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Estelle Schaefer, 7, has become the subject of a bitter custody battle before Cook County Judge Stephanie Miller.
A Cook County judge ordered Heather Mack’s 7-year-old daughter into the temporary care of a maternal cousin of Mack’s from Colorado at the end of a contentious, hourslong hearing Thursday — despite Mack asking the judge from jail to choose the girl’s grandmother instead.
Mack’s daughter is at the center of an ongoing bench trial. A bitter custody dispute has swirled around the girl ever since she arrived here with her mother last fall.
Four people are seeking custody of 7-year-old Estelle Schaefer, known as Stella, in the trial before Cook County Judge Stephanie Miller. Mack and her onetime boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, are charged in federal court with plotting the overseas murder of Mack’s mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack.
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A Cook County judge on Friday ruled that the 7-year-old daughter of Heather Mack will temporarily live in suburban Cook County with her foster mother from Indonesia.