CHICAGO — A federal judge on Thursday denied Tommy Schaefer’s long-shot bid for release pending trial on charges he helped his then-girlfriend Heather Mack bludgeon her mother to death at a vacation resort in Bali in 2014.

Schaefer’s attorneys had asked U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly to release him on home confinement with his mother as a third-party custodian, arguing he has little other criminal history, no means to flee, and has suffered from long COVID and heart ailments while locked up at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago.

Kennelly, however, ruled the “level of brutality” of the alleged crime coupled with the weight of the evidence — including text messages between Schaefer and Mack that detailed Sheila von Weise-Mack’s murder in real time — was enough to warrant pretrial detention.

“Saying it’s quite serious is a pretty significant understatement,” said Kennelly, who’d told the parties earlier that he’d reviewed an email sent to him by the victim’s family in considering the bond request.

After denying the motion, Kennelly granted a defense request to postpone Schaefer’s January trial, which was reset for March 15.

Before Thursday’s hearing began, Schaefer, dressed in an orange jail jumpsuit and shackled at the ankles, smiled broadly and blew a kiss to his mother, Kia Walker, seated in the courtroom gallery. He appeared to have gained significant weight since his return to the U.S. in February.

After court was adjourned, Schaefer put his hands in a prayer position and mouthed “love you” to her as he was led out of the courtroom.

Schaefer, 33, is charged with conspiracy to murder a U.S. citizen on foreign soil in the bludgeoning death of von Wiese-Mack, whose bloodied body was found stuffed into a suitcase in a macabre crime that has made international headlines for more than a decade.

If convicted, Schaefer faces up to life in prison.

Authorities alleged Schaefer and Mack conspired to kill her mother in order to gain access to a $1.5 million trust fund set up after her father’s death. Mack secretly flew Schaefer to Bali using her mother’s credit card and that they texted each other repeatedly about their plan, right up until Mack and her mother were alone in their hotel room, court records show.

“i need your help,” Mack texted Schaefer, according to court records. “you could just put your hand over her and i could grab her body.”

“must knock her out,” Schaefer replied. “I’m finding something right now … I’ll do it.”

Not long afterward, Schaefer entered the hotel room and beat von Wiese-Mack to death with the metal handle of a fruit bowl, according to prosecutors. An autopsy determined she suffered multiple facial and skull fractures and also had defensive injuries, according to prosecutors.

Together, Schaefer and Mack allegedly put the body in a suitcase and loaded it into the trunk of a taxi at the hotel. They tried to get away in the taxi, but the driver wouldn’t accept their fare; instead, they got out of the cab and abandoned the suitcase. Mack later tried to claim that armed men had broken into their room and kidnapped her mother.

Mack was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Indonesia but released early for good behavior. The FBI arrested her when she landed at O’Hare International Airport in 2021 on a federal indictment against her and Schaefer that had been filed under seal while they were overseas.

Mack, now 30, pleaded guilty and was sentenced in January 2024 to 26 years in federal prison. Records show she’s serving her time at a medium-security facility in West Virginia and is eligible for release in March 2044, when she’ll be 48.

In arguing for bond Thursday, Schaefer’s lead attorney, Michael Baker, said the alleged offense happened more than a decade ago and rose “out of a relationship that no longer exists with Ms. Mack, involving a scheme that no longer exists with Ms. Mack.”

Baker said Schaefer has not been getting the medical attention he needs at MCC, where officials have recently made him a “suicide monitor” trained to look after at-risk inmates who have been placed on suicide watch.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Marie Ursini said Schaefer was both a risk of flight and a danger to the community, arguing he was “willing to cross the world” and commit murder just for a chance to get some money and live the lavish lifestyle he coveted. She also said both murder and motive were memorialized in the texts with Mack.

“He relished and spoke in a giddy way of getting this money,” Ursini said.

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