Darren Mack Cops a Guilty Plea in Nevada

The Prosecution Case was Too Strong for Mack's Attorneys to Mount a Defense

Darren Mack aimed his rifle from the roof of a Reno, Nevada parking garage. The rooftop afforded a view directly into the windows of the courtroom chamber of Judge Chuck Weller, a domestic relations court judge who had issued several custody and alimony rulings in a divorce case Darren Mack had filed against his wife, Charla.

At that point, Mack had already killed his wife, stabbing her to death with a series of six knife thrusts, one of which ripped open the jugular vein in Carla Mack's neck. Carla's Mack's stabbing death is believed to have occurred around 9:00 a.m. on June 12, about two hours before Mack fired from his sniper's nest.

Several months later,. on 10/29/2007, Judge Weller sat in the witness stand and described the burning pain he felt in his chest as the round penetrated, spewing shrapnel around in a swath which injured his clerical assistant. Judge Weller said he was bleeding heavily from two chest wounds.

"Were you bleeding from anywhere else," a lawyer asked.

"Well...there was a lot of blood spatter on my eyeglasses," the judge said.

A little earlier he been asked if he had any ideas at that moment who had shot him. Judge Weller pointed to the defendant, Darren Mack.

"That man. That man sitting right there," Judge Weller said somberly.

"That man sitting right there" was Darren Mack, wealthy owner of a string of businesses in Nevada and Arizona. Mack was charged dwith 1^st degree murder in the stabbing death of his wife, Charla Mack and with attempted murder in the shooting of the domestic relations court judge. An additional charge of battery has also been levied against the defendant.