Heather Mack pleaded guilty Friday and admitted plotting the gruesome murder of her mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack of Oak Park, during a tropical vacation to Bali.

She entered her plea in Chicago’s federal court as the ninth anniversary of her mother’s murder approaches. Von Wiese-Mack’s body was discovered in a suitcase left outside the St. Regis Bali Resort on Aug. 12, 2014. Mack was 18 at the time. She is now 27.

Mack pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to kill a national of the United States. The charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. Her plea agreement would cap her sentence at 28 years, but only if U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly decides to go along with the deal.

It’s not clear if the time Mack spent imprisoned in Indonesia will count as time served.

Federal prosecutors have long said von Wiese-Mack was bludgeoned to death with the metal handle of a fruit stand so that Mack, her then-boyfriend Tommy Schaefer and Schaefer’s cousin could enrich themselves with the proceeds of von Wiese-Mack’s $1.5 million estate.

Mack and Schaefer originally faced trial in Indonesia. Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison overseas for beating von Wiese-Mack to death, and Mack was sentenced to 10 years for helping. Mack gave birth to the couple’s daughter, known as Stella, during the 2015 trial. 

But signs long pointed to a separate prosecution in the United States if the pair ever returned. For Mack, that day came in November 2021, after she served seven years and two months in an Indonesian prison. She was then deported with her daughter and, as expected, an indictment was unsealed in U.S. District Court as their plane neared O’Hare Airport.

It charged Mack and Schaefer with conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

Schaefer remains locked up overseas. Stella is now in the custody of a cousin of Mack’s who lives in Colorado. 

Sun-Times file

Mack has given varying explanations over the years of what happened to her mother at the Bali resort in August 2014. Oak Park police had been called to their home in the western suburb 86 times in the years before the killing, largely to address claims of violence by Mack against her mother.

In a series of videos on YouTube in 2017, Mack confessed to the murder and seemed to absolve Schaefer of wrongdoing. She claimed she plotted her mother’s murder because she learned von Wiese-Mack had killed Mack’s father during a family vacation to Greece. Family members called it a lie. 

Then, while arguing last fall that Mack should be let out of jail, her defense attorney argued that no conspiracy actually existed between Mack and Schaefer. Attorney Michael Leonard said Schaefer simply “freaked out” during an argument with von Wiese-Mack, in which she called him a racial slur and threatened to cut the couple’s baby out of Mack’s womb.

Leonard has argued that Schaefer killed von Wiese-Mack, and any conspiracy actually existed between Schaefer and his cousin, Robert Bibbs. 

Bibbs is already serving a nine-year prison sentence for his role in the plot.

Meanwhile, during a custody hearing last fall for Mack’s daughter, Schaefer’s mother asked Mack point-blank, “Did you kill Sheila von Wiese?” A judge sustained an attorney’s objection before Mack answered the question.

One week later, federal prosecutors alleged that Mack covered her mother’s mouth with her hand during the killing. They’ve also said she told a relative of Schaefer’s that von Wiese-Mack had to die because von Wiese-Mack otherwise would have blamed only Schaefer for the attack. 

“When he hit her and she, she didn’t even really scream she just kind of grabbed him at that point,” Mack told the relative, according to prosecutors. “She would not have included me in that and it wouldn’t have mat … he would have been in such deep trouble and she would not have, I just, I was afraid for him and I was afraid for me and I just at that point we were in such trouble that I didn’t, I just wanted the trouble to stop.”

The relative told her, “You know Tommy loves you, right? … And he’s willing to, he’s willing to accept the blame completely basically.”

The feds say Mack replied, “I know. And I hate that. But if the real, the actual story came out both of us would be here forever. … He would never have done it if well, you know. if I hadn’t put him in this situation. He would not have done it, it was not his battle … it was my fight and I just couldn’t handle it by myself and I shouldn’t have involved him.”