Making sense of Heather Mack and the Bali 'suitcase murder'

Paroled daughter faces new charges in the U.S. over the 2014 killing of her mother

Heather Mack, jailed in 2015 after being found guilty for playing a role in murdering her mother and stuffing the remains in a suitcase, is seen inside an immigration car, after being released from Kerobokan Prison in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, on October 29. © Reuters

IAN LLOYD NEUBAUER, Contributing writer

November 27, 2021 10:00 JST

DENPASAR, Indonesia -- In 2014, 18-year-old American tourist Heather Mack did the unthinkable.

On a family holiday to the tropical resort island of Bali, Mack convinced her then-boyfriend Tommy Schaefer to murder her mother -- Chicago socialite Sheila von Wiese Mack, the wealthy widow of a Chicago composer -- by bludgeoning her to death with a heavy fruit bowl.