Heather Mack, who was convicted abroad for helping to murder her mother and stuff her body in a suitcase in Bali, is requesting bail and custody of her daughter while she awaits a new trial in the US waits.
Mack, 26, appeared Monday in an Illinois state court to determine custody of her daughter, seven-year-old Estelle Schaefer, whose name is Stella.
“I’ve never been violent,” Mack told Cook County Judge Stephanie Miller, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. “I was a loving, caring mother.”
While Mack is being held without bail, Stella is currently in the care of Mack’s maternal cousin, Lisa Hellmann of Colorado, niece of Mack’s murdered mother, socialite Sheila von Wiese-Mack.
But Mack is trying to place the girl in the care of her California friend Diana Roque Ellis – and hopes to live with Ellis and Stella if she is released on bail.
In a separate motion filed in US District Court last week, Mack’s attorney requested her release on bail pending her federal trial, arguing that she posed no danger to others and posed no risk of absconding.
“Other than the longstanding conflict that Ms. Mack had with her mother prior to her mother’s death, Ms. Mack had absolutely no record of her posing any danger to anyone,” Mack’s attorney, Michael I. Leonard, argued in the filing.
Heather Mack (seen in 2015), who was convicted abroad for helping murder her mother and stuffing her body in a suitcase in Bali, is requesting bail and custody of her daughter
Mack and her former boyfriend were convicted of plotting to kill Sheila von Wiese-Mack (with her left hand) at a luxury resort in Bali and then stuff her body in a suitcase (right).
“She has no criminal record other than the foreign conviction arising out of the same issues raised in this case,” the motion added.
Court filings have yet to show a decision on Judge Matthew Kennelly’s bail request.
Mack spent seven years in an Indonesian prison after she and her former boyfriend Tommy Schaefer were convicted of plotting to kill von Wiese-Mack at a luxury resort in Bali and then stuffing her body into a suitcase she was carrying in the trunk of a taxi.
The couple allegedly plotted to kill von Wiese-Mack to gain access to a $1.5 million trust fund set up in her name by Mack’s late father, famed Chicago jazz composer James L. Mack .
Schaefer, the father of young Stella, remains in prison in Indonesia. Mack gave birth to the girl during the couple’s 2015 trial in Indonesia.
Earlier this month, Mack was deported to the United States after serving her sentence abroad.
Mack is seen in an immigration car after being released from Kerobokan prison in Bali, Indonesia on October 29. She was released 34 months early for good behavior
She was arrested last Wednesday morning shortly after landing in the US after a 13-hour flight (picture at the airport in Indonesian). Mack was accompanied by their six-year-old prison-born daughter
Shortly after stepping off the plane at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, she was arrested by federal agents armed with an indictment charging her and Schaefer with conspiracy to murder in a foreign country and obstruction of justice.
The maximum sentence for conspiracy murder charges is life imprisonment and for disability charges a maximum sentence of 20 years.
At Monday’s custody of Stella trial, Mack denied allegations that her friend Diana Roque Ellis was using the girl as pawn to pursue fame and fortune.
“I don’t think Diana would exploit Stella for money,” she said, according to the Sun Times.
Mack acknowledged that years ago she and Ellis had spoken through a TV production company about “telling my side of the story,” but said, “I’m no longer involved in a contract, and neither is Diana.”
Mack gave birth to daughter Stella during the couple’s 2015 trial in Indonesia
Mack’s cousin Hellman, whose mother is the sister of the late von Wiese-Mack, is trying to retain custody of the girl, who was born in an Indonesian prison and lived with a caretaker while Mack was behind bars.
Stella returned to the United States earlier this year with the caretaker in anticipation of Mack’s release, but the caretaker, Oshar Suartama, was recently forced to return to Indonesia.
“She considers it a vacation,” Mack said of her daughter. “She has changed very well. She loves that she has all these cousins she didn’t know she had.”
In court, Mack testified that she recently had a virtual visit with Stella and acknowledged that Hellman was “nice” during the video chat.
However, she denied previous statements by Hellman that Mack had a “prone to violence.”
Mack replied, “Lisa has no idea what kind of mom I was to Stella.”