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In a homicide that has made headlines around the world, the beaten, bruised and half-naked body of Chicago resident Sheila von Wiese-Mack was found stuffed in a suitcase in Bali, Indonesia.
To add another stunning layer to the crime, the daughter of the 62-year-old, Heather Mack, has been charged in connection with the wealthy woman’s slaying, alongside her 21-year-old boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer. The teen and her boyfriend were charged with murder Friday and, if found guilty, could face death by firing squad. Heather Mack has reportedly hired a lawyer based in Chicago.
But Mack, the New York Daily News reports, is not cooperating with Indonesian authorities. The 19-year-old isn’t talking and even joked around, laughing and smiling, while being interrogated on Thursday, the news site notes.
Mack was vacationing with her mother, a well-known patron of the arts in Chicago, at the luxurious St. Regis Bali (Schaefer joined them later on in the trip) when apparently things went sour. Indications are that the mother and daughter had been involved in domestic disputes for some time: There are reports that the police were called to their Chicago home an estimated 86 times in a 10-year span, according to the Daily Mail. Mack’s father, the composer James Mack, died in 2006.
Mack, along with her boyfriend, reportedly took the suitcase containing von Wiese-Mack down to a waiting cab on Tuesday. The couple then walked back into the lobby of the hotel and disappeared. The cab driver, who allegedly waited approximately two hours for the couple to return, took the suspicious bag to a nearby police station, where the elder Mack’s body was discovered, wrapped in hotel sheets and duct tape.
According to various sources, friends of the Mack family have described the relationship between mother and daughter as tumultuous. “At least four or five of us would say to kick her out. She was hanging out with a bad crowd,” Mark Bacharach, a close friend of von Wiese-Mack, told NBC News. “But Sheila always took her back. [Heather] could be as charming and self-effacingly sweet one minute and then a vicious little monster the next.”