Bali ‘suitcase killer’ Tommy Schaefer speaks about brutal murder

It was a brutal crime that shocked the world. And now, for the first time, the so-called Bali “suitcase killer” has revealed why he did it.

EXCLUSIVE

In 2014, American couple Heather Mack and Tommy Schaefer shocked the world after they murdered Mack’s millionairess mother Sheila von Wiese-Mack at a luxury hotel in Bali, stuffed her bloodied and broken corpse into a suitcase and attempted to stash it in the back of a taxi before making a short-lived getaway.

They were found hiding out at a budget hotel at Kuta and arrested the following day.

Mack, who was only 18 and pregnant at the time, was sentenced to 10 years at Bali’s notorious Kerobokan Prison for helping plan the murder, while Schaefer, who bludgeoned Ms Wiese-Mack to death with a heavy fruit bowl, received an 18-year sentence.

Mack was released from prison in Bali in October 2021 after serving only seven years – three years early due to good behaviour – and was deported back to the US where she planned on starting a new life with her daughter Stella.

But the moment her plane landed in the US she was arrested and charged with two counts of conspiring to commit murder in a foreign country and one count of obstruction of justice over a series of incriminating text messages she shared with Schaefer and Schaefer’s cousin outlining their plans.

Sheila von Wiese-Mack, left, pictured with her daughter Heather Mack.

Initially, Mack pleaded not guilty, and she has been behind bars for the past two years while awaiting trial.

Mack, now 27, has had a change of heart only six weeks before her trial was set to begin and accepted a plea deal to avoid a potential life sentence without parole behind bars. She will be sentenced on December 18 and faces up to 28 years in prison, less time already served in the US.

“I have served nearly ten years in prison. I felt that I had done my time, so I was gung-ho for trial,” Mack told the New York Post in the first and only public statement she has made since returning to the US.

“Now, after sitting for so long, I know what I have to do. I’m going to be a felon in America.”

Now, in a world exclusive interview with news.com.au, Mack’s ex-boyfriend Schaefer, who is 29 and has served half of his sentence, has revealed for the first time why exactly he murdered Ms Wiese-Mack in cold blood.

A ‘black hole’

In an interview with news.com.au in 2019, Schaefer described Mack as a “black hole” who had not been rehabilitated while incarcerated at Kerobokan and would probably kill again if released into the community. A threat she made against the life of the reporter who interviewed her at the time appears to substantiate the claim.

Schaefer, however, has followed a different path in prison. A born-again Christian, he has committed himself entirely to prayer and helping other prisoners find peace through Christianity – and has now learned to turn the other cheek.

“I don’t hate Heather anymore. I don’t hate anyone. I don’t have the mental space for that,” he says.

Heather Mack and Tommy Schaefer split up after they were sentenced.

“But I understand from her family’s perspective that there is still unsettled business there, an itch to scratch.

“That is why they pushed so hard with the FBI to have her charged with conspiracy in the US.”

Schaefer accepts full responsibility for his actions and believes he belongs in prison. Yet he still maintains as he did in 2019 that he was “emotionally tricked” by Mack to kill her mother.

“I met Heather just after my last girlfriend died in a car accident,” he recalls.

“I had my whole life planned out ahead of me and lost everything; it was the lowest point of my life. It was a perfect storm.

“We had lots of sex, drinking and partying, she was buying me new clothes and shoes and taking me to restaurants. But I knew she was crazy from the get-go, she was talking about killing her mother as she was stopping her from getting her trust fund after her father died.

“At first I treated it as a joke and told my friends about it: ‘Look how crazy my girlfriend is’. But after a while I realised how serious she was and told her she should go to court to get her money if she thought her mother had taken her money. I thought that was the end of it but slowly and surely then she started convincing me how rich she would be if her mother died and telling me that if she was rich, I’d be rich too. So because of her constantly mentioning it, I gave up trying to stop her. It was repetitive.”

The couple then began exchanging text messages about how to kill Mack’s mother that were later used by the FBI to build a conspiracy case against them. Schaefer’s cousin Robert Bibbs also joined the fray.

Robert Bibbs entering the Dirksen Federal Court House before his sentencing in 2016. Picture: James Foster/For the Sun-Times

“Can’t we sfcate [suffocate] her together … put your hand over her moutg [mouth],” Schaefer wrote, to which Mack responded: “Just knock her out”.

“Go sit on her face with a pillow or drown her,” added Bibbs, who was promised $US50,000 ($74,000) for helping to plan the murder but instead received a nine-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy in 2017.

The incriminating text messages continued when Ms Wiese-Mack took her daughter on holiday to Bali in a last-ditch bid to convince her to have an abortion and break up with Schaefer.

“lmao … Eee Im in the [airport] lounge now … I love you … I’m about to board,” Mack wrote before embarking on a flight to Bali from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.

Schaefer texted back: “I can’t wait to be rich … I seriously can’t wait Im so geeked”.

Murder most foul

After arriving in Bali, Mack and her mother checked into a $1000-per-night suite at the St Regis Hotel. They spent a few days together holidaying in the sun, until Ms Wiese-Mack woke one day from an afternoon nap to learn Mack had used her credit card to buy Schaefer an $18,000 first-class ticket to Bali – and to book another room for him at the hotel.

Ms Wiese-Mack was furious and according to the couple, began drinking heavily and insulting Schaefer for his lack of finances and African-American heritage, setting the scene for a murder most foul.

But Schaefer denies he conspired to murder a US citizen in a foreign country.

The body of Sheila von Wiese-Mack was found stuffed into a suitcase in the boot of a taxi in front of the five-star St. Regis hotel in Bali. Picture: AFP Photo/Sonny Tumbelaka

“As guilty as those text messages make me look, the truth is that I came to Bali without any intentions to kill. Of course, I was aware of Heather’s plan, that she was planning to kill her mother. But I was not supposed to be involved,” he says.

“Once I arrived, Heather told me if I didn’t help her, she was going to do it herself, and because she was pregnant at the time, she pressured me to go along with it. She also told me that if her mother returned to the US, she would report the unauthorised use of her credit card to the police and that she wouldn’t pin it on Heather, that she’d pin it on me.

“With all this pressure, I started to look for reasons to justify killing Sheila, and I thought racism was a good enough reason at the time. I started to ask myself how come white people who are evil enjoy such lavish lifestyles yet black people continue to suffer. I thought about slavery, about how white people have always treated black people in America, and how racist Sheila was – she called me the N-word all the time.

“That led me to a place where I could find anger. I was young and stupid, deprived of knowledge about life, and I made a terrible decision based on my own self-righteousness. Not that any of that is an excuse for what I did. I am not trying to fend off responsibility; I am just trying to explain what I did.”

His psychological trigger now pulled, Schaefer picked up a heavy glass fruit bowl and used it to bludgeon Ms Wiese-Mack to death. The autopsy report showed the 62-year-old suffered deep gashes across her face and wounds on her arms that prosecutors said resulted from desperate bids to fend off the blows.

Heather Mack with her daughter Stella in 2017. Picture: Lukman S. Bintoro

“I used to sit at home watching crime shows on TV with my mum and remember asking myself, ‘How is it possible to kill someone? How do they do it?’ And now here I am, in jail for murder in Bali. It seems surreal,” he says.

Vengeance is the Lord’s

Every six months, the Indonesian Government issues sentence reductions to prisoners for good behaviour. Schaefer has already had four years and two months shaved off his sentence, and in August he will receive another six-month reduction.

Based on this trajectory, he could be released – and extradited to the US – within three years.

But Schaefer has also been charged by the FBI with conspiracy to kill and obstruction of justice in the three-count indictment and will be put in handcuffs, just as Mack did, the moment he returns home.

Schaefer believes the indictment is unreasonable and unjust.

“I know Heather has pleaded guilty and that she’s finally admitted the truth. But I have always been truthful about what I did and I have nothing to fear about what lies before me or what other people are going to try to do to me,” he says.

“I feel the indictment is vengeful because of the man I have become. I have been fighting a spiritual war in this prison every day, and despite the many temptations in here, God has made me sharp and stable.”

Joseph, a church layman in Bali who like many Indonesians goes by only one name and who visits Schaefer regularly at Kerobokan Prison, concurs.

Heather Mack is escorted by immigration guards to the immigration detention house in Jimbaran, on the resort island of Bali on October 29, 2021. Picture: AFP Photo/Sonny Tumbelaka

“I have an intuition to understand the character of a person. And I know in my heart that Tommy has changed. I trust his words completely,” he says.

Schaefer said he plans on pleading not guilty when he returns to the US and will defend himself vigorously using text messages he claims show he actually tried to save Ms Wiese-Mack from her daughter.

“There were one or two messages where I asked Heather if we could just go to breakfast and forget about it but she responded that we had to do it. I don’t know why the FBI didn’t include these messages in the indictment,” he adds, saying that he plans to use those messages – which he currently has no access to – to defend himself in court.

“It will be a case of David versus Goliath,” he says.

The FBI did not reply to inquiries about Schaefer’s indictment.

Elliott Jacobson, a friend and spokesman for the family of Ms Wiese-Mack, did not reply to inquiries about Schaefer’s alleged rehabilitation and indictment.

However, Schaefer accepted the opportunity to pass a message to his victim’s family through this report.

“What would I say to them? I would say love without condition, forgive those you have done you harm for your own wellbeing and do not seek revenge,” he says.

“Revenge – that is for the Lord.”