Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Did daughter murder mom at 5-star resort? Then stuff mom in bloody baggage? Bizarre twist!

Episode Date: March 15, 2018

Heather Mack , 21, and boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, 23, murdered her mother and stuffed Sheila von Wiese-Mack, 62, into a suitcase. The couple is now serving ten and 18-year sentences, respectively. Heather is now fighting for custody of the baby she gave birth to while in prison. Nancy Grace digs into the bizarre killing with Cold Case Research Institute director Sheryl McCollum, psychologist Caryn Stark, reporter Paul Chambers. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. 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. Her mother loved her, apparently apparently more than anything. Her mother, highly educated, a matriarch in social standing in her community, somehow ends up dead. Not just dead, but butchered and folded up and stuffed in a suitcase. How did that happen?

I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. We're talking about none other than infamous Heather Mack. Let's start at the beginning with me, Paul Chambers, Crime Stories investigative reporter, Karen Stark, renowned New York psychologist, and joining me as the director of the Cold Case Research Institute, Cheryl McCollum.

Paul, I want to start with not necessarily how mommy ends up dead folded over into a suitcase but the upbringing of heather mack what do we know about her upbringing the daughter nancy she is uh the daughter of sheila von weiss mack and james mack who is a jazz composer. James Mack died in 2006 during a family vacation in Greece. He left his wife quite a bit of money, and their relationship since the death of her father had been strained. This whole trip to Bali where the murder occurred was so that the mother and daughter could become a little bit closer to sort of ease that strain in the relationship. And that apparently. The strain in the relationship. That's certainly putting perfume on the pig.

Cheryl McCollum, Cold Case Institute director. This mother gave her every single thing you could give a child. She gave her love. She gave her the best education she possibly could. A beautiful home. In fact, the mother's friends begged her, don't take Heather to Bali. Don't do it. Don't spend the money for a five-star resort. But she wanted so desperately to be close to her daughter that she did it anyway,

even though her best friend said, don't do it. Look at Heather Mack's upbringing. Cheryl, what do you see? Nancy, the most startling thing to me is the police have responded to the family home after her father's death 80 times for domestic violence and other issues. This child, Heather, clearly has some emotional problems, mental problems, anger problems. For the police to respond 80 times to me is extraordinary. 80 times. What do we know about the home, where they lived, how Heather Mack was brought up? She had a silver spoon, Nancy. She wanted for nothing. The home was beautiful. She had the best education. She literally has the world by the tail.

But she believed that her mother had something to do with her father's death when she was 10, is what she's claiming. Wait a minute. James Mack, a Chicago-renowned Chicago composer, died in Athens, Greece from a pulmonary embolism. He was there on vacation with his wife and daughter. But somehow Mack got it into her head, or so she claims, that he was murdered. But that's not what happened. He died of a pulmonary embolism. Cheryl?

Correct. This is where I go back to. She clearly has some mental health issues. Oh, don't start with me. There was nothing wrong mentally with this girl. She's evil. And she planned the murder for some time before she finally did the murder. Please. I mean, did you actually just say, Cheryl, that she had mental issues?

Did you say that? Nancy, I'm telling you, this child has had problems since she was in the third grade. Mentally, emotional, violent. She's had lots of problems. There's no question. Well, like, name them them i want to hear your so-called mental problems heather mack had well when i say middle again anybody that could get it in their head that their mother murdered their father in a hotel room in greece when they were

10 when there's zero evidence of it they were, happy couple. They adored each other. There's zero evidence of it. So for her to get this in her head and think that she needs to avenge her father by murdering her mother in a hotel room in Bali, that is total

BS. Cheryl, I can't believe she's pulled the wool even on your eyes of all people. Karen Stark, throw me a bone for Pete's sake. Karen Stark, this girl, Heather Mack, that murdered her mother, got mad at that five-star resort in Bali because the mother didn't like the boyfriend. That's what it was about. She made up this BS abouts about oh this was a revenge

killing because mom killed dad that's bs yes and it doesn't sound well i thought that she was taking some kind of drugs when i would hear that video the youtube because she sounds so out of it. Hello, hello. A $1.3 million trust fund. $1.3 million trust fund that parents worked their fingers to the bone to make a beautiful home for this girl.

The daughter of a Chicago socialite, Sheila Von Weiss-Mack is accused of brutally murdering her own mother during a five-star Bali vacation. The mother doing anything to get the approval and love of her daughter, Heather Mack. And what does she do? Murders her mother in a violent rampage and along with her lover, stuffs her mom into a suitcase, leaves it out in front of the hotel and tries to leave in a taxi. That is not a mental illness, Cheryl McCollum.

That is a minion from hell. You're absolutely right. I don't want you to misunderstand what I'm saying. She is literally... Did you say mental illness? Yes, you did. I did not misunderstand that. And I'm going to tell you again.

Listen to what I'm trying to tell you. Oh, dear Lord. She premeditated the murder of her mother. There's no question. She participated in hiding her mother's body in a suitcase and stuffing it in a taxi trunk. Absolutely. What I'm telling you is there were signs. When a bellhop notices it's seeping blood. Go ahead.

Absolutely. When she was 10, when she was 11, when she was 12. Nancy, what on earth would have you called the police on your 10-year-old twin? How out of control did this girl have to be at such a young age? I'm just telling you, there were flags, there were issues. Her mom and friends knew it. I guarantee you this child's teachers knew it. She has had problems for over half of her life. Problems does not equal mental illness. And may I remind you, Cheryl McCollum, courtroom veteran, why am I having to preach to the choir? You're right. You're absolutely right. Oh, but you're just to the choir you're right you're absolutely right

this is a oh but you're just saying that and you're gritting your teeth because you know she's a cold-blooded killer i'm just saying there's a history that people have ignored she is an absolute cold-blooded killer she manipulated this boyfriend that got her pregnant. She probably manipulated her mother. She thought she was going to be able to get away with it by first claiming a gang attacked them, then claiming the boyfriend did it while she hit the bathroom, then claiming, no, I did it myself. Don't hate him. No question about it. She is absolutely where she needs to be, which is prison. Have you ever... Cheryl McCollum, can I just ask you that?

I have not, Nancy. Okay. I advise that you go walk through the lobby, because when you go through the lobby of a St. Regis, it smells like some kind of exotic fruit. It smells like you have just died and gone to heaven. They were staying, and I've only been through the lobby of one okay believe me i was not staying there um somebody else was and i was going to pick them up and give them a ride down to cnn hom and but i still to this day remember that it smelled like some kind of fruit wafting through the air.

That is where the mom put up her murderous daughter at the St. Regis Resort. They were staying there in Bali. And the state says the lover colluding with the daughter, Heather Mack, intentionally brings a metal fruit bowl back to the room where Mack up her mom's body and stuffs it into a suitcase and sits on the suitcase so the boyfriend can close it. Cheryl McCollum, is that what you mean by mental problems? Yeah, there's got to be something. Sitting on your mom's dead body so you can zip it into a suitcase. There's got to be something terribly wrong with you for you to.

Yeah. No question. Sociopaths have problems when they're young. She's evil. Karen Stark, help me please do something with Cheryl McCollum. What you're describing is psychopathic behavior, right? We're talking about someone who is a murderer and has that kind of mentality. And it does emerge when they're young. There's a lot of oppositional

behavior where they're getting in trouble all the time. And she really fits that profile. And it started at a very young age. I think that's what Cheryl is trying to say. Well, I agree with her on that, that her outbursts and anger toward her mother started at a very young age. The Chicago woman accused of killing her mother and helping her lover stuff mommy's body in a suitcase at an exclusive Bali resort claims, quote, I love my mom and I'm innocent.

I'm innocent. Cheryl, she said she's innocent. Is that more of the so-called mental illness that you're referring to? Need to. Yes, in a way. Because her life. Oh, come on. I'm having a a field day don't ruin it for me cheryl her lies are part of her manipulation her now trying to tell people of course i love my

mother i miss my mother her showing pictures of herself on social media with her baby in prison. It's all part of this sick, twisted life that I'm telling you started. I guarantee you by the time she was 10 or 11, there was something so bad wrong. She couldn't conform. She couldn't adapt. She couldn't deal with things like another 10 or 11 or 12 year old. And it morphed into what you're seeing right now. An adult that cannot do it either. Okay. I want to tell you a story, Cheryl McCollum. Paul Chambers, please don't think I forgot about you. I've just been enjoying fighting with Cheryl McCollum. I never get to argue with her because we normally agree. So I feel like I'm at a buffet. Paul Chambers with me, Crime Stories investigative reporter, Karen Stark, renowned New York psychologist and the director of the Cold Case Research Institute, Cheryl McCollum.

You know, the body of 62 year old Sheila Weiss Mack was found stuffed inside of a suitcase. Now, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, she and her late husband had just received a settlement in a lawsuit, something to do with Royal Caribbean Cruises, for $800,000. As if they needed the money, they were already extremely wealthy. But Heather Mack was in line to get a multi-million dollar estate. Does nobody see that as motive beside me, Paul Chambers? Well, there's some interesting things coming out of this YouTube interview, Nancy. She actually risked doing more prison time because of her statements made during this video. The Indonesian prosecutors are keenly interested in her comments. You see,

she was convicted and received a 10-year sentence for being an accessory, and her boyfriend, Schaefer, received 18 years for actually doing the deed. Now that Heather Mack says that she actually committed the murder and that she got her boyfriend involved after the fact, actually, the prosecutors say maybe they can get her more prison time now whoa whoa whoa her story is changing paul chambers you are absolutely correct take a listen to heather max speaking it's posted on youtube and we managed to call it out with me karen stark psychologist cheryl mccullum director of the Cold Case Research Institute. And Cheryl, I'm still trying to take in the fact that you said she had mental illness issues as opposed to being just outright evil.

Angry outbursts at age starting at age 10 do not mental illness make. And remind me, I want to tell you a story about a child that went to school with the twins but I'll get back to that in a moment cuz I want to hear Heather Mac in her own words straight from the devil's mouth listen so this is a video that I need to make. A lot of the times, since I've been a kid, I've heard, the truth sets you free, the truth sets you free. And I never understood. But I'm Heather Mack.

And I want to be set free. I don't want to live in a lie anymore. When I was 10, my mother killed my father in a hotel in Athens, Greece. Two weeks before I came to Bali, I found out that she killed my father. And 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. Before I go back to Cheryl, Karen, and Paul, take a listen to Heather Mack in her own words. I wanted to kill my mother. First, I asked Tommy Schaefer to help me find somebody to kill my mom for $50,000.

And he said no. After that, I got this whole new 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. The mom wanted to take her only daughter on a five-star vacation. Her friends begged her not to do it because her daughter was so contemptuous of her mother. But she wanted desperately to mend their rift and to bond with her daughter. Then the daughter jumps up and says she wants to bring her lover with her. Well, the mother was

opposed. She wanted time with her daughter, but in the end, well, the next thing we know, there's a headline. A Chicago tourist is found dead in Indonesia. And so many people thought, well, okay, you travel abroad. You're in a high crime area. What did you think was going to happen? Oh, no. Oh, no. Let me tell you, at the St. Regis, it's not high crime.

Okay. As I mentioned earlier, you smell the scent of jasmine and tangerines wafting through the air. No, it was not a high crime area, and the perpetrator turned out to be her own daughter. Indonesian police charging a Chicago-area couple with murder after the body of Heather Mack's 62-year-old mother is found literally stuffed in a suitcase on the resort island of Bali. And when I say stuffed, I mean stuffed. According to evidence, the lover tries to zip the suitcase and Heather Mack sits on her mother's dead body to make it fit.

That's right. Heather Mack and her lover, Tommy Schaefer, arrested after the body of Sheila Von Weiss Mack found inside the trunk of a taxi parked in the front of the St. Regis Bali Resort. Wow. Okay. Cheryl McCollumum I want to go this is what confounds me when you see parents who bend over backward to raise the daughter to give her the best education to sacrifice to send her to the best schools and the best training to prepare them for a future life. Prepare for their life after the parents are gone and can no longer support them. They did everything. They basically lived at the top of Knob Hill, which is short for Snob Hill, and gave her

this luxurious, beautiful lifestyle that other people can only dream of. But the mom ends up stuffed in a suitcase, Cheryl. Nancy, again, this case did not start in Indonesia. It started when this child was 10 years old. She's basically giving you the road map. She's telling you when it started. The death of her father, everything changed. Whatever she was able to hide or mask or they ignored came to the surface to a point nobody could ignore it any longer.

Her mother was afraid of her. Her mama would have never called the police 80 times without being afraid of her. 86 times. Karen Stark, listen to this, please. April 13.

Daughter locks mom Sheila in her bedroom to make her mom feel bad for having yelled at her. I'd yell at her too. January 19. Punched mom with closed fist on broken ankle resulting in more hospitalization. December 14. Heather Mack gets angry and broke household items.

January 30. Mack pushes her mom, Sheila, who falls and breaks her arm. February 2011, Mack arrested for domestic violence against her own mother, Sheila. April, Mack arrested for biting Sheila's arm multiple times over the course of three days and pushing her mother in the chest. The mom reports Mac said she would, quote, stop leaving bruises and just hit her in the head. April pushed Sheila during an argument. June threatens mom after Mac was caught sending pornographic photos of herself on the Internet.

I just wanted to pause on that. Mac sending pornographic photos of herself on the Internet. And you all know by now it takes a lot to be determined to be pornographic in nature. Even Hustler isn't deemed to be pornography in a lot of a lot of places now okay threatens mom mac quote out of control throwing picture frames mac threatens sheila saying i will hurt you mac bites sheila's left bicep sheila tells police the large bruise on her wrist was from Matt because she was in a rage and bit me. Quote from the mom. Rocky relationship. According to Oak Park Police, Sheila called police 86 times.

Sheila, the mom, was struggling on how to deal with it and how to help Heather. And she would talk a lot about that. Sheila never gave up hope for Heather. You know, Karen Stark, before I had the twins, and sadly it was late in life, I thought I knew all about love, right? Okay, you know that because we've discussed it many, many times before and after the twins came. But I can tell you this. I don't know of any power on earth stronger than a mother's love. And when I read Sheila Mack, quote, told police she would not give up hope on Heather, it breaks my heart, Karen Stark.

I can get that, Nancy, but this girl is nothing like your twins. It breaks my heart, Karen Stark. That this girl needed to be put away. Somebody had to deal with the fact that her problems were the kind where she had no, she was violent and she had no remorse. And nothing was going to make that go away. There was nothing that could change somebody who can't feel. Unfortunately, that was the case with her daughter and she doesn't seem what does that mean someone that can't feel what is that isn't there a medical term for that someone that cannot feel emotion that's an anti-social personality someone who is a psychopath and you can't make somebody have a conscience so you hear you're telling you know about how this happened over and over and over again and the mother wouldn't give up on her and i get that

i get that mother's love nevertheless there was nothing that could be done then nothing that the mother could do even though she wouldn't give up on her and the worst thing that she could be done, then nothing that the mother could do, even though she wouldn't give up on her. And the worst thing that she could have done was to decide she's going to go on a trip with a girl who has tried to harm her repeatedly, who bit her. You know, I'm looking right now, Paul Chambers, Crime Stories investigative reporter, I'm looking right now at the suitcase the mom is stuffed into.

And she's still stuffed in there when this photo is taken. And all on the outside of the suitcase is blood. It's smeared all over the suitcase. They had used a bed sheet, actually, to close the luggage. They couldn't get it completely closed, and so they tied it together. Blood was seeping out of the suitcase, and they had actually had to explain to the lobby staff

that it was possibly some makeup that they were seeing. They noticed in the lobby that there was some red stains, and they just claimed it was makeup. They took it out to the taxi stand. The shaffer helped the staff lift the luggage into the taxi's trunk because they didn't want to signal that the luggage was unusually heavy because it had a body inside. So it's very interesting. Then, you know, they actually went back inside to ask for their passports and to check out of the hotel. But the staff would not allow them to because they did not own the credit card that was being used to pay for the room. So they said they wanted to

actually speak to Sheila. And so once they were thwarted and their passports were in the hotel safe, they couldn't even leave the island. What they did was then they went out and escaped across across the wall of the resort compound, left the complex, tried to check into another hotel. They found a small hotel that they did check into because, see, hotels require that you have a passport and that you surrender them while you're staying at the hotel. But they convinced this small hotel that their passport was you know, their passport was just out of source. They couldn't get it. They checked into the small hotel and about a day later they were found by police there. You know, of course, once police discovered the body because the suitcase was overflowing with blood at that point.

They left the body in the suitcase in the trunk of the taxi at the hotel. This is more of what I've learned about the mother Sheila. She joined a century old Chicago book club called the Caxton Club. She was in a book club. She had all sorts of interests. She loved Asian

literature and Wagnerian opera. She that was in a profile in a publication called the Keckstonian, all about her. And I say this in a good way. She was extremely interested in a variety of pursuits and highly, highly educated. She fell in love with a highly regarded jazz and classical composer, James L. Mack, also from Illinois. He died at age 76. So I'm looking at the way this child was brought up, literally with a silver spoon in her mouth, Cheryl McCollum.

And not to say that there is not violence in homes like that. But I look at 86 police reports where the police were called. Never once would the mother allow the daughter to be actually arrested. She didn't want her daughter to go to jail. Right. She tried to save this child. She did not want her to have a record. She did not want her to go to jail.

She did not want her life altered in a negative way. She literally believed she could love her into being well. And Nancy, that's not possible. The mother did not make this child this way. She did not do anything to cause her to be this way. And there's no way to undo it by her. Sheila Von Weiss-Mack, 62, of the Chicago suburb Oak Park, was discovered stuffed in a suitcase in the back of a taxi at the luxury St. Regis Hotel. Suspicion quickly turned to her own daughter, Heather Mack, and her lover. Now, the two threatened to commit suicide behind bars. That never happened. Listen to Heather Mack in her own words.

We were going to Bali, so I began to plot. I began turning off Tommy's phone, taking Tommy's phone when he was asleep, starting in Chicago, taking Tommy's phone and having conversations between Tommy and myself, texting myself, having fake conversations, and then deleting them before he could see them. I did that because part of me knew that with this plan of killing my mom in a hotel, that she might...

I might get arrested. I didn't want to get arrested by myself in a different country. So I came to Bali and I told Tommy that he was going to come here for a vacation. I told Tommy that he was going to come to Bali for a vacation with me and my mother. And that she knew about it. In all reality, I stole her credit card and bought him a ticket without her knowing about it. I trapped him here. And that is what I regret.

I don't regret killing my mother. And as evil as that may sound, that's my reality. If somebody killed Stella, I wouldn't regret killing them either. But I regret bringing Tommy into it. I regret being selfish. I regret trapping an innocent person into this because it was my battle. It was my mother. It was my father. It was my mother. It was my father. It was my battle. I'm sorry to Tommy Schaefer for trapping him. Came to Bali. My mom found out. I killed her myself. And then I told Tommy that if

he did not help me clean the room and get rid of the body, that I would tell the police that he did it. I would pay money to get him arrested. So he helped me clean it. He ran with me. In the court, the same thing happened. My lawyers and I, because of the fact that if I get money, if my article that I was charged with was not that I'm the one who killed her, I'm still entitled to the money, and therefore I can pay the lawyers more.

So we told Tommy together, my lawyers and I, that if he didn't take the blame in the court, that he would get the death penalty. So he lied in the court because of me. my motivation for doing this was myself it's from inside of me and it's my battle it wasn't tommy's tommy's an innocent man and then even more innocent man is ryan tommy's cousin i don't even know how he got involved in this or why the fbi involves him because he had absolutely nothing to do with any of it. He's innocent. I don't know if they wanted to sell a better story or what the FBI was on, but Tommy and Ryan are innocent. I'm not. You know what's amazing too, Karen Stark, New York psychologist joining us, none of Sheila's friends were shocked at all. Well, it sounds like everybody wanted her to not go on this trip.

They pleaded with her. They were very worried about what was going to happen, and they were more aware of what her daughter was really like than she was. She was in denial. She kept thinking that she could find a way, some kind of rapprochement and have them connect with each other. And as Cheryl said, just love her to be a normal person. And that was never going to happen. Because if you don't have a conscience, if you can't love and connect with another person, then you don't care what happens to them. You're just fueled by anger. Take a listen

to Heather Mack speaking in her own words. Remember, this interview, which her lawyers advised against, may be the grounds for additional charges. But Tommy and Ryan are innocent. I'm not. And the only thing Tommy is not innocent of is hiding the body. And the only reason he did that is because of me. Because it was so burning and so deep in my heart, my plan, that I didn't think. I involved him and I hurt him and I hurt Stella. And I'm sorry, Tommy Schaefer. I'm sorry. I love you. I really love you, and if I could go back, I would do it myself. And I'm sorry that everyone who ever knew you now thinks you're a murderer when you're not. I'm sorry

you won't be able to get a job. I'm sorry everybody thinks that you're some crazy killer. This is the truth. And whoever is watching this, don't hate Tommy. He's innocent. I'm not. I love you, Tommy. Paul Chambers explained to me how her own words can be used against her to possibly add charges. Well, prosecutors, you know, decided to send her to prison to convict her as an accessory.

And they successfully prosecuted her boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, as the actual doer of the deed. Schaefer is serving an 18-year prison sentence. But now in the YouTube video, Heather says that she truly loves Tommy, that he had nothing to do with the murder, but only with the cleanup afterwards, and that she regrets getting him involved, luring him to Haiti by buying him an airline ticket with her mother's credit card, then secretly getting him a room at the resort, also using her mother's credit card,

and bringing him into this whole situation. She says she is solely responsible. She also says that a cousin, Ryan Bibbs, back in Illinois, who was already pleaded guilty in the United States to being an accessory to help plot the murder, she says that he is completely innocent. And she's even more astounded that Ryan Bibbs has been brought into this whole mess. So what she's doing here is she's risking more time in prison because the Indonesian prosecutors are saying, hey, you're taking blame for the crime. Then we're going to put you away for actually committing the murder. And she would like, in an ideal world, she would like for people to know that Schaefer did not commit the crime, that she actually contrived evidence to bring him in.

She says she put text, she got a hold of his cell phone and started texting responses to her text to his phone that implicated him in the crime. So the evidence that prosecutors used during the trial, she said she was totally responsible for inventing that. So anyway, she would like Schaefer, she would like people to know that her boyfriend that she truly loves, she says. Wait a minute, wait a minute, truly loves, doesn't she have a female lover behind bars? Well, she may, that may be the case, but she's sticking up for her boyfriend. Okay, but what about the trial? Well, what about then? If she truly loves the boyfriend, then why didn't she say all this to prosecutors then so he wouldn't go to jail? Because she's changed her story, as you pointed out earlier, Nancy.

She's changed her story several times. Okay, this is what I do know. I don't know what's going on in her head, but I know the coffin that carried her mother, Sheila Mack, left Bali on a Korean air flight to Chicago O'Hare. An autopsy revealed that the mom died of asphyxiation. She couldn't breathe. She had a broken nose bone resulting from a blunt blow. She also suffered from a broken neck. What we learn is that the breaks in the mom's neck and nose extended to her upper right and left jaw, causing respiratory disorder. The mother also had extensive hand wounds that suggest to me she was trying to fight off an attack, Cheryl McCollum.

Quite possibly, Nancy. It sounds like she had her hands up, like a defensive posture. This woman was beaten to death. It's the most violent depiction you could have in your mind with a bowl that had a handle on it. So you start swinging that bowl that has a handle on it as fast as you can and you literally break somebody's nose and jaw and neck that is terrible force and again i'm going to tell you there's something mentally wrong with this girl she is well that doesn't mean she's legally insane cheryl you keep saying there's something wrong with her there's something wrong with everybody that commits a murder.

Right. What I'm saying is it has nothing to do with whether or not she is, you know, legally insane. I am talking about somebody should have recognized this child needed institutionalized help by the time she was 14. Well, she's getting it now. The institution is jail, and that's where she needs to be. Amen. When you keep saying there's something wrong with her, it makes me think that you're suggesting she has a legal insanity defense. She planned this thing,

and the evidence after the murder can be taken into account. Stuffing your mom's body in a suitcase and running to the next luxury hotel with your lover does not suggest to me a mental illness rising to the level of insanity. And I want you to know one more thing about the autopsy. was blood aspiration, which means the mom was standing when she was beaten and that she suffocated from lack of oxygen because of the mass influx of blood into her lungs from the broken nose bone that extended to both sides of her jaw. She drowned on her own blood, Cheryl. Absolutely. Nancy, the legal insanity defense means you don't know right from wrong. This girl absolutely knows what she did was wrong.

She tried to cover it up months before the planning. She got rid of text messages. She changed flight information. She got the hotel room book for the boyfriend. She brought her own accessory to the crime. She knew what she was doing was wrong. They hid the body in a suitcase. They hid it in the trunk of a taxi. Then they fled, and they tried to leave the island and could not.

No question, she's where she needs to be in prison. I'm just saying, you follow this roadmap. She should have never been out to be able to do it. She should have been in juvie jail at the get-go. That's right. The first time she hit her mother and broke a bone or bit her. Yeah, she should have gone. Her framework should have been straight in juvenile jail.

To Karen Stark, I do not believe one word this woman says, but I want you to listen, Karen, along with me, to Heather Mack in her own words. This is just spewing lies, but listen anyway. So I came to Bali, and I told Tommy that he was going to come here for a vacation. I told Tommy that he was going to come to Bali for a vacation with me and my mother. And that she knew about it. In all reality, I stole her credit card and bought him a ticket without her knowing about it. I trapped him here.

And that is what I regret. I don't regret killing my mother. And as evil as that may sound, that's my reality. If somebody killed Stella, I wouldn't regret killing them either. But I regret bringing Tommy into it. I regret being selfish. I regret trapping an innocent person into this because it was my battle. It was my mother. It was my father.

Karen Stark, what do you make of it? I'll tell you what's most chilling about it, Nancy, is that if you listen, there is absolutely no remorse about her mother being killed. In a very, very calm voice, she's trying to rescue her boyfriend and comes up with this ridiculous story about her mom killing her father. And you do not hear the least bit of regret. She's crying, but not for her mom. She's crying for her boyfriend. We await now to see if the charges are going to be altered in any way. Take one more listen to Heather Mack. Nancy, this is Heather Mack speaking to Crime Watch Daily from jail. And I was just hugging her and hugging her and hugging her. And I wouldn't let her go. And he just said, now we have to run.

And I said, you are nuts. I'm not leaving my mother here. I will not leave her here. They said, well, what the f*** do you want to do? I said, I want to bring her. He said, in what? And I said, in a suitcase. I'm not leaving her here.

I just didn't want to leave my mother. I don't know. I had no idea where Heather Mack was at that moment. But Heather says she knows precisely where she is now. Most of the time, especially at night, I'm crying. Especially at night. Can I ask you why you cry at night? I miss my mother.

Yeah, I miss my mother. Yeah, I miss my mother. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.