indictment was filed under seal in July 2017, four months after the Tribune reported the FBI had filed a search warrant for Mack’s cellphone as part of an ongoing investigation. The newspaper had previously reported that federal authorities also flew Indonesian law enforcement officials to Chicago at least twice in 2015 to answer questions as part of the ongoing investigation
While most of the details in the five-page indictment have been previously laid out in other court records, one of the counts in the indictment alleges Schaefer was still in Chicago for part of the murder conspiracy — an important distinction since Mack’s attorneys will surely argue that all the crimes took place overseas.
Mack’s California-based attorney, Brian Claypool, told the Tribune that the FBI had directed Mack to return to Chicago and not Los Angeles as she’d originally planned.
Claypool accused federal authorities of making a “spectacle” out of her return to the U.S., which he said forced her to make alternate travel arrangements for her daughter, Stella.
“Let’s do this the right way, not in front of everybody, in front of the whole world,” Claypool said in a telephone interview. “They were playing hide-and-seek. Everything about how this has been handled has been inappropriate and reprehensible.”
Court records show a Cook County probate judge on Tuesday issued an emergency order appointing family attorney Vanessa Favia as Stella’s guardian instead of her being handed over to child protective services. Favia declined to comment.
After learning the specifics of the indictment on Wednesday, Claypool said he thinks federal investigators filed charges in 2017 only after deciding they weren’t happy with Mack’s 10-year sentence in Bali.
He said the FBI helped Indonesian authorities behind the scenes with the investigation and prosecution, which he said showed they’d decided to “trust the process” overseas.
“It’s all sour grapes, all high drama and no legal traction,” he said. “We will be filing a motion to get these charges thrown out.”
The FBI declined to comment on Claypool’s remarks.
As Mack’s flight was due to arrive Wednesday, news cameras pointed at the doors of Exit A for international arriving passengers at O’Hare’s Terminal 5. Passengers on Korean Air Flight 37, which was scheduled to arrive at 9:30 a.m., began slowly coming out of the doors 45 minutes later.
An employee who works with baggage for Korean Air, who declined to give her name, said the flight crew didn’t know Mack was on board but they heard passengers whispering about something during the flight.
When they were arriving, the crew received a call warning them. Immigration officers came and took a woman off the plane, the employee said, and about an hour later, they were still waiting to collect her luggage.
Ashley Yoo, 46, of Chicago, stood outside the terminal doors, waiting for her mother who had been visiting Korea.
“I thought somebody famous was coming,” Yoo said, speculating it could be Korean K-pop group BTS.
When a reporter told her Mack was arriving, Yoo said she remembered the case. “I thought that was horrible,” she said. “I remember seeing the picture.”
Mack was convicted in 2015 of helping her then-boyfriend, Schaefer, 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 but was released early for good behavior. Schaefer, who admitted to fatally beating von Wiese-Mack, was sentenced to 18 years and remains behind bars.
Federal prosecutors in Chicago, meanwhile, 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, 31, is serving 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. He is eligible for parole Dec. 26, 2024.
Kia Walker, Schaefer’s mother, was at the airport Wednesday for a chance to spot her granddaughter Stella. Walker said she had not seen the girl in person since her birth, which was on her own birthday.
As tears streamed down her face, Walker said she wanted custody of her granddaughter and she also wanted help for her son, who she said has had a lot of medical issues while in prison including tuberculosis, major organ malfunction and COVID-19.
“These last seven years have been horrible,” she said. “The baby was in prison for the first two years of her life and that was wrong to do. … She’s 6 years old. She’s been in prison already. Not many 6-year-olds can say they’ve been to prison.”
Walker said she plans to file for guardianship of Stella, and she said her son supports her.
“She has been in the hands of people who are wanting to be part of the story, people who want access to the trust fund,” she said. “I love my granddaughter unconditionally. And I should be given the opportunity to raise my granddaughter. I’ve been treated like I’m not around.”
Walker said Stella must know something about her parents’ case because during one video call with the girl, Stella referred to Schaefer as “dangerous daddy.”
“It’s sad. It’s really sad,” Walker said. “She shouldn’t know anything. Not right now.”
Mack and von Wiese-Mack had a troubled relationship, the Tribune reported in 2014 based on police reports and statements from neighbors. The mother filed dozens of complaints against her daughter for battery, theft, truancy and missing person reports in Oak Park and, later, after the two moved to a Chicago high-rise condo along the lakefront in 2013.
Emails obtained by the Tribune show von Wiese-Mack was aware of her daughter’s pregnancy before the trip to Bali, and federal authorities later released in court filings of incriminating text messages between the young couple before the killing. The former lovers refer to themselves in the texts as “Bonnie and Clyde,” a nod to the 1930s outlaw couple.
“Literally cant wait,” Heather Mack said of her mother’s planned demise, according to a federal affidavit.
Mack was just short of 19 years old at the time of the killing, and was pregnant with Schaefer’s baby, according to Tribune archives. Stella was born in 2015 and lived with Mack in her cell for two years before an Australian woman was given custody until the end of Mack’s sentence.
Claypool said he had arranged for Stella to stay with a family in Beverly Hills after their return to the United States. That plan was scuttled when the FBI told Mack she had to fly to Chicago instead of Los Angeles, he said.
The murder of von Wiese-Mack made headlines around the world. Relatives said the widow of acclaimed composer James L. Mack had brought their then-teenage daughter to the tropical island in an effort to mend their troubled relationship. Instead, unbeknown to the victim, her daughter’s boyfriend showed up late in the vacation, about eight hours before the murder.
James Mack, 76, died in 2006 in Athens, Greece, while on vacation, according to his Chicago Tribune obituary. Heather Mack was 10 at the time and in recent years has accused her mother of squandering Mack’s inheritance.
Months before her death, Sheila von Wiese-Mack tapped her brother, Bill, to serve as trustee of a $1.56 million trust fund of which her daughter was sole beneficiary. From her Bali cell, Heather Mack fought her uncle for years to gain access to the money. During the court battle, a judge allowed her to have about $150,000 to put toward her criminal defense.
After multiple hearings involving several attorneys and court experts, only about half of the money was left by the time a settlement was reached. The terms were kept confidential, but available court records made it clear Mack would not receive anything. Instead, her daughter Stella was named beneficiary.
Bill Wiese told the Tribune earlier this year he was not surprised by his niece’s early release. Wiese, an attorney, has long accused Indonesian authorities of accepting money in return for a reduced sentence.
“I believe Heather’s original 10-year sentence was a travesty of justice and likely influenced by the outrageously large amount that the Chicago judge ordered to be sent to Indonesia for her defense,” Bill Wiese said in a statement.
Read the indictment below. If you are having trouble seeing it, click here.
Chicago Tribune’s Megan Crepeau and Stephanie Casanova and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
