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It was a homecoming of types when Heather L. Mack arrived at O’Hare Worldwide Airport in Chicago on Wednesday after having served greater than six years in an Indonesian jail after the invention of her mom’s physique stuffed in a suitcase at a Bali resort.
Ms. Mack, 26, was promptly taken into custody by federal brokers.
Afterward Wednesday, she appeared in a federal courtroom to face U.S. fees within the 2014 killing of her mom, Sheila A. Von Wiese, 62, the rich widow of a Chicago composer. The costs — one depend of conspiracy to kill abroad, one depend of conspiracy to commit overseas homicide of a U.S. nationwide and one depend of obstruction — stem from a 2016 indictment returned by a grand jury whereas Ms. Mack was imprisoned in Indonesia.
Federal prosecutors said the setting for the homicide was a tropical resort in Bali, the place Ms. Mack, then in her teenagers, traveled along with her mom in August 2014. Per week into the journey, Ms. Mack organized for her boyfriend on the time, Tommy E. Schaefer, to fly to Bali, and so they later exchanged textual content messages through which they deliberate Ms. Von Wiese’s homicide, in accordance with the 2016 indictment, which was launched by the U.S. lawyer’s workplace for the Northern District of Illinois.
Mr. Schaefer had additionally texted his cousin Robert Ryan Justin Bibbs about methods to get away with the crime, prosecutors stated. Mr. Bibbs was sentenced in 2017 to nine years in prison after he pleaded responsible to a cost of conspiracy to commit overseas homicide of a U.S. nationwide.
When Mr. Bibbs pleaded responsible, he informed prosecutors that Ms. Mack had provided her boyfriend round $50,000 to kill her mom after she did not kill Ms. Von Wiese herself. Mr. Bibbs informed his cousin about alternative ways to kill Ms. Von Wiese, together with drowning and suffocation, prosecutors stated.
Mr. Schaefer, who was tried and convicted in Indonesia, killed Ms. Von Wiese in a lodge room whereas Ms. Mack was current, the indictment alleges. They then stuffed the physique right into a suitcase and loaded it into the trunk of a taxi earlier than fleeing the resort, prosecutors said in 2017.
An Indonesian courtroom sentenced Ms. Mack to 10 years in jail for aiding within the homicide, in accordance with the U.S. lawyer’s workplace. She was launched early for good conduct and deported, her lawyer, Brian Claypool, stated. Mr. Schaefer, now 28, is serving the remainder of an 18-year sentence in an Indonesian jail.
Though the motive for the homicide was unclear, Mr. Schaefer anticipated to obtain thousands and thousands of {dollars} after the killing from Ms. Von Wiese’s property, of which Mr. Bibbs anticipated to obtain a lower, Mr. Bibbs informed prosecutors when he pleaded responsible.
Ms. Von Wiese’s husband and Ms. Mack’s father, James L. Mack, was a widely known composer who died in 2006, in accordance with The Chicago Tribune. The household was rich and sometimes took international trips. Ms. Mack and her mom had a troublesome relationship, and so they usually bought into fights, she informed news.com.au in a 2019 interview from jail in Indonesia.
On Wednesday, Mr. Claypool referred to as the costs in opposition to Ms. Mack “ridiculous” and stated this was a case of double jeopardy that they’d contest.
The U.S. lawyer’s workplace for the Northern District of Illinois didn’t return cellphone calls looking for touch upon Wednesday.
There may be additionally the query of who may have custody of Ms. Mack and Mr. Schaefer’s 6-year-old daughter, Stella, with whom Ms. Mack was pregnant on the time of the homicide. An Indonesian foster mom named Oshar had raised the kid whereas Ms. Mack was in jail, Mr. Claypool stated. The woman is now within the short-term custody of an unidentified individual in Chicago who’s acquainted to the household, however Mr. Schaefer’s mom desires to have custody, Mr. Claypool stated.
Ms. Mack’s case echoes the ordeal of Amanda Knox, an American who was arrested in 2007 on a research overseas journey in Italy and served prison time within the loss of life of her roommate. The case attracted intense media consideration for years on each side of the Atlantic as individuals debated Ms. Knox’s attainable function within the homicide. An Italian court acquitted her in 2015.
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