Heather Mack with Tommy Schaefer. (Instagram photo)

Former Oak Park resident Heather Mack will spend nearly 20 more years behind bars for the brutal murder of her mother, Sheila von Weise Mack.

Federal Judge Matthew J. Kennelly sentenced Mack to 26 years in prison for her part in conspiring to kill von Weise and following through on the plan with her former boyfriend Tommy Schaefer while in Bali, Indonesia in August 2014.

According to the Independent in Great Britain, legendary Chicago defense attorney Jeffrey Steinback made the case for leniency to Judge Kennelly. He concluded his remarks with, “Heather’s got about nine years, four months of uninterrupted prison time, served either under 23.5-hour lockdown for the most part, or in a place where you’d rather be locked down 23.5 hours. … That’s got to mean something.”

It didn’t.

Though Mack told the judge that she took responsibility for her actions, and that “There’s no excuse for trying to harm (my mother),” Kennelly said the undisputed facts of the case spoke for themselves.

“We can speculate what exactly happened. I don’t know why we need to,” he said according to The Independent. “It was a brutal premeditated crime and there was a concerted effort to cover it up … That’s kind of enough.”

Schaefer remains imprisoned at the notorious Kerobokan prison on Bali, serving an 18-year sentence imposed by an Indonesian court. He is an indicted co-conspirator with Mack and can expect to be arrested and prosecuted upon his return to the United States.

Mack, who spent just over seven years in a Bali prison for her role in her mother’s killing, pleaded guilty last June to federal charges of conspiracy to murder a U.S. citizen overseas.

Her lead defense attorney, Michael Leonard, had sought an eight-year sentence. Prosecutors asked for 28 years. In the end Kennelly mostly sided with the prosecution.

With a required 85 percent of her sentence to be served, less the 26 months Mack has spent awaiting trial in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, she will remain behind bars for another 19 years, six months, and be eligible for release when she is 46 years old.

Both the defense and prosecution have alluded to significant dysfunction in the Mack’s domestic life. In its sentencing memo, Leonard referred to a history of mental health issues related to both Heather Mack and Sheila von Weise Mack.

In the end, though, it was the cold intentionality and brutal nature of the crime that mattered at sentencing more than any mitigating factors.