Teen charged in Bali "suitcase murder" says she's innocent

BALI, Indonesia - A pregnant Chicago teen charged along with her boyfriend with murdering her mother while vacationing on the resort island of Bali last year says she and her boyfriend are innocent and that she loved her mother.

In an interview with the Chicago Tribune published Wednesday, 19-year-old Heather Mack said she is "petrified" about her future and that of her unborn child.

"I loved my mom with all my heart and miss her every day," said Mack, who insists she is innocent and did not have a motive to kill her mother.

The badly beaten body of Sheila von Wiese-Mack, 62, was found in a suitcase in the trunk of a taxi outside an upscale hotel in Bali in August.

Heather Mack and her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, 21, both from Chicago, are charged in Indonesia with premeditated murder in her death and face a maximum penalty of death by firing squad if found guilty. The two are being tried separately with the same judge and prosecutors. Their trials are currently underway.

In their indictment, prosecutors said the couple plotted the murder because von Wiese-Mack did not endorse their relationship, and that Mack once suggested that Schaefer hire someone to kill her mother for $50,000 before their visit to Bali.

It said that an argument over the hotel bill made Mack's mother angry and she scolded Schaefer, using a racial slur, and Schaefer then battered her with a fruit bowl handle.

Lawyers representing both Mack and Schaefer have argued the indictments against the couple are inaccurate and should be annulled.

Prosecutors allege Mack, who is due to have a baby in April, helped stuff her mother's body in the suitcase by sitting on it to enable Schaefer to close it. They then allegedly hired a taxi and placed the suitcase in the trunk, telling the driver they were going to check out of the hotel and would return, but they never did.

Last month, a judge in Chicago ruled Mack could use at least some of the $1.56 million she was due to inherit from her mother to pay for her legal defense. But in her interview with the Chicago Tribune, Mack said her attorney in Indonesia has only received the first out of three payments approved by the Chicago judge.

Mack told the paper she blames the three Chicago-area attorneys who have been assisting her with the trust fund issues and she wants to have them fired from her case. She says the three Chicago-area attorneys are obstructing the release of the funds and are denying her a fair chance of defending herself.