‘Suitcase Killer’ Heather Mack pleaded guilty in a Chicago court to conspiring to murder her mother while on vacation in Bali in 2014. 

Mack, 27, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to kill a United States National. She will be sentenced on December 18 and faces 28 years in prison. 

In 2015, Mack was convicted in an Indonesian court of being an accessory to her mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack’s, murder. Mack helped her then-boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, gain access to Wiese-Mack’s room where he bludgeoned the Illinois-native with a fruit bowl. 

Her body was later found stuffed in a suit case. At the time of the murder, Mack was 18 years old and pregnant. She spent seven years in prison in Indonesia before being deported 2021.

Upon her arrival back in the US, she was arrested at O’Hare Airport and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Custody of her child was given to a maternal cousin in Colorado. 

Authorities allege that Mack committed the crime so that she could gain control of her $1.5 million trust fund. 

Mack’s wealthy mother was married to the late James L. Mack, a renowned composer who died during a family trip to Greece in 2006 – was killed and stuffed in a suitcase before being left in a taxi on the island of Bali.

Schaefer’s cousin Robert Bibbs sentenced to nine years in a US prison for advising Mack and Schaefer on how to kill von Weise-Mack. 

Mack stood before U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly in orange jail garb and orange slippers as he asked her questions before she was set to enter a plea. 

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She spoke confidently and calmly as the judge asks her that she was giving up her rights to remain silent at the motion hearing. ‘Yes, your honor,’ she responded from a podium. 

After the judge explained the charge against her, Mack pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to kill a U.S. national. 

The judge set a Dec. 18 sentencing date for Mack. Her plea deal calls for a sentence of no more than 28 years. 

Speaking to The New York Post earlier this month, Mack laid bare her plans to strike a deal with prosecutors ahead of her trial in the US.

‘We were offered a good plea. First, it was 15 to 35 [years]; now they are saying zero to 25 years, including time served,’ Mack, who was also sentenced in Indonesia but was released early for good behavior, told the paper Wednesday.

‘I have served nearly ten years in prison. I felt that I had done my time, so I was gung-ho for trial,’ the convicted criminal added of her decision.

‘Now, after sitting for so long, I know what I have to do.’

Mack’s attorney Michael Leonard agreed with his high-profile client’s assessment, but conceded he is unsure how severe a sentence Mack – whose seven-year-old Stella is current in the custody of her cousin – will be handed come August.

‘The hope is that the judge will seriously consider the time she has already served and all the underlying circumstances of her life and her relationship with her mom,’ Leonard said.

‘Any federal criminal case requires a constant reassessment of risk and reward. Balancing risk in terms of a potential sentence and trying to minimize the risk to yourself.’

This uncertainty, the lawyer said, is still preferable to taking a chance of fighting the case in court – after prosecutors presented texts that showed how Schaefer encouraged Mack to suffocate her mom in her sleep during what was meant to be a relaxing Indonesia vacation – a task she could not bring herself to go through with.

In previous statements to the court, Mack claimed she hid in a bathroom a few days later at Bali’s Regis hotel, as Schaefer bludgeoned her mom to death with a fruit bowl.

Until now, she pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and obstruction of justice, but has a change of plea hearing scheduled for June 15.

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk