Update!
He gets 18 years, she gets 10. Their baby has been born. I don't feel sorry for them at all. Murderers.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...end-lashes-s-handed-maximum-18-bars-Bali.html
Body in suitcase teen gets TEN years: Tearful Heather Mack sentenced for ‘sadistic’ murder of mother as boyfriend lashes out as he’s handed maximum 18 behind bars in Bali
- Heather Mack, 19, from Chicago jailed for 10 years for killing her mother
- Panel of judges were lenient towards Mack because she recently gave birth
- Her boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, 21 sentenced to 18 years imprisonment
- He lashed out at photographers outside the court in Denpasar, Bali today
By
RICHARD SHEARS and
JENNY STANTON FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 06:23 GMT, 21 April 2015 | UPDATED: 12:36 GMT, 21 April 2015
Body in a suitcase teen Heather Mack cried as she was jailed for 10 years for the 'sadistic' murder of her mother today.
Her sentence came just minutes after her boyfriend Tommy Schaefer, 21, was jailed for 18 years at the same court in Denpasar, Bali and he violently lashed out at photographers.
Mack, 19, from Chicago was found guilty of helping Schaefer stuff the body of her mother into a suitcase.
Last month she was told she would not face the maximum sentence - the death penalty - but could be jailed for 15 years. Today the panel of judges decided to be lenient towards Mack because she recently gave birth.
'Her newborn baby badly needs a mother's love and breastfeeding,' the verdict said.
Following her sentencing, Mack spoke of her anger and sadness that her boyfriend would still be in prison when she was eventually released.
'He will still be in prison when I am freed and he is the father of my daughter,' she said.
'She will be a young girl and she is going to be without a father, while I will be out of prison. He should not have received 18 years like that.'
Meanwhile, Schaefer expressed anger outside the court for the first time since his arrest by lashing out and swearing at photographers. He hit two cameras.
It was a spontaneous display of anger he had not shown before, prompting observers to wonder if the same fury had surfaced in the hotel room where he murdered Sheila von Wiese-Mack.
Tears rolled down Miss Mack's face as the interpreter told her the judges were sending her to jail for the next 10 years.
The sentence has shown, however, that the judges had considered pleas by the defence that she was a young mother with a month-old baby and she had not contributed to the death of her own mother.
But Judge Suweda said: 'She failed to contact the police after the murder. Instead she had run away.'
Ni Ketut Novi Sri Wirani, Mack's lawyer, said: '10 years is better than the 15 years sought by the prosecution, so (we're) happy.'
Moments earlier, the judge jailed Schaefer to 18 years in prison. He said the violence of the crime - in which Schaefer was described as battering Mrs Von Wiese-Mack to death - had shocked Bali by its brutality.
'Taking into account the 340 chapter of criminal code and other related laws, (panel) declared that the defendant Tommy Schaefer has been legally and convincingly guilty of committing premeditated murder,' Judge Suweda said.
'Therefore the defendant is sentenced to 18 years in jail.'
He described Schaefer's actions as sadistic, but said his politeness and remorse during the trial saved him from the heavier punishment - the death sentence.
'Although I do take full responsibility for my actions, I am not a murderer,' Scahefer said after hearing the verdict.
The sentences mean Schaefer will be 39 years old when he is released from Kerobokan Jail. When Mack is released, her daughter will be 10 years old.
The judge said: 'In my decision I have made a special judgment because Heather has a baby who needs a mother. For Tommy, I call the crime sadistic.'
Mack was found guilty of helping her boyfriend put her mother's body in the case before it was loaded into a taxi at the upmarket St Regis Hotel in Bali.
Her lawyers told the court that her young age, the fact that she has a one-month-old baby and the claim that she had no part in the actual death of her mother should see her receiving a reduction.
Earlier today, Mack was all smiles and showed no nervousness when she arrived at Denpasar District Court.
Asked if she was concerned that the judges were expected to hand down long prison sentences for her and Schaefer - who are both from the Chicago area - she said she was ready for whatever they decided.
'Anything... I'm prepared for anything,' she said.
But sitting in front of the judges in a white blouse, Mack's earlier smiling bravado fell away and she began to weep as she listened to the judge outlining the case.
The prosecution claimed the couple had planned the death of Mrs Von Wiese-Mack, based on text messages that had passed between them.
The court has already heard from the prosecution that Schaefer went to Mrs Von Wiese-Mack's hotel room, which she was sharing with daughter, carrying the heavy fruit bowl, which was evidence that he intended to use it on her.
Mack's defence team claimed that during the fatal argument between her mother and Schaefer, she had run and hid in the bathroom - but had then helped her boyfriend push her mother's body into the suitcase because she panicked and he was the father of the child she was carrying.
In the final hours before Mack learned of her fate, she told
People magazine that tending to her newborn daughter keeps her from dwelling on what the coming day may bring.
She is allowed to keep her baby in prison with her for two years and Mack said she could not bare to give her up.
'I don't want to separate my family,' she said. 'It's too painful to think about having to be separated from my angel.'
When they were first arrested last August following the discovery of the battered body of Mack's 62-year-old mother in a suitcase that had been placed in the boot of a taxi, they could have faced a mandatory death sentence for premeditated murder.
But Mack claimed she had not been party to her mother’s death and had only assisted her boyfriend in stuffing the body into the suitcase after she panicked.
For his part, Schaefer argued that he had hit Mrs Von Wiese-Mack with the metal part of a fruit bowl after she grabbed him by the throat during an argument in her room at the hotel.
He claimed there had always been dissent between Mrs Von Wiese-Mack and himself because she objected to his relationship with her daughter - particularly after she learned her daughter was pregnant with his child.
Mrs Von Wiese-Mack was the widow of highly regarded jazz and classical composer James L. Mack, who died in 2006 at the age of 76.