CHICAGO — An American woman who pleaded guilty to helping kill her own mother and stuffing the body in a suitcase during a luxury vacation in Bali is scheduled to be sentenced in a hearing underway Wednesday in Chicago.
Federal prosecutors have recommended a 28-year prison sentence for Heather Mack, which is considerably more time behind bars than defense lawyers are expected to request when she is sentenced for conspiring to kill Sheila von Wiese-Mack in 2014.
The government also wants the 28-year-old Mack to get five years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine and restitution of $262,708. In a filing last week, prosecutors said the recommended sentence “is warranted and sufficient, but not greater than necessary to serve a just and appropriate punishment for Mack’s heinous crime.”
The sentencing hearing began Wednesday morning with testimony from Bill Wiese, Wiese-Mack’s brother and Mack’s uncle. He asked Judge Matthew Kennelly to impose the maximum sentence possible, saying Mack has never shown remorse.
“If it were up to me, Heather would spend the rest of her life behind bars,” Wiese said.
Mack, who wore an orange jumpsuit, orange slip-on shoes and glasses, remained mostly impassive as her uncle spoke, occasionally looking at attendees and giving small smiles to some.
Mack pleaded guilty last June to one count of conspiring to kill von Wiese-Mack with her then-boyfriend to gain access to a $1.5 million trust fund. Prosecutors have said Mack, then 18 and pregnant, covered her mother’s mouth while Tommy Schaefer bludgeoned Wiese-Mack with a fruit bowl in a hotel room.
Prosecutors have said Mack and Schaefer had planned the killing for months, and that video evidence showed Mack and Schaefer trying to get the small suitcase containing Wiese-Mack’s body into an Indonesian taxicab. The story garnered international attention in part because of photographs of the suitcase, which seemed too small to hold a woman’s body.
Mack, who lived with her…
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