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An American woman who pleaded guilty to helping kill her own mother and stuffing the body in a suitcase during a luxury holiday in Bali has been sentenced to 26 years in prison.
Judge Matthew Kennelly gave Heather Mack credit for the approximately two years she spent in custody in Chicago awaiting trial since her return in 2021. Mack’s lawyer Michael Leonard said her formal sentence would be about 23 years long.
Federal prisoners in the US also get credit for good behaviour, roughly 50 days for each year. Prosecutors had recommended a 28-year prison sentence for Mack for conspiring with her boyfriend to kill Sheila von Wiese-Mack in 2014.
The government also wanted the 28-year-old Mack to get five years of supervised release, a $US250,000 ($380,000) fine and restitution of $US262,708. In a filing last week, prosecutors said the recommended sentence was “warranted and sufficient, but not greater than necessary to serve a just and appropriate punishment for Mack’s heinous crime”.
The sentencing hearing began on Wednesday (US time) with testimony from Bill Wiese, Wiese-Mack’s brother and Mack’s uncle. He asked Kennelly to impose the maximum sentence possible, saying Mack had never shown remorse.
“If it were up to me, Heather would spend the rest of her life behind bars,” Wiese said.
Mack, who wore an orange jumpsuit, orange slip-on shoes and glasses, remained mostly impassive as her uncle spoke, occasionally looking at attendees and giving small smiles to some.
Mack pleaded guilty last June to one count of conspiring to kill von Wiese-Mack with her then-boyfriend to gain access to a $US1.5 million trust fund. Prosecutors have said Mack, then 18 and pregnant, covered her mother’s mouth while Tommy Schaefer bludgeoned Wiese-Mack with a fruit bowl in a hotel room.
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