Tommy Schaefer, who, together with his American girlfriend Heather Mack, formed the infamous “suitcase murder duo,” was released from Bali’s Kerobokan Prison at 12 noon on Tuesday, 17 February 2026, where he has been imprisoned since August 2014, serving an 18-year sentence for premeditated murder.
In accordance with Indonesian penal law, Schaefer was released after serving more than 11 years of his sentence, with various credits also granted for good behavior as a prison inmate.
As reported by Radarbadund.com. Schaefer’s release was confirmed by Moretska Victor Noya, a ranking official at Bali’s notorious Kerobokan Prison. “That’s correct, today Tommy Schaefer is free,” confirmed Noya on Tuesday. Schaefer was escorted from the prison wearing handcuffs, accompanied by Indonesian immigration officials, to be processed for an expedited deportation.
In August 2024, Schaefer, together with his then girlfriend, Heather Mack, were arrested after brutally murdering Mack’s socialite mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack (62), in a South Bali hotel. The couple stuffed the dead woman’s body inside a large suitcase and unsuccessfully attempted to load it into a waiting taxi. Mack and Schaefer fled the scene, abandoning the bloody suitcase next to a taxi at the entrance to the hotel.
Bali subsequently apprehended the two, who were hiding in a Kuta area hotel room some 10 kilometers away from the murder scene. They initially told police that Mrs. Mack had been murdered by terrorists who entered the Hotel from the beach, after which the couple fled the scene in fear.
Later, during a sensational murder trial in Denpasar, Ketut Wirjana, a taxi driver, became a lead witness telling a three-member panel of judges how, after waiting more than one hour, he saw blood seeping from a suitcase placed near his taxi by hotel porters. Hotel Security and Police were alerted, who later opened the suitcase to discover Sheila von Wiese-Mack’s dead body wrapped in a hotel bed sheet and crammed into the large, blood-soaked suitcase.
Forensic examination of the woman’s body showed a range of defensive wounds to her head, face, and hands, indicating a desperate struggle with assailants who struck her repeatedly with a heavy fruit bowl from the hotel.
After a lengthy trial, on 21 April 2015, the Denpasar Court handed down an 18-year prison sentence to Schaefer. The dead woman’s daughter, Heather Mack, who was 19 at the time of the trial, was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. Heather Mack. who had purchased a plane ticket for Schaefer to travel to Bali using her mother’s funds, had given birth in prison to a female child while awaiting trial.
During the trial, Schaefer admitted to hitting Sheila with a fruit bowl when he was attacked by the angry mother, who had only just learned that her teenage daughter was pregnant and had stolen funds to pay for his travel expenses.
After reviewing the evidence and hearing the testimony of Heather Mack and Tommy Schaefer, the judges ruled the death a case of premeditated murder.
Sheila von Wiese-Mack was married to Heather’s father, James L. Mack a famous jazz musician and composer who died in 2006.
Heather Mack was released from Kerobokan prison in 2021 and deported back to the USA, accompanied by her infant daughter. Barred from financial access to the sizeable estate of her dead parents, Heather Mack (now 30) is currently serving a 26-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Hazleton, West Virginia, for conspiring to kill her mother while still in the USA before coming to Indonesia.
It is unclear if Tommy Schaefer will face additional criminal charges in the USA following his deportation from Indonesia.
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