Released From Bali Prison, Heather Mack Now Indicted in U.S. for Murdering Her Mother

Heather Mack, a 26-year-old Chicago native who served more than seven years in an Indonesian prison for killing her mother at a luxury resort on the island of Bali, has been indicted on murder conspiracy charges in the United States and taken into federal custody, reports the Associated Press. Mack has been charged with conspiring to kill her mother Sheila von Wiese-Mack in a U.S. indictment alongside her former boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, who was also convicted of murder in Indonesia and is still imprisoned there. Mack and Schaefer are also charged with obstruction of justice in the three-count indictment.

Mack pleaded not guilty to the charges and U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle ordered that she remain in custody until a detention hearing on Nov. 10, 2021. Brian Claypool, Mack’s attorney, said Wednesday that the federal charges are “clearly a witch hunt” in response to public pressure after Mack’s release from prison. Claypool said he will ask the court to throw out the new charges, arguing that conspiracy was included in the charges that Mack was convicted of in Indonesia. According to the indictment, the two killed Von Wiese-Mack on or about that same day, then stuffed the body into a suitcase and loaded it into the trunk of a taxi cab. It says Mack and Schaefer tried to cover up what they had done by “removing items of clothing worn during the killing.” They were joined in the conspiracy by Schaefer’s cousin, Robert Ryan Justin Bibbs, who pleaded guilty to helping to plan the killing in exchange for $50,000 from Mack’s expected inheritance. Mack was almost 19 and a few weeks pregnant at the time of the killing.