Chicago area mom found dead in suitcase in Bali; daughter, daughter's boyfriend arrested

BALI, Indonesia -- The body of a 62-year-old Chicago woman has been found stuffed inside a suitcase on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, and police have arrested her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend in relation to the death.

Sheila von Wiese Mack's body was found Tuesday inside the trunk of a taxi parked in front of an upscale hotel in Bali's Nusa Dua area.

Col. Djoko Hari Utomo, police chief in Bali's capital, Denpasar, says Mack's 19-year-old daughter, Heather Mack, and her 21-year-old boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, were arrested Wednesday.

Utomo says the two had stayed in the same hotel as the victim and are believed to have placed the suitcase in the taxi. The police chief says the two were being questioned but were refusing to talk until being joined by attorneys.

He says CCTV footage shows the victim had an argument with Schaefer on Monday in the hotel's lobby.

The victim, who moved from Oak Park to Chicago's Gold Coast in 2012, was found half-naked with wounds to her head, police said.

Two former Oak Park neighbors say Sheila von Weise Mack lived in a Linden Avenue home for many years but sold it to a developer.

Neighbors in Oak Park say the victim's husband died in 2006. James Mack was a well-known composer in the Chicago area.

Neighbors also say they saw police at the house often after James Mack died to deal with domestic issues.

In a May 2013 publication of The Caxtonian, a publication by literary group The Caxton Club, a profile of von Wiese-Mack says she grew up in Michigan, went to college in Boston and later worked for Ted Kennedy, and then DoubleDay, before Ph.D. work with Saul Bellow at the University of Chicago brought her to Illinois, where she met her husband.

According to Indonesian broadcaster Trans TV, police say Sheila Mack was found beaten to death and stuffed in a suitcase outside the prestigious Saint Regis Bali resort Tuesday and that the suspected couple was later found by police sleeping in a hotel room in Kuta, a town about 6 miles from the St. Regis.

The driver said the couple hailed him at the St. Regis, placed the suitcase in the trunk, along with two bags in the backseat, then went back into the hotel and did not return, Trans TV reports.

After two hours, the taxi driver said he entered the hotel and spoke to employees, who went to the family's rooms and found them empty, Trans TV reports. When the taxi driver and a manager opened the trunk, they saw blood on the luggage and drove the car to a police station, where the woman's body was found inside a hard-sided grey piece of luggage, Trans TV reported.

"They are all American citizens, according to the passports we have found. They all knew each other," said Colonel Djoko Hariutomo, head of Denpasar District Police.