Witnesses have told police that Sheila von Weise Mack, her 19-year-old daughter Heather (together center) and boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, 21, (top left) all from Chicago, had a row at the reception desk of the island’s luxury St Regis Hotel on Wednesday morning (bottom left). Staff have told police that the three argued about who should pay the bill at the $650-a-night hotel. Hours later Mrs Mack, 62, was found having been beaten to death and her body stuffed in a blood-stained suitcase. Her troubled daughter is the prime suspect, according to police.
‘I’ve paid for his flight. You pay the hotel bill': Revealed, the blazing row Bali ‘body-in-suitcase’ mother had with her daughter in luxury hotel lobby – just hours before her brutal murder!!!
- Heather Mack, 19, and boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, 21, were seen arguing in the lobby of the $650-a-night hotel in Bali hours before suitcase was found with Sheila von Weise Mack’s body inside
- Staff told police Mrs Mack pointed at Schaefer, telling her daughter:’I’ve paid for his flight here, so the two of you should pay for the hotel’
- Heather Mack is refusing to talk to police until she sees U.S. lawyer
- A friend said: ‘She was extremely spoiled and would often scream and throw things until she got her way’
Wealthy socialite Sheila von Weise Mack had a blazing row with her daughter and the teenager’s boyfriend over a hotel bill hurs before her body was found crammed into a blood-stained suitcase on the holiday island of Bali. Witnesses have told police that Mrs Mack, her 19-year-old daughter Heather and boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, 21, had a row at the reception desk of the luxury St Regis Hotel on Wednesday morning before her body was shuffled from the hotel in a silver suitcase. Staff have told police that the three argued about who should pay the bill when they were due to check out on Thursday.
Suspect: Heather Mack at the police HQ in Bali. Hotel staff have told MailOnline how she and her boyfriend were arguing over the bill in the lobby the night before Sheila von Weise Mack’s body was found stuffed in a suitcase
According to a staff reconstruction of the argument, Mrs Mack, from Chicago, was seen pointing at Mr Schaefer, who had checked in after the couple earlier in the week, and telling her daughter:’I’ve paid for his flight here, so the two of you should pay for the hotel.’ The three of them left the lobby area after the row but a few hours later, at 11.26am, Ms Mack and Mr Schaefer arrived in the reception area with a large suitcase wrapped in a bed sheet, refusing to allow a porter to take it out to a waiting taxi. The ‘body in the suitcase’ murder is a story spiced with tragedy, involving a troubled young woman, Mr Schaefer, whose previous girlfriend was killed in a car crash in South Africa in April, and a wealthy widow who met a grisly death in a tropical paradise.
Staff at the $650 St Regis hotel told of the strange behaviour of Miss Mack, who would instantly change from being friendly with them to storming around the opulent lobby and the pool area in an aggressive manner and glaring angrily at those who approached her. Police sources in the Bali capital, Denpasar, said that both Mr Schaefer and Ms Mack were being questioned but the couple are refusing to co-operate and are demanding a lawyer from the US. Witnesses reported that she and her mother were seen arguing on a number of occasions at the hotel, causing some staff to be concerned that the couple might even come to blows. ‘The mother had all the appearances of one of our upmarket guests,’ said a staff member, ‘but the behaviour she and her daughter showed did not belong in our hotel. Even so, it’s such a tragic end for that poor woman.’
Held: Schaefer is escorted by a policeman for questioning in connection with the murder. He sent a Facebook message some days before his trip hinting that he may never return from Indonesia
Lovebirds: The couple started dating after the tragic death of Schaefer’s girlfriend in a car crash in April
After carrying the suitcase containing Mrs Mack’s body out to the taxi, Ms Mack and Mr Schaefer returned to the reception desk and said they would not be paying the bill – it would be taken care of by Mrs Mack when she checked out later. But it is claimed they did ask for a safety deposit box, believed to contain Mrs Mack’s jewellery and their passports, to be opened and its contents given to them. The staff refused because they said Mrs Mack had left instructions that only she should be allowed to open it. Ms Mack and Mr Schaefer said they had more bags to collect – but instead they went out through the back entrance and later ordered another taxi to take them to the airport. Denpasar police chief Djoko Hariutomo said they approached immigration officials claiming they had lost their passports. ‘They said the needed to get new passports in order to leave the country, but that was because the passports were locked inside the deposit box at the hotel,’ said Mr Djoko. After being told by immigration officials that lost passports had to be reported to respective embassies, the couple vanished again, this time taking a taxi to the four star Risata Bali Resort, a short distance from the airport. With an alert going out to all hotels and taxis, police received a call from staff at the Risata where, raiding a room at 8.30am on Wednesday, police found the couple asleep and arrested them. As police began the difficult task of trying to question the pair in detail, fingerprint experts were examining pieces of glass from an unidentified object that is believed to have been used to bludgeon Mrs Mack in room 616 in the hope of finding clues as to whether it was Ms Mack or Mr Schaefer who had last touched the suspected murder weapon. While suspicion remains on both young people, as they were the only ones seen entering the room on CCTV footage, police said their initial inquiries suggested the perpetrator of the crime was the daughter.
Rages: At the $650 St Regis hotel staff told of the strange behaviour of Heather, who would instantly change from being friendly with them to storming around the opulent lobby and the pool area in an aggressive manner and glaring angrily at those who approached her
They have both been subjected to blood and urine tests to check if the pair were on drugs, but officers said psychological tests and Ms Mack’s behaviour suggested she was ‘unpredictable’. In a bizarre twist, the couple, who are being interviewed separately, have told police that Mrs Mack had been killed by an armed gang who had then taken the two of them captive before they were able to escape. ‘They have both told the same story about the armed gang, but clearly this is something they have concocted before their arrest, as there is absolutely no evidence from the CCTV cameras to show they were captured by a gang,’ police said. From both the US and Indonesia, reports have emerged telling of Mrs Mack’s troubled daughter, who is understood to have been adopted. An insight into the family background and Ms Mack’s psychological problems has come from a writer to the Jakarta Post who said she was the same age as Heather, having been friends with her for years. ‘Heather has always been a very disturbed girl. She was extremely spoiled and would often scream and throw things until she got her way,’ the writer said. ‘In 2006, Sheila and her husband were vacationing on a cruise ship when something went wrong and her husband cut his foot due to negligence. Sheila sued the cruise ship and won a sizeable amount of money.
‘Heather became even crazier with the newly-inherited millions.’ The former friend added: ‘I have absolutely no idea what Tommy saw in Heather or what would bring him to’ – allegedly – ‘participate in the murder’. ‘Tommy recently lost the love of his life. In April, Tommy’s long-time girlfriend, Rachel Smylie, passed away in a car accident in Cape Town, South Africa. ‘I guess Tommy and Heather started dating after Rachel’s death and I’m saddened that he got caught up in Heather’s insanity. Sheila was an incredibly nice, educated woman.
Horror: The blood-stained suitcase where the body of Mrs von Wiese-Mack was found. It was left in a cab when Mack and Schaefer checked out of the hotel, but they failed to return and the driver went to police
‘She was always dressed to the 9s, even while running errands. If I close my eyes and try to visualise her, an image of Sheiila wearing a fur coat and stiletto heels while shopping at the local Jewel-Osco comes to mind.’ Ms Mack appears to have caused numerous problems for her mother and police in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, where the Mack family lived for a number of years. Between 2004 and 2013 had resulted to officers responding to 86 calls from the Mack home. Even before the Bali trip there was added conflict when Mrs Mack told police that her credit card was being used on July 23 without her permission at the Conrad Hotel in Chicago, according to theChicago Tribune. When officers arrived, they learned that Ms Mack and Mr Schaefer had used the credit card to book a room and ring up almost $1000 in charges. Shortly before he flew to Bali, Mr Schaefer had told friends in a cryptic Facebook message that he was going too Indonesia and ‘wasn’t sure’ when he was coming back, before planning to go on to China.
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