An American who killed his girlfriend’s mother with a fruit bowl in a Bali hotel room and stuffed her body into a suitcase has been released from prison.
Tommy Schaefer walked out of Kerobokan Prison at around 12pm Bali time on Tuesday after serving 12 years of an 18-year sentence for the brutal 2014 murder, which his then-girlfriend Heather helped plan.
He was immediately handed over to immigration officials for deportation.
Once he arrives back to the US, he is expected to be detained on charges of conspiracy to kill a US national while overseas and tampering with evidence.
As he left the prison, he told reporters he was feeling ‘happy,’ adding that ‘God is good’ and that he plans to ‘enjoy life’.
The case dates back to August 2014, when 62 year old Sheila Wiese-Mack booked a vacation with her teenage daughter Heather for what was meant to be a luxury stay at the renowned St Regis resort in Nusa Dua, Bali.
Sheila hoped the trip would help repair her strained relationship with her daughter, after tensions between the pair had escalated into repeated arguments and incidents that resulted in police being called to their Chicago home 80 times.
Unbeknown to her mother, Heather had secretly invited her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, using her mother’s credit card to purchase a $12,000 first class flight for him.
Heather was pregnant with Tommy’s child at the time. Sheila did not approve of the romance and believed Tommy, a 21-year-old aspiring rap artist, to be a bad influence.
On the evening of August 12, Sheila was killed in her hotel room.
Shelia’s cause of death was asphyxiation from drowning in her own blood, and it is believed that Tommy hit her over the head with a fruit bowl while Heather held her hand over her mouth.
The pair placed her body inside a suitcase and left it in the trunk of a taxi outside the resort. Indonesian police discovered the suitcase and traced it back to the hotel.
After police discovered the suitcase containing Shelia’s body, they swiftly descended on the hotel where they found a gruesome, bloody scene in the hotel room and quickly realized that Heather and Schaefer had fled, leaving their passports behind.
A nationwide search was launched and the couple were soon located in another hotel room, which had been booked using Sheila’s credit card.
Initially, the pair claimed they had been attacked by a masked gang and that Sheila had not escaped.
Schaefer later told police he had acted in self defense after Sheila allegedly threatened to harm Heather and her unborn baby.
However, CCTV footage showing Sheila and Heather arguing in the hotel lobby and further evidence undermined their account.
On September 19, Schaefer admitted to helping Heather kill her mother and conceal the body.
Both were charged with premeditated murder on January 14, 2015.
A motive based around money then emerged during investigations, revealing Schaefer had been promised a cut of the $1.5million inheritance that Heather was set to collect from her mother.
In April 2025, Heather was sentenced to 10 years in prison for being an accessory to the murder, while Schaefer received 18 years for the killing.
Judges said Heather was given leniency because she had given birth to their daughter, Stella, while in custody.
Under Indonesian prison rules, she was allowed to keep Stella with her for up to two years and continued to have access to her afterwards.
Back in the US, however, the sentences were widely seen as lenient.
It also later emerged that Schaefer had sought advice from his cousin Robert Bibbs in Chicago, promising him $50,000 from Sheila’s $1.5 million trust fund.
Bibbs was arrested in connection with conspiracy to murder and was sentenced to nine years in prison in June 2017 on one count of conspiracy to commit foreign murder.
His conviction ultimately led to Heather’s arrest when she returned to the US in 2021.
Heather was due to stand trial in July 2023 but pleaded guilty one month before. In January 2024, she was sentenced to 26 years imprisonment.
Following his release, Schaefer will now spend time in an immigration centre before being deported to Chicago.
Kerobokan Prison Governor Hudi Ismono confirmed Schaefer’s release on Tuesday, saying: ‘Today, Tommy Schaefer is released and we have handed over him to the Immigration.
‘For foreign prisoners, the release should involve the Immigration for deportation process.’
Ismono said that Schaefer had spent at least 12 years in prison of an 18 year sentence and had received a total of 75 months and 120 days in sentence cuts during his incarceration due to good behaviour.
