DENPASAR: Indonesian police yesterday ran psychiatric tests on the teenage daughter of an American woman found dead inside a suitcase on the resort island of Bali.
Police arrested the daughter, Heather Mack, 19, and her boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, 21, on Wednesday after a taxi driver found a battered body in a suitcase outside the St. Regis luxury hotel in Nusa Dua, Bali.
The body was identified by hospital officials as Chicago-based Sheila von Wiese-Mack, 62.
Neither Mack nor Schaefer has been charged but police have detained them as suspects.
“We have done blood and psychiatric tests to try to find out their motive in the case, maybe they are mentally unstable,” Djoko Hariutomo, police chief for Bali’s provincial capital Denpasar, told reporters. “So far we haven’t gotten any information on what is behind the murder.
Television broadcast images of Mack laughing and telling a group of reporters following her, “You are crazy,” as she walked between rooms in the police station.
Police said the young couple on Tuesday left a bloodied suitcase and other luggage in the taxi, and went to check out of the five-star hotel, where a single room can cost as much as $1,340 a night.
The couple did not return, so the taxi driver checked the luggage and found the body. An official at the hospital that conducted the autopsy said Von Wiese-Mack had been repeatedly hit on the face and head with a blunt object.
Mack and Schaefer were apprehended on Wednesday at a budget hotel about 1.6kms from the St Regis hotel after a day-long search by police. Staff at the Risata Bali resort said they were immediately suspicious of the couple after they checked in without luggage. Reuters
