American convicted of murder in Bali deported by Indonesia after 11 years in prison

Indonesia released and deported the American man convicted for his role in the Bali "suitcase murder" of a Chicago socialite.

By
Heather Mack, left, and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, who are accused of of murdering Mack's mother Sheila von Wiese-Mack. [FILE] / AP

Indonesia freed and deported an American man on Tuesday after he spent 11 years in prison for the premeditated murder of his then-girlfriend’s mother on the tourist island of Bali.

Tommy Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the 2014 murder of Sheila von Wiese-Mack, the mother of Heather Mack, during a luxury vacation in a case also known as the Bali “suitcase murder.”

Schafer was deported from Bali International Airport to the United States on Tuesday evening after serving his sentence and receiving several remissions for good behaviour, said Felucia Sengky Ratna, head of the Bali Regional Office of the Directorate General of Immigration, in a statement.

The badly battered body of the 62-year-old von Wiese-Mack, a wealthy Chicago socialite, was found inside the trunk of a taxi parked at the upscale St. Regis Bali Resort in August 2014.

Heather Mack, who was almost 19 and a few weeks pregnant at the time of the killing, and her then-21-year-old boyfriend, Schaefer, were arrested on the island a day after the body was found.

Mack served seven years of a 10-year prison sentence in Bali for helping to kill her mother and was deported in October 2021.

She was also sentenced to 26 years in prison in Chicago in January 2024, after she pleaded guilty to helping kill her mother and stuffing the body in a suitcase during their vacation.