A young U.S. couple has been sentenced  to prison in Indonesia for killing the woman's mother Sheila von Wiese-Mack while vacationing in Bali last August

Tommy Schaefer, 21, was sentenced to 18 years in prison by the Denpasar District Court, and his girlfriend Heather Mack, 19, received a 10-year sentence for the pre-meditated murder of von Wiese-Mack.

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The 62-year-old victim's body had been found stuffed in a suitcase inside the trunk of a taxi at the St. Regis Bali Resort.

The three-judge panel said it decided to be give Mack a lighter sentence because she recently gave birth, reports the Associated Press.

"Her newborn baby badly needs a mother's love and breastfeeding," the verdict said.

The court found Schaefer guilty of beating von Wiese-Mack to death in a hotel room at the resort. It also found Heather Mack guilty of helping out with the Aug. 12 murder.

Schaefer and Mack, both from Chicago, were tried separately in the same court with the same judges and prosecutors, according to the AP. The two were arrested a day after von Wiese-Mack's body was discovered in a suitcase in a taxi's trunk.

The two reportedly killed Von Wiese-Mack because she allegedly did not approve of the couple's relationship. Prosecutors had sought an 18-year jail term for Schaefer and a 15-year sentence for Mack. The maximum penalty for premeditated murder in a Indonesia is capital punishment.

Judge Made Suweda described Schaefer's actions as sadistic, but did not give him a stiffer sentence because of his politeness and expression of remorse during the trial. Schaefer said at his trial that von Wiese-Mack was angry when she learned about her daughter's pregnancy and tried to strangle him, and so he hit her with metal fruit bowl.

Prosecutors said Mack helped Schaefer by sitting on the suitcase her mother's body was in so that he could zip it closed. They then put the suitcase in the trunk of the taxi and told the driver they were going to check out of the hotel, only to never return.

The prosecution also said that once proposed that Schaefer hire a hit man for $50,000. Von Wiese-Mack was the widow of highly regarded jazz and classical composer James L. Mack.

One of Mack's U.S.-based attorneys, Michael Elkin, said in a statement that he had asked how she felt, and that Mack replied:

"Dear God, I know you don't hear from me quite often, and I sometimes have acted like a jerk, but please have mercy on my soul and that of my daughter, Stella, as I miss my mother and father so very much. Amen."

TagsU.S. Couple Sentenced in Bali for Killing Woman's Mother, Stuffing Body in Suitcase, Sheila von Wiese Mack, Tommy Schaefer, Heather mack, Bali, Suitcase, trunk, taxi, St. Regis Bali