Heather Mack's ex-boyfriend will stay in jail while awaiting trial in Bali murder plot
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The ex-boyfriend of Heather Mack who’s long been accused of beating her mother to death in a brazen international murder plot will remain in federal custody while he awaits trial early next year.
Tommy Schaefer, 33, asked this month https://chicago.suntimes.com/crime/2026/08/14/heather-mack-tommy-shaefer-murder" target="_blank" >to be let out of jail and put on home confinement to deal with his ongoing health issues.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly denied his request at the end of a half-hour hearing Thursday at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.
The judge also agreed to push back Schaefer’s trial until March 15, but insisted he’ll allow no more delays.
Mack and Schaefer are accused of plotting the 2014 murder of Mack’s mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, in Indonesia to access her $1.5 million estate.
“[Schaefer] crossed the world to brutally kill another human being because he hoped it would bring him financial rewards,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing this week.
The killing triggered tabloid headlines around the world after von Wiese-Mack’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase outside the posh St. Regis Bali Resort.
Mack and Schaefer then spent several years incarcerated in Indonesia for von Wiese-Mack’s murder.
However, they were also charged in the United States with conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Mack https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2021/11/3/22761085/heather-mack-returns-chicago-ohare-fbi-charged-conspiracy" target="_blank" >returned to the United States in 2021 and was sentenced by Kennelly to 26 years in prison.
Schaefer https://chicago.suntimes.com/heather-mack/2026/02/25/chicago-crime-heather-mack-tommy-schaefer-fbi-bali-indonesia" target="_blank" >returned in February, and he’s been held in federal custody since.
Schaefer lawyer Michael Baker argued Thursday his client doesn’t have the financial means to flee.
But Kennelly said the same might have been said of Schaefer before von Wiese-Mack’s murder, which occurred when Schaefer was 21.
“And yet, here we are,” Kennelly said.
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Sheila von Wiese-Mack
Sun-Times file
The judge noted that Schaefer is accused of “an extremely violent crime” that “involves advanced planning” and a “financial motive.”
“The level of brutality involved in the crime is quite significant,” Kennelly said. “Let’s leave it at that.”
Baker has said his client suffers from “serious and ongoing health problems,” that he contracted COVID-19 in Indonesia and has since been diagnosed with a post-infectious condition.
Cardiac evaluations were pending as of Aug. 14.
Baker asked Kennelly to place Schaefer on home incarceration with a third-party custodian.
“This is a 12-year-old alleged offense,” Baker told the judge Thursday. “It’s arising out of a relationship that no longer exists with Ms. Mack, and a scheme that no longer exists with Ms. Mack.
There’s no identifiable person that Mr. Schaefer poses a risk to in this community.”
Kennelly wasn’t convinced.
Mack broached the idea of killing her mother with Schaefer as early as February 2014, the feds say.
Schaefer wrote in a Facebook chat that month, “that b---- heather is crazy” and added, “she asked me to find someone to kill her mom for 50k.”
Mack ultimately enlisted Schaefer, secretly booking a $12,000 plane ticket for him so he could rendezvous with her while she vacationed with her mother in Bali in August 2014, according to prosecutors.
Then, over the course of nearly 40 minutes on the morning of Aug. 12, 2014, prosecutors say Mack and Schaefer exchanged https://chicago.suntimes.com/2015/9/24/18424089/heather-mack-traded-giddy-tense-texts-with-boyfriend-before-mom-s-murder" target="_blank" >tense, excited text messages as they prepared to murder von Wiese-Mack.
They allegedly used the phrase “saying hi” as code for the killing, and they referred to each other as Bonnie and Clyde.
Soon after, prosecutors say, von Wiese-Mack “was brutally beaten after being taken by surprise as she lay in her hotel bed.”
Mack’s plea agreement alleged Schaefer “repeatedly beat [von Wiese-Mack] in the head and face” using the metal handle of a fruit bowl before she died.