An American woman who spent seven years in an Indonesian prison for killing her mother has been extradited to the United States to face federal murder charges for the same crime.
ABC News is reporting that Chicago native Heather Mack, 26, was taken into custody when she touched down in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on November 4, 2021. Mack’s arrest came right after the American woman was released from the Indonesian prison for the murder.
Mack’s mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, was killed at a luxury resort in Bali on or about August 11, 2014. Mack flew to Bali on August 2, 2014 and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer flew in a little over a week later.
Prosecutors say that on the day, Schaefer communicated with Mack’s cousin, Robert Ryan Justin Bibbs, about “different ways to kill her mother.” von Wiese-Mack was subsequently murdered, and her body was stuffed in a suitcase and loaded into the trunk of a taxi.
Her mother’s body was later found in the trunk at the luxurious St. Regis resort in Bali. The two were arrested soon shortly after.
The estranged boyfriend of the American woman, was also convicted of von Wiese-Mack’s murder, and is still being held in an Indonesian prison on the charges. The couple shares a six-year-old daughter, Stella, who was reportedly “excited” about her first trip to the United States.
Mack was only 19-years-old and in her first trimester at the time of the killing, Schaefer was 21. She was sentenced to 10 years in Indonesian prison, and her partner was given an 18-year bid for his part in the horrific crime.
As for Bibbs, he confessed to the murder plot in exchange for a lesser charge of helping to plan the murder, which allowed for a reduced sentence. Bibbs claimed that the pair were plotting to kill the American woman’s mother in the hopes of extracting an inheritance from her death.