I first met Sheila von Wiese-Mack while working as a police detective in Oak Park, Illinois.
Sheila was a kind and caring woman who loved her daughter Heather immensely. I would soon learn that she was bombarded daily by the girl’s explosive temper, destructiveness, criminal behavior, and domestic violence.
I spoke with Sheila many times between November 2010 and her move to Chicago's Gold Coast with Heather in mid-2013.
Despite the mother’s best efforts, the pair was constantly at odds regarding a multitude of issues, including Heather’s disdain for Sheila’s rules, truancy at Oak Park and River Forest High School, poor grades, and thefts of cash and credit cards from the family’s home. Sheila admitted she was exhausted by the disrespect, aggression, and violence to which she was regularly subjected.
When I learned that she had been murdered, I was saddened in a way I had rarely experienced during my years as an officer. Only the untimely deaths of my friends and fellow police officers Anthony Paul Razzino and Allan Reddins would later move me similarly.
Like many people in Oak Park and elsewhere, I mourned the tragedy of Sheila’s death, and the pain it caused those who loved her. Then, as details of the circumstances of her death began to emerge, I had other emotions.
I was angry at Heather – a troubled teen I knew well from more than two years of interactions, interrogations, and arrests – for seemingly masterminding the murder of her own mother. And I was profoundly shocked that Heather’s boyfriend Tommy Schaefer – a young man I had also known since his days as a middle school student in Oak Park – was the co-conspirator who purportedly dealt the fatal blows to Sheila.
As I watched the media coverage of the tragedy unfold, I felt another emotion - disgust.
I was disgusted by the way certain members of the media shallowly depicted both Sheila’s life and death—as if she were merely a bloodstained afterthought.
Sheila was so much more than that. She was a loving mother, sister, and friend. To me she was, despite her flaws, a person I respected. She was also someone I had truly feared for and tried to guard and protect.
And she is someone whose unwavering love for her child I will never forget.
Sheila was a kind and caring woman who loved her daughter Heather immensely. I would soon learn that she was bombarded daily by the girl’s explosive temper, destructiveness, criminal behavior, and domestic violence.
I spoke with Sheila many times between November 2010 and her move to Chicago's Gold Coast with Heather in mid-2013.
Despite the mother’s best efforts, the pair was constantly at odds regarding a multitude of issues, including Heather’s disdain for Sheila’s rules, truancy at Oak Park and River Forest High School, poor grades, and thefts of cash and credit cards from the family’s home. Sheila admitted she was exhausted by the disrespect, aggression, and violence to which she was regularly subjected.
When I learned that she had been murdered, I was saddened in a way I had rarely experienced during my years as an officer. Only the untimely deaths of my friends and fellow police officers Anthony Paul Razzino and Allan Reddins would later move me similarly.
Like many people in Oak Park and elsewhere, I mourned the tragedy of Sheila’s death, and the pain it caused those who loved her. Then, as details of the circumstances of her death began to emerge, I had other emotions.
I was angry at Heather – a troubled teen I knew well from more than two years of interactions, interrogations, and arrests – for seemingly masterminding the murder of her own mother. And I was profoundly shocked that Heather’s boyfriend Tommy Schaefer – a young man I had also known since his days as a middle school student in Oak Park – was the co-conspirator who purportedly dealt the fatal blows to Sheila.
As I watched the media coverage of the tragedy unfold, I felt another emotion - disgust.
I was disgusted by the way certain members of the media shallowly depicted both Sheila’s life and death—as if she were merely a bloodstained afterthought.
Sheila was so much more than that. She was a loving mother, sister, and friend. To me she was, despite her flaws, a person I respected. She was also someone I had truly feared for and tried to guard and protect.
And she is someone whose unwavering love for her child I will never forget.