Heather Mack was convicted of helping murder her mother, whose body was discovered stuffed in a suitcase while on vacation in Bali in 2014, but now the imprisoned Chicago-area woman appears to be confessing on YouTube that she alone committed the killing, motivated by revenge.
She further states that her then-boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, who was convicted after testifying at trial that he delivered the fatal blow with a metal handle of a fruit bowl, was merely part of the crime’s attempted cover-up. She said she entrapped him into that role and on video expressed her remorse for it.
In a series of three videos, posted Thursday and titled "Confession," Mack, 21, starts out by saying "the truth sets you free" and that she doesn’t want to "live in a lie anymore." She goes on to claim in the videos that her mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, had killed her father in a hotel in Athens and that this prompted Mack to murder her mother. But she does not say how she carried out the crime.
"Two weeks before I came to Bali, I found out that she killed my father, and I made it up in my heart, in my mind, my soul, in my blood, in the oxygen running through my body, that I wanted to kill my mother," she says in the videos. "… I got this whole new savage idea in my head that I wanted to kill her in a hotel room, because she had killed my father in a hotel room. We were going to Bali, so I began to plot."
Mack was 10 when her father, acclaimed jazz composer James L. Mack, died of a pulmonary embolism during a family vacation in Greece in 2006, according to his obituary.
Debbi Curran, the younger sister of von Wiese-Mack, called Heather’s claims "completely false."
"Since the brutal murder of my dear sister, Sheila, two and a half years ago, our family has had to endure endless lies about what actually happened in Bali," Curran, of St. Louis, said in a written statement. "Heather Mack’s stories about her relationship with her mother and the events in Bali have changed so many times; it is impossible to discern truth from deception. However, her accusation about Sheila killing Jim is completely false. Sheila loved Jim very deeply and was devastated by his death. We are also struck by the utter lack of any remorse from Heather over her mother’s murder."
Heather Mack attorney: Baby-selling allegation ‘a smearing campaign’ Christy Gutowski
She’s barely 3 months old, but the fate of a baby girl being raised a world away in a Bali prison took center stage Friday in a Chicago courtroom where lawyers are fighting over money left by her slain grandmother.
The child, Stella Schaefer, was born in Indonesia in March as her father and teenage…
She’s barely 3 months old, but the fate of a baby girl being raised a world away in a Bali prison took center stage Friday in a Chicago courtroom where lawyers are fighting over money left by her slain grandmother.
The child, Stella Schaefer, was born in Indonesia in March as her father and teenage…
(Christy Gutowski)
Mack, who grew up in Oak Park but most recently lived in Chicago before going to Bali, is serving a 10-year prison sentence overseas but has access to email, a cellphone and the Internet.
Neither Mack, an attorney who has represented her in Cook County court nor Schaefer’s mother responded to requests for comment as of Saturday afternoon.
She and her mother were on a lavish vacation in August 2014 when the body of von Wiese-Mack, 62, was found in a suitcase. Von Wiese-Mack planned the trip as a new beginning in their troubled relationship, the victim’s siblings and friends have told the Tribune, and had not known her daughter’s boyfriend, Schaefer had also been traveling to the island.
Mack and Schaefer were convicted in April 2015 of the murder; authorities have alleged that Mack and Schaefer openly texted about their murderous plot.
But in the recent videos on YouTube, Mack contends she was the sole killer and apologizes to Schaefer. She says she had asked Schaefer to help her murder her mother or find someone else to do so for $50,000 but that he had said no. She also says she had faked the text messages prior to the trip by taking his phone when he was asleep.
Young couple convicted in Bali suitcase murder break up Christy Gutowski
They once called themselves “Bonnie and Clyde” but apparently the confines of an Indonesian prison proved too powerful for their young love to last.
A former Chicago-area couple imprisoned for killing the girl’s wealthy mother during an exotic Bali vacation nearly two years ago has broken up, according…
They once called themselves “Bonnie and Clyde” but apparently the confines of an Indonesian prison proved too powerful for their young love to last.
A former Chicago-area couple imprisoned for killing the girl’s wealthy mother during an exotic Bali vacation nearly two years ago has broken up, according…
(Christy Gutowski)
"I trapped him here," she says in the videos. "And that is what I regret. I don’t regret killing my mother, and as evil as that may sound, that’s my reality. … But I regret bringing Tommy into it. I regret being selfish. I regret trapping an innocent person into this, because it was my battle, it was my mother, it was my father."
Mack also says on the video that she forced Schaefer to help clean the room and hide the body by threatening to tell authorities he was the killer and paying to have him arrested; she adds that she persuaded him to take the blame in court to avoid the death penalty, in the hope that she could go free and keep a sizable trust fund. She professes her love for him and says the only way he took part in the crime was hiding the body.
"So he lied in the court because of me," she says in the videos. "My motivation for doing this was for myself. It’s from inside of me, and it’s my battle. It wasn’t Tommy’s. Tommy’s an innocent man."
Schaefer, formerly of Oak Park, is serving an 18-year prison term. He testified during his trial that von Wiese-Mack became angry when he came to her hotel room to tell her that Mack was pregnant. He testified that he struck her with a heavy metal fruit bowl handle but only after she made a racial slur, threatened to harm the unborn baby and then began strangling him.
But emails obtained by the Tribune show that von Wiese-Mack knew about her daughter’s pregnancy even before leaving for vacation. Mack gave birth to a healthy girl named Stella in March 2015 and is raising her in prison, per local custom, until the child is 2 years old next month.
Mack and Schaefer broke up in 2016, according to their social media posts.
As the criminal proceedings surrounding the murder played out in Indonesia, a battle over Mack’s $1.56 million trust continued in Chicago. Mack’s uncle, the trustee, argues that Mack should be barred from reaping financial benefit from her crime under Illinois’ slayer statute, which states that a person who unjustifiably causes the death of another person cannot receive property as a result of that death.
Mack’s daughter is next in line for the money.
In written correspondence to a Cook County judge presiding over her trust case, Mack said that "with all due respect" to her slain mother, she believes von Wiese-Mack lied and falsified court documents years earlier to gain control over a more substantial inheritance the daughter was due from her father’s estate.
Mack gave the Tribune in late 2015 a copy of the eight-page letter to the judge and a separate written list of "non-negotiable settlement" terms. In her writings, as well as during a telephone interview, Mack said she didn’t want to criticize her mother publicly but she has little other option after her trust lawyers have refused to investigate her claims.
"My worry is there are still assets out there somewhere … i.e. property, stocks, and shares which are rightfully mine," Mack wrote.
Heather Mack attended Oak Park and River Forest High School. According to acquaintances, von Wiese-Mack had a volatile relationship with her daughter when Heather was a teen. She told friends she could not control her. She sold the family’s Oak Park home for $650,000 and moved to an apartment on Lake Shore Drive in an attempt to give her and her daughter a fresh start, acquaintances said.
Chicago Tribune’s Christy Gutowski contributed.
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