US man gets nine years in prison for aiding murder
CHICAGO: A US judge on Friday sentenced a Chicago man to nine years in prison for his role in the 2014 murder of an American woman while she was vacationing on the Indonesian island of Bali.
Robert Ryan Justin Bibbs, 26, pleaded guilty in December to advising his cousin Tommy Schaefer in the murder of Sheila von Wiese, the US Department of Justice said.
The 62-year-old was bludgeoned to death with a fruit bowl in her hotel room at the St. Regis Bali resort, and her body stuffed in a suitcase and left in the trunk of a taxi.
Indonesian police arrested Schaefer and von Weise’s daughter Heather Mack, who was in a relationship with him. The two are serving prison sentences in Indonesia.
Bibbs – who authorities say believed the three would gain access to von Weise’s estate after her death – pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit the foreign murder of a US national.
In his plea agreement, he admitted that he advised Schaefer on various methods of murder and on how to get away with the crime, prosecutors said.
“Repeatedly, the prospect of Von Wiese’s killing was broached and defendant elected to push the plot forward, rather than stop it,” Assistant US Attorney Bolling Haxall said in a sentencing memorandum.
Authorities discovered evidence that Bibbs and Schaefer engaged in several text message conversations about murdering von Weise.
“Go sit on her face wit (sic) a pillow,” Bibbs allegedly wrote in one text message, according to authorities.
Schaefer confessed to the murder, but claimed he was defending himself during an argument with von Wiese, who was unhappy that her daughter was pregnant.
Schaefer, who was 21 at the time of the crime, is serving an 18-year prison sentence. Mack, who was 19, was sentenced to 10 years. — AFP