RELATED: Heather Mack update: Oak Park native sentenced to 26 years in connection with mother’s Bali murder<\/a><\/p>\nUltimately, Judge Matthew Kennelly persuaded Shaefer to retain an attorney, at least for Thursday.<\/p>\n
Shaefer was taken into custody on Wednesday mid-way through a flight from Bali to O’Hare.<\/p>\n
The now 32-year-old was deported from Indonesia following his release from prison there.<\/p>\n
He spent the last 11 years in an Indonesian prison, for the killing of Sheila von Wiese Mack.<\/p>\n
Her body was found in a suitcase in 2014.<\/p>\n
Mack, who gave birth to Shaefer’s baby while in prison, served seven years in Bali before she was deported back to the United States in 2021. She, like Shaefer, was arrested upon arrival in Chicago and is now serving a 26-year sentence for her role in her mother’s murder.<\/p>\n
Both Schaefer’s and Von Wiese Mack’s family refrained from commenting Thursday.<\/p>\n
The FBI released a statement, saying, “Heather Mack and Tommy Schaefer are now facing full accountability on U.S. soil for the senseless murder of Sheila Von Wiese-Mack. We remain hopeful that healing and closure may finally begin for all those that loved her.”<\/p>\n
Judge Kennelly went as far as setting a trial date for Jan. 11.<\/p>\n
But this could very well all change, especially if Schaefer does end up representing himself.<\/p>\n
Mack’s case took just over two years to prosecute.<\/p>\n
If convicted, Schaefer faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO (WLS) — The man convicted in the notorious killing of his former girlfriend’s mother in Bali back…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":618410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[264825,960,245771,5386,1818,264824],"class_list":["post-618409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-264825","tag-chicago","tag-heather-mack","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-tommy-schaefer"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116139098742536566","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}