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The FBI arrested Heather Mack at a Chicago airport Wednesday, as she’s been newly indicted on conspiracy to commit murder and obstruction of justice charges for helping to stuff the body of her socialite mother into a suitcase at a ritzy Bali resort in an alleged plot to access her trust fund.
Mack and her ex-boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, were indicted in the Northern District of Illinois Wednesday with one count of conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, one count of conspiracy to commit foreign murder of a U.S. national, and one count of obstruction
Schaefer remains imprisoned in Indonesia, and Mack was taken into custody at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport Wednesday morning, Joseph D. Fitzpatrick, assistant district attorney for the northern district of Illinois, confirmed to Fox News Digital.
BALI ‘SUITCASE KILLER’ TO RETURN TO CHICAGO FROM INDONESIA WITH DAUGHTER
Mack is expected to make her first court appearance in Illinois later Wednesday. If convicted, she faces a maximum statutory penalty of life imprisonment for counts one and two, and 20 years’ imprisonment for count three as well as a fine up to $250,000, prosecutors say.
Fitzpatrick did not have information immediately available on Mack and Schaefer’s 6-year-old daughter, Stella, who was expected to be traveling with her mother back to the United States.
One of Mack’s U.S.-based attorneys, Brian Claypool, previously told Fox News Digital he was fighting for Oshar Putu Melody Suartama, an Australian woman married to a Balinese man who has acted as Stella’s foster mother for the past five years, to take over custody should Mack be arrested. Kia Walker, who is Schaefer's mother, and therefore Stella's paternal grandmother, had also joined the custody battle for the girl upon her return to the U.S.
Walker did not have any comment when reached by phone by Fox News Digital earlier Wednesday.
Speaking to exclusively to Fox News Digital, von Weise-Mack’s close friend, Elliott Jacobson, said he never believed Heather Mack wanted to become a mother herself but posed for photo ops with hopes of using Stella as a "meal ticket" to gain access to her late mother’s estate.
Mack arranged travel for Schaefer from Chicago, Illinois to Bali, Indonesia in August 2014. Schaefer allegedly exchanged text messages with his cousin, Robert Bibbs, regarding different ways to kill von Weise, according to a copy of the indictment provided to Fox News Digital. Mack and Schaefer also "exchanged messages in which they discussed how and when to kill von Weise," the indictment says.
After arriving in Indonesia, Schaefer entered a hotel room at the St. Regis Bali Resort while Mack and von Weise were inside the room. Schaefer and Mack proceeded to kill von Weise, placing her body inside a suitcase and loading it into the truck of a taxi cab, the indictment says. Schaefer and Mack also removed linens from the hotel room and clothing worn during the killing, the indictment says.
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Bibbs pleaded guilty in the Northern District of Illinois in December 2016 to one count of conspiracy to commit foreign murder of a U.S. national. Court documents reveal that Mack also allegedly asked Bibbs if he knew anyone who would kill her mother in exchange for money.
Mack and Schaefer were prosecuted and convicted in Indonesia in 2015 for von Weise’s murder. Mack was sentenced to 10 years’ and Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment. Serving just seven years due to her good behavior, Mack was released on Oct. 29, and deported to the U.S.
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