World

Indonesia deports man jailed for Bali 'suitcase murder'

Feb 25, 2026

Heather Mack and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer in 2015 — Heather Mack and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer were jailed for murdering Heather's mother in Bali. -AP

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

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

Schafer was deported back to the United States from Bali International Airport on Tuesday after serving his sentence and receiving a number of remissions for good behaviour, the Bali Regional Office of the Directorate General of Immigration said.

The badly battered body of the 62-year-old von Wiese-Mack, a wealthy Chicago socialite, was found in the boot 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 holiday.