'Suitcase killer' Heather Mack, 25, will be released from Bali prison three years early for good behavior after getting 10 years for murdering her Chicago socialite mom and stuffing body in luggage

An American woman convicted along with her boyfriend of killing her mother and stuffing the body in a suitcase at a luxury Bali hotel is set to be released from prison three years early, her lawyer announced on Monday.

Yulius Benyamin Seran, the attorney representing Heather Mack, said the 25-year-old inmate will walk out of Bali's notorious Kerobokan prison in less than two months.

'Her sentence will be completed in October... and then she'll be completely free,' Seran told AFP, without giving a specific release date.

In 2015, Mack, then aged 19, was handed a 10-year prison term while her then-boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, got 18 years for the murder of Chicago socialite Sheila von Wiese Mack on the Indonesian resort island.

'Suitcase killer' Heather Mack, 25, is set to be released from Bali prison in October - three years early - according to her lawyer

Mack , was serving a 10-year sentence for the murder of her mother, socialite Sheila von Wiese Mack , whose corpse was found stuffed into a suitcase in Bali in 2014

Police inspect a blooded suitcase containing von Wiese Mack's broken corpse in August 2014

Schaefer beat the 62-year-old victim to death with a fruit bowl during a heated argument at the five-star St. Regis resort, before the couple abandoned the blood-stained suitcase containing the battered body in a taxi, and fled.

Mack, who was pregnant at the time of the crime with Schaefer's daughter, was found guilty on a lesser charge of assisting in the murder.

Mack's attorney said his client's sentence has been reduced due to good behavior. 

Mack would face deportation back to the United States following her release, her lawyer added.

But she wanted to stay in Indonesia to care for her six-year-old daughter, Stella, who was being raised in a Bali foster home.

'She doesn't want her daughter deported back to the US... and hounded by the media,' Seran said.

Just days before the early release announcement, Mack told the New York Post in an exclusive interview from prison that she was 'fearful and nervous of returning to Chicago' and having her daughter subjected to media scrutiny.     

'I'm scared that if she comes back to the States with me, she will be exposed to what happened,' Mack said. 

Stella, 6, was born in prison while her parents, Mack and Schaefer, went on trial for killing von Wiese-Mack in August 2014. 

The child has been in the care of a foster family in Bali since she was two.

Stella has been shielded from the reasoning behind her parents' imprisonment and Mack wants it to remain that way.

'I do not want anyone shoving a camera into Stella's face. I know that it will happen to me but I will do my best to protect Stella from that trauma,' Mack explained from behind bars. 

The woman revealed that she was considering leaving her daughter with her Indonesian caretakers.    

'I could not have wished for a better family to raise her,' Mack told the news outlet. 'However, it's hard not being with her, particularly when she is sick or for important moments like graduating kindergarten.'

Mack was pregnant at the time of the murder and delivered her daughter, Stella (pictured together, left) in prison. Mack's then-boyfriend Tommy Schaefer (pictured holding Stella, right), who is also the father of her child, is serving an 18-year sentence for murder 

Mack (pictured holding baby Stella) says her daughter is unaware of why her parents are in prison. She fears if she brings Stella to the U.S. she 'will be exposed to what happened'

Mack has not seen Stella since March 2020, when authorities stopped prison visits because of the coronavirus pandemic. She had limited visitation due to her imprisonment before that.

'Out of seven years in jail, the hardest part has been the past 18 months because I have not seen Stella,' Mack said. 'Video-calling Stella three times a week from the prison phone is my only option. I'm grateful I can do that.' 

Mack and Schaefer were convicted in 2014 of killing Mack's millionaire mother at a five-star Bali hotel and stuffing her broken body into a suitcase as they tried to flee. 

They claimed 62-year-old von Wiese-Mack became violent after Mack, then 18, revealed she was pregnant, and Schaefer, then 21, lashed out to defend himself. 

The then-couple was caught when a taxi driver noticed blood seeping out of the suitcase which contained von Wiese-Mack's body. The driver alerted police and the couple was arrested at a nearby budget motel.

Stella has been living with a foster family since age two. Mack said she was considering leaving her with her Indonesian caretakers  

Mack said Stella, now 6, does not know why both her mother and father are imprisoned, and she wants to keep it that way 

Prosecutors alleged during trial that Schaefer 'blindly hit' von Wiese Mack with the fruit bowl in a fit of rage after she hurled a racial slur at him. Schaefer is black.

While her mother was being murdered, Mack hid in the bathroom and the couple then stuffed the body into the suitcase together, the trial heard.

Both were found guilty and incarcerated. Mack was sentenced to 10 years and Schaefer to 18. 

In a 2019 interview with DailyMailTV , Mack said: 'I never want to go back home to Chicago,' noting that she was 'more Indonesian than American now'.

She reportedly learned to speak the Indonesian language and mastered the local Bahasa Balinese dialect. She claims to have significantly changed in prison.

'I have learned things about myself that I didn't even know before. I like to make people laugh, and I know how to put other people before myself. I do this to the point of stupidity,' Mack told the Post. 

'I think that I am kind, and I have become a peacemaker in the jail, which is a strange thing for a murderer to say.'

Mack also notes that Stella has grown up in Bali and has a good life in the country. 

'My daughter is more Indonesian than American. She has a good life here,' Mack told DailyMailTV in 2019.

'The people are nicer and it's better and safer than back home. Back there I was getting in with a bad crowd. It's violent, there are guns, drugs. To be honest I'm glad not to be there. It's actually better and safer here in prison.'

Mack, who signed von Wiese-Mack's $1.56 million estate over to Stella in 2018, will return to her hometown of Chicago later this year with nothing more than her clothing. She is expected to stay with a friend.  

She has previously said that even if she was extradited to the US, she would return to Bali with Stella.

As for her mother's murder, Mack said: 'I am … disgusted with myself just as much as anyone else is.'