An American woman who pleaded guilty to helping kill her mother and stuffing the body into a suitcase during a luxury holiday in Bali has been sentenced to 26 years in prison.
Judge Matthew Keneally gave Heather Mack credit for the nearly two years she has spent in custody in Chicago awaiting trial since her return in 2021. Mack's attorney Michael Leonard said her official sentence will be about 23 years.
Heather Mack inside a cell before her trial in Bali, Indonesia, in 2015.credit: AP
Federal prisoners in the United States also receive credit for good behavior, about 50 days each year. Prosecutors had recommended Mack be jailed for 28 years for conspiring with her boyfriend to kill Sheila von Wies-Mack in 2014.
The government also wanted the 28-year-old Mack to receive five years' supervised release, a $250,000 ($380,000) fine and $262,708 in restitution. In a filing last week, prosecutors said the recommended sentence was “justified and adequate, but not greater than necessary to carry out a just and appropriate punishment for Mack's heinous crime.”
The sentencing hearing began on Wednesday (US time) with testimony from Bill Wise, Wes Mack's brother and uncle. He asked Keneally to impose the maximum possible sentence, saying Mack had shown absolutely no remorse.
“If it were up to me, Heather would spend the rest of her life behind bars,” Weese said.
Bill Weese, Sheila von Wiese-Mack's brother, told reporters after Mack's sentencing that he, his wife (left), sister (center right), and niece feel justice has been served in the 2014 murder. credit: AP
Mac, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, orange shoes and glasses, remained mostly emotionless as her uncle spoke, occasionally looking at those present and giving some small smiles.
Mack pleaded guilty last June to a charge of conspiring to kill von Wiese-Mack with her then-boyfriend to gain access to a $1.5 million trust fund. Prosecutors said Mack, who was 18 and pregnant, covered her mother's mouth while Tommy Shafer hit Wes Mack with a fruit bowl in the hotel room.
