Yahoo News Daywatch: Heather Mack apologizes at sentencing
Good morning, Chicago.
For four hours Wednesday, Heather Mack sat nearly expressionless in a Chicago federal courtroom as her relatives called her a cold, calculating sociopath who plotted the murder of her own mother at a Bali resort and tried to cover it up by stuffing the body into a suitcase.
But when it was her turn to speak, Mack, dressed in orange jail clothes and wearing dark eyeglasses, approached the lectern slowly, unfolded a sheet of paper, and said something her family has waited a decade to hear.
I’m sorry.
“From the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry,” Mack said, her voice cracking a bit with emotion as she turned slightly to face her mother’s siblings and other relatives in the gallery. “I know that words are not enough for the damage I have caused. It breaks my heart. If I could take my pain away, I would.”
Moments later, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly sentenced Mack to 26 years in federal prison for the gruesome 2014 crime, which sparked international headlines and a sensational legal saga that led police on a trail back to suburban Chicago.
Read the full story from the Tribune’s Jason Meisner.
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