Hyde Park Barnes & Noble: When Lambs Become Wolves Author Event

The Hyde Park Barnes & Noble in Chicago, IL, presents an afternoon with retired Oak Park Police Officer Rasul T. Freelain, author of When Lambs Become Wolves: The Chilling Case of Sheila Von Wiese-Mack, his compelling new true-crime memoir about a high-profile criminal case in Chicagoland and Indonesia that made headlines worldwide. This bold firsthand account explores Freelain's involvement in the circumstances surrounding the notorious Bali “Suitcase M**der” and the human cost of overlooking child-to-parent violence and abuse.

In August of 2014, the body of Sheila von Wiese-Mack, a wealthy Oak Park widow, was found stuffed inside a suitcase in the trunk of a taxi in Bali. Back in the Midwest, listening to the radio, Sgt. Rasul Freelain pulled his car over to absorb the unthinkable news. Amid his shock, one coherent thought surfaced: “Heather did this.” Freelain had met the Macks more than three years earlier, when Sheila first reached out to the police for help with her increasingly volatile daughter. Although Heather Mack was just a teenager, she had already displayed a disturbing pattern of escalating violence. Freelain did everything he could to intervene. But as the abuse worsened, he found himself sidelined by a justice system unprepared to deal with child-to-parent violence and abuse.

In his gripping and empathetic memoir, Freelain traces the Mack family’s descent from privilege to tragedy. Freelain explores how abuse cycles form, how institutions look away, and what it means to try and fail to protect someone in crisis.

Esther Sanchez Ludlow, host of the Once Upon a Crime podcast, says, "In When Lambs Become Wolves, Sgt. Rasul T. Freelain shares his haunting firsthand account of Sheila von Wiese-Mack’s desperate struggle to save her daughter from a path of violence and destruction. Through his unique perspective as both investigator and confidant, Freelain reveals the tragic collision of love, denial, and betrayal that ended in unthinkable violence.”

Rasul T. Freelain served for 20 years with the Oak Park Police Department. He is certified by Crisis Intervention Team International as a coordinator and teaches for the Illinois CIT Training Unit.

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Host or Publisher Rasul T. Freelain