Indonesia has deported an American man convicted in one of Bali’s most notorious murder cases, closing a chapter that began with a killing at a five-star resort and drew global attention to the island more than a decade ago.
Tommy Schaefer was flown out of Bali on Tuesday evening after serving 11 years of an 18-year sentence for the premeditated murder of Sheila von Wiese-Mack in 2014. His release came after a series of remissions for good behaviour, according to Felucia Sengky Ratna, head of the Bali Regional Office of the Directorate General of Immigration.
The case became widely known as the Bali “suitcase murder” because of the way the crime was discovered. The 62-year-old victim, a Chicago socialite, was found inside the trunk of a taxi at the St. Regis Bali Resort, her body badly beaten, a day after she arrived on holiday with her daughter.
Schaefer and his then-girlfriend Heather Mack were arrested on the island shortly after the body was discovered. Mack, who was 19 and pregnant at the time, was later convicted of assisting in the killing and served seven years of a 10-year sentence in Indonesia before being deported in 2021.
Her legal troubles did not end there. In January 2024, a court in Chicago sentenced her to 26 years in prison after she pleaded guilty in the United States to helping murder her mother and placing the body in a suitcase during the trip to Bali.
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