Indonesia deports man jailed for Bali ‘suitcase murder’

Indonesia has released and deported an American man who spent 11 years in prison for killing his girlfriend’s mother on the tourist island of Bali.

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

The Bali Immigration General Directorate Regional Office said Schafer was deported to the United States from Bali International Airport on Tuesday after serving his sentence and receiving some reductions for good behavior.

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

Heather Mack, who was almost 19 and several weeks pregnant at the time of the murder, 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 aiding in the murder of his mother and was deported in October 2021.

He was also sentenced to 26 years in prison in Chicago in January 2024 after pleading guilty to helping kill his mother during their vacation and putting the body in a suitcase.