WASHINGTON – A US girl generally known as the “suitcase killer” pleaded responsible Friday to conspiracy to homicide her mom, whose physique was hidden in a bit of bags after she was slain in Bali in 2014, the Department of Justice stated.
Heather Mack, 27, was arrested in 2021 upon her return to the United States after spending seven years in jail in Indonesia for the killing.
She faces an extra 28 years in jail within the United States when she is sentenced in December.
In 2015, then-teenager Mack and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer had been convicted in Indonesia of hatching a plan to kill her mom, Chicago socialite Sheila von Wiese Mack, who had been vacationing at a lodge on the island of Bali.
Schaefer beat the 62-year-old sufferer to dying with a fruit bowl throughout a heated argument on the five-star St. Regis resort, earlier than the couple deserted the suitcase containing the battered physique in a taxi and fled.
Mack, who was pregnant on the time of the crime, was discovered responsible on a lesser cost of aiding within the homicide and sentenced to 10 years, whereas Schaefer obtained 18 years.
Schaefer confessed throughout his trial however claimed he was defending himself throughout an argument with von Wiese Mack, who was sad that her daughter was pregnant.
Prosecutors alleged that Schaefer, who’s Black, “blindly hit” von Wiese Mack with the fruit bowl in a match of rage after she hurled a racial slur at him.
The couple then stuffed the physique into the suitcase collectively, the trial was instructed.
Schaefer stays incarcerated in Indonesia, whereas Mack, who gave delivery to a lady firstly of her sentence, was launched in 2021 for good conduct.
US costs in opposition to Schaefer are pending, the Justice Department stated Friday.
In 2017, Schaefer’s cousin Robert Ryan Bibbs was additionally convicted within the case, accused of advising the couple with their plan. He was sentenced to 9 years.
The US Supreme Court has dominated that the structure’s injunction in opposition to “double jeopardy” does not apply in circumstances the place somebody is tried in a single nation after which pursued in one other with its personal distinct legal guidelines proscribing a definite offense.
The US indictment accused Mack of conspiracy and different conduct not charged within the Indonesian case. — Agence France-Presse
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
