Confessions Made in Bali Resort Murder of Oak Park Woman: Police

Caption: Sheila von Wiese Mack | Tommy Schaefer and Heather Mack | Indonesian police bagging evidence at the St. Regis Hotel in Bali.

Tommy Schaefer, 21, of Oak Park, has confessed that he killed Sheila von Wiese-Mack in a Bali hotel because he was “offended,” and her daughter helped him stuff the dead woman’s body into a suitcase, Indonesian police said on Friday.

Police said Schaefer confessed on Monday during an interrogation, and later in the week Heather Mack, 19, his pregnant girlfriend, admitted to her role in the crime, reports news.com.au, an Australian news website.

Both Schaefer and Mack face possible execution by firing squad if found guilty.

The 62-year-old Oak Park native’s body was found in the suitcase inside the trunk of a taxi on Aug. 12. Mother, daughter and boyfriend were vacationing at the posh St. Regis Bali Resort.

Police chief Col. Djoko Heru Utomo said Schaefer killed the woman after an argument. A hotel video camera recorded Schaefer and von Wiese-Mack arguing in the hotel lobby.

“He was hurt and offended by the victim’s words in an argument with him. That is the motive for the murder,” Utomo told the Associated Press. He said their American and Indonesian lawyers were with them during questioning.

Schaefer and his girlfriend checked out of the hotel on Aug. 12, placing a suitcase into a taxi and then never returning to the car. Hotel employees saw blood on the suitcase and told the taxi driver to go to the police, who opened the suitcase and found the body wrapped in a bloody bedsheet.

The next day, Schaefer and Mack were arrested in a nearby town at another hotel. The couple told police that robbers killed von Wiese-Mack and they had escaped. After being taken into custody, Mack told authorities she was pregnant, which was later confirmed. Earlier this week, an attorney was assigned to represent Mack’s fetus.

Mack this week saw ultrasound images of her unborn child, according to news.com.au.

“My role here is to represent Heather’s unborn child. Currently, she is three months pregnant. I’m here to make sure that she’s getting proper nutrition, she is been taking care of, getting all the medical attention she needs, so that she can have a healthy baby in the future,” Chicago-based lawyer Vanessa Favia told the Jakarta Post.

The Jakarta Post is reporting that Mack and Schaefer are still telling police they were attacked by robbers.

Mack also claims, through her lawyer, she’s been sexually assaulted repeatedly while in jail. Schaefer claimed his jailers mocked him because he’s black and fed him Kentucky Fried Chicken to degrade him. Indonesian police said KFC is expensive in their country and serving him chicken would not be a degrading gesture.

Indonesian police deny the sex assault claims and say both Mack and Schaefer are being treated well.

Autopsy results show von Wiese-Mack died of asphyxiation. She was standing when she was struck in the face with a blunt object, possibly a vase, which broke her nose and her jaw, according to authorities. She also sustained a broken neck and wounds to her hands which indicated she had tried to defend herself.

“The conclusion is that the victim suffocated from lack of oxygen because of influx of blood from the broken nose bone,” said Ida Bagus Putu Alit, head of forensics at Sanglah Hospital.

Von Wiese-Mack, who lived in Chicago but had resided in Oak Park with her family for many years, was the widow of musician and composer James L. Mack, who died in 2006.

Heather Mack, who met Tommy Schaefer while both were students at Oak Park-River Forest High School, had a turbulent relationship with her mother, often fighting and arguing. Oak Park police had been called to family home on 86 different occasions over the years, Oak Park officials confirmed in August. Mack was arrested once, in December 2011 after a fight with her mother, on domestic battery, aggravated battery and battery charges, according to Cook County juvenile records reviewed by the Chicago Tribune.

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