Indonesia released and deported an American man on Tuesday who spent 11 years behind bars for killing his then-girlfriend’s mother on the tourist island of Bali in what became known as the “suitcase murder.”
Indonesia Authorities sentenced Tommy Schaefer to 18 years in prison for the 2014 murder of Sheila von Wiese Mack, the mother of his girlfriend Heather Mack, during a luxury vacation.
Indonesian immigration officials put Schaefer on a plane to the United States from Bali International Airport on Tuesday evening after he completed his sentence and earned multiple reductions for good behaviour, FeluciaSengky Ratna, head of the Bali Regional Office of the Directorate General of Immigration, confirmed.
Police discovered the severely beaten body of 62-year-old von Wiese Mack, a wealthy Chicago socialite, crammed inside a taxi trunk at the St. Regis Bali Resort in August 2014.
Naija News gathered that police arrested Mack, who was nearly 19 and pregnant at the time, and her 21-year-old boyfriend, Schaefer, one day after finding the body.
Mack spent seven years in an Indonesian prison before authorities deported her in October 2021. She had received a 10-year sentence for helping murder her mother.
American prosecutors charged Mack again after her return. A Chicago court handed her a 26-year prison sentence in January 2024 after she admitted to helping kill her mother and cramming the corpse into a suitcase during their Bali vacation.
