'I Don't Regret Killing My Mother': Heather Mack Claims She Acted Alone in Mom's Brutal Bali Murder

Heather Mack, convicted of helping brutally beat her mother to death with then-boyfriend Tommy Schaefer while on vacation in Bali, released a trio of "confession" YouTube videos in which she takes full responsibility for the crime.

WATCH Mack's videotaped confessions:

“This is a video I need to make,” she said in the Feb. 2 uploads. “I don’t want to live in a lie anymore.”

In 2015, Mack was convicted alongside Schaefer for devising a plot to kill Sheila von Wiese-Mack, going through with the plan and stuffing her mother's body into a suitcase in an attempt to get rid of it. The pair took the suitcase to a taxi and were found and arrested once they didn’t return to the cab.

Mack, an Oak Park native, was sentenced to 10 years in an Indonesian prison for the 2014 crime. Schaefer was sentenced to 18.

Mack said in the new videos that her mother killed her father, musician and composer James L. Mack, in a hotel in Athens, Greece, when she was 10 years old. She said she found out two weeks before the family’s planned trip to Bali.

“I made it up in my heart, in my mind, my soul, in my blood, in the oxygen running through my body, that I wanted to kill my mother,” she said. “I got this whole ... savage idea in my head that I wanted to kill her in a hotel room, because she had killed my father in a hotel room.”

Mack said she asked Schaefer if he could find someone to kill her mother for $50,000, but he said no.

She said she then started an elaborate plan to set Schaefer up as her accomplice, not wanting to be stuck in a foreign jail cell on her own. While they were still in Chicago, she said, she started stealing his phone at night, having conversations with herself and deleting the messages before he could see them.

She said she told Schaefer she was bringing him along on a vacation she was taking with her mother, and that her mom knew he was coming. In reality, she said, she stole von Wiese-Mack’s credit card and bought Schaefer a ticket without her knowledge.

“I trapped him here,” she said. “And that is what I regret. I don’t regret killing my mother, and as evil as that may sound, that’s my reality...I regret trapping an innocent person into this. Because it was my battle.”

She said in the video she killed her mom by herself and told Schaefer that if he didn’t help clean up the bloody room and get rid of the body, she’d tell the police he did it. She said she also pushed him to lie in court, threatening him with the death penalty if he didn’t.

“My motivation for doing this was myself,” she said.

Debbi Curran, von Wiese-Mack’s younger sister, told the Chicago Tribune that Mack’s recent claims are “completely false,” including the accusation that von Wiese-Mack killed Mack’s father in Greece. According to his obituary, the Tribune reported, he died of a pulmonary embolism while on vacation in 2006.

Mack repeats her regrets for dragging Schaefer into her plot several times in the video, mentioning also that she feels responsible for hurting Stella, a baby the pair had while in jail.

“I’m sorry, Tommy Schaefer,” she said. “I’m sorry. I love you. I really love you.”

Curious about this case? Read Patch's previous coverage below:

• Oak Park's Heather Mack Speaks Out About Killing Her Mother
• Heather Mack Learns to Cook, Clean, Raise Baby Stella in Indonesian Prison
• Cousin Accused of Conspiring in Bali Murder Released to Home Confinement
• Tommy Schaefer’s Cousin Accused of Conspiring to Kill Heather Mack’s Mother
• Tommy Schaefer’s Mom Says Heather Mack Wants to Sell Baby Stella
• Heather Mack May Give Baby Stella to Australian Couple in Bali
• Young Illinois Lovers Found Guilty of Murder but Indonesian Judges Spare Their Lives
• Heather Mack, Accused in Her Mother's Murder, Gives Birth in Bali: Reports
• Tommy Schaefer Tells How He Killed von Wiese-Mack After She Demanded Her Daughter Get an Abortion
• Confessions Made in Bali Resort Murder of Oak Park Woman: Police
• Racial Slur Said to be Motive in Oak Park Woman’s Murder
• Von Wiese-Mack’s Will Filed; Daughter Kept in Solitary Confinement
• Teen Jailed in Bali is Pregnant, Claims She’s Being Sexually Assaulted and Fed KFC
• Teen Accused of Mom’s Murder in Bali Not a ‘Crazy, Cold-Blooded Killer,’ Says Lawyer
• Slain Mother’s Relationship with Daughter Said to be Volatile
• Illinois Woman Killed at Posh Bali Resort and Stuffed into a Suitcase

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