Original subtitles

In the criminal justice system,

detectives and prosecutors face daunting challenges

when money is the motive for murder.

Downtown Reno is gripped in panic

after a judge is shot.

My initial reaction was that this was a random shooting.

We walked to the driveway.

A series of blood droplets appeared

outside the garage door.

After a second attack,

investigators reveal a terrifying plot.

I believe money was the main issue.

One item that stood out appeared to be a to-do list.

I had great concern about who was next on the list.

Officials rush to cage

an unsuspecting killer on the loose.

There were three families

who were living this nightmare

while all this tactical stuff was going on.

These men and women dedicate their lives to law and order.

Most murderers, quite simply, believe

that their life is more important

than the life of the victim.

These are their true stories.

Doctors treated Judge Chuck Weller

for gunshot wounds to the chest.

There are multiple bullet fragments seen,

with significant bleeding.

Judge Weller was standing in his chambers

when he was shot.

There was absolute pandemonium.

Nobody knew where that shot originated from,

and nobody knew how many more shots would come.

People were fleeing from the streets.

They were hiding.

People driving down the street were

removed from vehicles and shoved into businesses.

It was a horribly frightening experience,

and people were panicked.

My initial reaction was that this was a random shooting,

that this was a sniper who had taken a perch

and was firing indiscriminately upon people,

and he happened to have targeted the judge.

The bullet had entered

through Judge Weller's chamber's windows.

Part of the fragments had struck books

in a bookshelf behind him.

So we were able to isolate the trajectory of the shot.

Right at 12:00,

there was a multilevel parking garage

that looks almost directly into the judge's chambers.

The Reno Police Department isolated and cordoned off

about a 3 by 5 block area.

I donned a SWAT vest and a SWAT helmet.

I grabbed a rifle.

And I began to respond to the area

where the shot had originated.

As a team, we began systematically clearing

the parking garage floor by floor.

While police searched for the missing gunman,

investigators tried to uncover

why a sitting judge would be a target for murder

and who was responsible.

I, during the course of my career,

had occasion to meet Judge Weller several times.

I assumed him to be a judicial officer of good standing

and certainly warranted the respect of the community.

A number of us were concerned for Judge Weller.

This person was targeting the family court system.

I had great concern about who was next on the list.

As word of an active shooter spread through Reno,

residents quickly tried to account

for their loved ones.

On June 12, 2006, Charla Mack, my best friend,

she was supposed to drop her daughter, Erika, off

at her husband Darren's house

and then come over to my house.

And then she wasn't at my house.

I knew something was wrong.

Charla and I were stay-at-home moms together.

She was mischievous.

She loved a good little prank.

She was a hard worker.

She was stubborn.

She had a shirt that said,

"You laugh at me because I'm different.

I laugh at you because you're all the same."

And that was really kind of true to her nature.

She didn't apologize for who she was.

And what you saw was what you got.

I was sitting in my house on the couch,

and I got a phone call from a friend.

And she said, "There's this stuff all on the news.

"There's a judge that has been shot downtown.

"Something's going on.

This is all so crazy."

When I heard the news about the judge being shot,

Charla was supposed to be at my house, and she wasn't.

I said, "Well, has anyone contacted Charla?"

And my friend said, "I've been calling,

but she's not picking up."

I was very concerned about what might happen next.

News traveled very quickly that a judge had been shot.

Police department was flooded with information.

But one of the things that came to the forefront

of our attention was the call from an individual

by the name of Dan Osborne,

who had called 911.

That morning, Dan Osborne was at his friend

Darren Mack's residence in Fleur de Lis.

Mr. Osborne was

a high school friend of Darren Mack's.

Mr. Osborne was in the process of establishing an apartment

for himself in Reno but during the interim time

had been living with Darren Mack.

Darren Mack was very well known

in the community of Reno.

His family had long been established

as business owners.

They were very good to the community.

They were a philanthropists.

He owned 51% of the Palace Jewelry and Loan.

You owe it to yourself

to shop Palace Jewelry and Loan.

It was one of the largest pawn shops,

jewelry stores in downtown Reno.

So that business generated quite a bit of income

for the Mack family.

Darren Mack became obsessed with bodybuilding.

When he began bodybuilding,

he took that to the extreme to the point

where he wanted to compete at the Mr. Nevada competition

and ultimately succeeded in that competition.

Mr. Osborne said Mr. Mack's estranged wife, Charla Mack,

had shown up to drop off their child,

their daughter named Erika,

that Dan Osborne went upstairs

to watch television with the child.

Mr. Osborne described hearing his dog,

in a very agitated state, barking.

And then Darren Mack walked through the living area

of the house very quickly

with a towel draped over his hand.

And moments later, his dog ran into the home

covered in blood.

He examined the animal for injuries.

There were none.

He was concerned for Charla's welfare

and his own welfare

and the welfare of the child as well.

So he collected Erika, and they left immediately.

As he thought about the circumstances

that he had observed at Darren's house

and that a judge had been shot

across town, he quickly became concerned.

Investigators questioned if a violent act

at the Mack residence could have escalated

to the shooting downtown.

They were unnerved by the next chilling detail.

Mr. Mack had been actively practicing

or training at distance rifle shooting.

I got on the radio with my partner, Detective Chalmers,

who was involved in the activities downtown,

and he shared my concern.

Detective Jenkins and I would frequently investigate crimes

together, and he taught me a great amount

about investigating homicides.

Detective Jenkins called me and asked me

to meet him at Darren Mack's residence

at the Fleur de Lis townhomes.

As soon as we pulled up in front of the townhome,

we knocked at the door and got no answer.

When we walked to the front of the residence

in front of the driveway, our attention was drawn

to what appeared to be

substantial vertical blood droplets

just outside the closed garage door

of Mr. Mack's residence.

Mr. Osborne, he told me that he knew the code

for the garage door opener.

He entered the code.

The garage door started to slowly open.

And almost instantaneously, we were able to see

the motionless body of Charla Mack

lying in a large congealed pool of blood.

Detective Jenkins was able to reach the body

and check for signs of life,

which, unfortunately, there were none.

One item appeared to be a to-do list.

He was afraid of what she was going to do to him.

There was an exhaustive manhunt.

It became about money and winning,

and this was a war.

There's this stuff all on the news.

There's a body at Fleur de Lis.

The body's a woman.

I got back in my car to go to Darren's house and--

and find out what was going on when I got a phone call.

I had a friend on the SWAT team.

And he said, "It's Charla."

I remember standing in my doorway

just feeling like my knees were going to give out.

I just wish so badly that I would have

been with her that morning,

that I could have died for her.

I don't know-- I don't understand

why I got to live and she died, you know?

A parent shouldn't outlive their child ever.

We located seven distinct stab wounds

to her body, the most severe being

on the left side of her neck that severed her trachea.

As chatter continued on the police scanner

in the search for the shooter of Judge Weller,

detectives pushed into this new crime scene,

questioning how the two attacks could be related.

In Darren Mack's closet was the empty sheath

for a concealable double-edged knife.

We believed that that instrument

was likely the murder weapon.

We located a rental agreement for a 2006 Ford Explorer.

And we found ...243-caliber ammunition

strewn about the home.

One item that stood out

were what appeared to be some handwritten notes

often referred to as a to-do list.

There's some specific references to vehicles.

It says, "Put her vehicle in the garage"

and then "parking garage."

And then, finally, "End problem."

From an evidentiary standpoint,

it seemed that there was, in fact,

a nexus between Charla's murder

and the shooting of Judge Weller.

Investigators needed to know

how the shootings were connected

and rushed to speak to Judge Weller

as he struggled in critical condition.

My name is Charles Weller.

I was in my chambers

when the window in my office shattered.

I was shot here.

And I lay in a hallway bleeding

as deputies administered first aid.

It was terrible.

We were aided tremendously by the fact

that, although seriously injured,

Judge Weller was able to provide information

almost immediately to law enforcement

whether or not he knew Darren Mack.

At that time, more damning evidence

of Mr. Mack's involvement came to light.

I was the judge to whom

the Mack divorce case was assigned.

This is the case of Charla Mack versus Darren Mack.

The information from Judge Weller

was that this was

a very acrimonious divorce proceeding.

It became about money and winning.

That's not people that are trying to resolve something.

Those are people that are battling.

And this was a war.

I had never seen him so happy,

and Charla equally seemed to be in love with Darren.

They would always go on big trips and vacations,

just a lot of privileges of wealth.

But things start unraveling, none of that really matters.

It really upset her that he'd want to stay out

till, like, 4:00 in the morning,

wanting to go out to strip clubs.

And so it was just drama, drama, drama.

After ten years of marriage, Charla Mack filed for divorce,

and the couple separated

as Darren moved into his own townhome.

During the divorce, it was ugly.

My client is broke.

She's been--finances have been used against her

for over a year now.

She's had to borrow 36,000 just to survive.

He lies over and over and over again on this thing.

He gets so angry and so revved up

that I just don't feel comfortable right now.

I regret being forced to make a decision here.

I can only pick one side or the other,

and one of you has to lose.

And so here goes.

Judge Weller ordered Mr. Mack to pay,

in total, almost $1 million.

That included a lump sum of over $400,000

that Charla was to purchase a home and a car with,

and then there was alimony support on top of that

in excess of $10,000 a month.

He was used to being successful and powerful

and in control.

And in this situation, he was none of those things.

I was informed by someone I knew

in a fathers' rights organization

that Darren Mack was posting terrible allegations about me

and about family court.

Judge Weller started wielding his iron mallet

and started threatening me with jail.

There's many, many, many like myself

that have been fallen prey to his tyranny

and his abuse.

It made me feel threatened.

When I became a family court judge,

I wanted parties to feel as comfortable as possible.

And so with my first meeting with litigants,

I held that meeting in chambers rather than the courtroom.

As a result, Mr. Mack knew where my chambers were.

Darren had called

days before he was supposed to write her a big check.

He asked to talk to her

when she was dropping off Erika.

She didn't understand because they'd already been

to court with Judge Weller.

Everything was settled.

Darren begged her.

He said, you know, "You've got to come.

"It's really important.

I've got to talk to you."

They presented to me

that their interactions were dangerous.

And so I ordered that when they made

their weekly exchanges,

the person dropping off the child

would stay in the car

while the child walked from car to home.

I issued that order so that the parties would be safe.

She said, "I don't know what he really wants,

"and I am scared to death to do it.

I just have a bad feeling."

But she did it.

I really believe that money was the main issue.

Mr. Mack really did not want to lose his money.

He really did not want to give it to Charla.

Judge Weller was that vehicle for Charla Mack

to receive the money from Darren Mack,

and he held that Judge Weller personally and as the system

was responsible for that loss of finance.

Included in the ammunition that we located

in Mr. Mack's residence matched the caliber

of the projectile that struck Judge Weller.

So about 2:00 in the morning,

an arrest warrant was authorized for Darren Mack

for the murder of Charla Mack.

He was on the loose, so I was concerned.

Normal life stopped.

And local law enforcement provided security

at the hospital for me and my family.

We had good, strong evidence that his cell phone had been

turned on and was pinging onto Interstate 80

and westbound out of Reno

before we lost contact with it.

So the indication was that Mack had,

in fact, fled to California.

And past that, we had no idea where he might have gone.

He had escaped.

Darren Mack was the sole suspect

in the shooting of Judge Weller

and the murder of his estranged wife, Charla.

But no one could find him.

I wanted to believe that he didn't do this,

that there was some reasonable explanation.

But he disappeared and was at large.

After the shooting,

there was

an exhaustive manhunt

involving local, state,

federal law enforcement agencies to locate Mr. Mack.

The media was covering the attack in Reno,

and his picture was included.

Darren Mack, he's 45 years old, 5'11",

close to 200 pounds,

driving a silver 2006 Ford Explorer.

If you have seen Mack or his car, call the police.

We received a telephone call from a ticket agent

at the Sacramento airport.

Mr. Mack had been there at her counter.

And when she asked for identification,

he refused and left without getting a ticket.

Exhaustive efforts were made to search

the Sacramento airport.

It was likely that he had left the airport in his car.

It was on the news all the time.

Nobody knew where he was.

It had all of the trappings

that made it attractive for the national

and even the international media.

It was "Dateline" and "48 Hours"

and in the news and the newspaper.

It was constant.

While investigators searched for Darren Mack,

his eight-year-old daughter, Erika, was placed in the care

of Darren's mother, Joan.

His mother, Joan, she'd already gotten

temporary custody by social services.

And so I was terrified that he would sneak in

and try to grab Erika.

As long as Mr. Mack remained a fugitive,

there was reasonable apprehension

that things might not end well,

that Mr. Mack would use violence

to avoid responsibility,

to perhaps harm himself.

I was afraid for his life.

I wanted him to come back and be responsible

because the Darren I knew would be responsible.

So we enlisted members of the community,

friends of Mr. Mack's, to make public appeals

asking Mr. Mack to surrender himself.

And I'm begging him that if he hears this,

if he's listening to this, to please contact us.

He knows he could trust us.

We will do anything to help him.

We want to save his life.

We were inundated with tips.

But one tip in specific really stood out to us was,

an airline pilot had flown from Mexico

back to the United States, seen the media coverage,

and felt confident he had seen Mr. Mack

at a resort in Mexico.

The FBI and Mexican authorities

worked in connection to establish checkpoints

in and around Puerto Vallarta, Mexico,

searching hotels and buses in an attempt

to track down Darren Mack.

He must have felt the walls closing in around him.

Darren made telephone communications

with the Washoe County district attorney at the time.

He wanted, in my opinion, to try and sweeten the deal,

if you will, for his return.

Included in Mr. Mack's demands to surrender,

he demanded to speak to the media

and talk about what he perceived

were the injustices of the family court system

and Judge Weller.

He also wanted to have a jail cell

with certain books and access to the internet.

I think he was trying to use his status

as a fugitive to give him a greater audience.

He also wanted the death penalty.

I believe that he saw himself as a martyr

for the fathers who are in the family court system.

On June 21, 2006,

after nearly ten days on the run,

Darren Mack agreed to surrender himself

to authorities at the consulate

at Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

Even though he claimed that he wanted to turn himself in,

set up a turnover, Mr. Mack didn't show.

He failed to surrender as promised.

Desperate people sometimes say things

and then change their mind.

If he does call me back again,

we're going to have a little discussion

about his credibility

and just where we go from there.

It was so stressful for all those involved.

There were three families-- his family

and Charla's family and Judge Weller's family--

who are living this nightmare while all this tactical stuff

was going on in the background

and really couldn't even begin, in my view, to grieve

because of this maelstrom being created to serve Darren Mack.

We're here to provide an update and information

on the arrest of Darren Mack.

Darren Roy Mack was apprehended

in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico,

one day after he failed to meet a commitment he made

to the Washoe County district attorney

and to the Reno Police Department to turn himself in.

It had been a very long week and a half.

I literally could not take a shower

without my phone ringing two or three times.

I was very relieved to know

that he was taken into custody.

I was pleased when he was apprehended.

Law enforcement told us that we were free to go home.

I was driving when I found out.

I got a phone call saying, "They got him."

I pulled over.

I pulled over and cried.

It was a lot, a lot of emotion

and a lot of, "So now what do we do?

What comes next?"

Mr. Mack's extradition process was streamlined

by his defense attorneys.

When taken into custody, Darren Mack still had

a substantial amount of money.

$40,000 in cash.

I remember thinking, Mr. Mack complained

that he didn't have enough money to make

temporary support to Charla of $10,000 a month,

and yet, on a moment's notice, put together 40 grand in cash

pretty easily to take it to Mexico.

In addition, Mr. Mack had the benefit

of the finest legal defense in the country.

I mean, he hired two of the preeminent defense attorneys,

certainly in the state of Nevada

and probably on the West Coast,

Scott Freeman and David Chesnoff.

I'm sure their fee exceeded a million dollars.

I was most curious to see what the defense was going to be.

Mr. Mack was charged with Charla's murder

and the attempted murder of Judge Weller

and pled not guilty.

I wasn't surprised when he first entered pleas

of not guilty.

I knew, at the outset, he would angle

for the best deal he could get.

Based on all of the physical evidence,

Mr. Mack's legal representation had very few viable defenses.

We got his shoes that had blood spatter on them

that came back to Charla.

Evidence of his physical presence at the crime scene

was so overwhelming that I don't know

what other options realistically

Mr. Mack had to pursue.

Self-defense is at least a viable legal defense.

It's ludicrous to me.

The only fear that he had of her

was her taking his money.

In order to find impartial jurors,

the trial was moved to Las Vegas.

And on October 24, 2007, all eyes were on Darren Mack

as the state delivered its case

in the murder of Charla Mack

and in the shooting of Judge Weller.

What made the Mack divorce different,

if there was a difference, was the amount of money involved.

The prosecution detailed in their opening statement

that what motivated this murder was Mr. Mack's displeasure

with the money that he was going to be

forced to pay in the divorce.

One of the main points of contention

during the divorce was Darren Mack's income.

He owned 51% of Palace Jewelry and Loan.

Midway through the divorce, he transferred

ownership back to his mother.

He claimed to be making $44,000 a month prior to the divorce.

And then midway through the divorce,

he filed papers saying he was simply an employee

making a $5,000 a month salary.

Judge Weller could see very clearly

through the games Darren Mack was playing

that he was trying to hide income.

He believed the system was unconstitutional.

Judge Weller was being unfair to him.

The defendant's frustration and anger grew.

Darren Mack had a problem.

He found a solution to his problem.

Darren Mack ambushed his soon-to-be ex-wife

with a knife.

And her death was neither sudden nor painless.

It was personal.

It becomes clear in the opening statements

that the defense is going to run a defense on two paths,

because, remember, there were two crime scenes

and two victims.

To the killing of Charla and in support

of this self-defense theory came a claim

of Charla's violent tendencies,

that she had been physically violent.

Darren was not aware of the dark side of Charla

prior to marriage.

He also was not aware of her ability

to be physically violent

and physically abusive towards Darren.

The hardest part was listening

to Darren's defense attorneys

talk about how horrible Charla was.

You know, I mean, she wasn't an angel,

but she definitely wasn't what they depicted her to be.

Mr. Mack claimed that he had been

the victim of many incidents as a domestic battery,

and especially in one incident that Charla Mack,

in a fit of rage, had kicked him

and broken his finger at a karate practice.

Darren and Charla were very passionate.

They loved and fought.

And nobody pushes your buttons like your spouse.

And she was not immune to that.

She gave as good as she got.

She would call me and tell me how--

the different ways that she talked back to him,

mocking him at times.

And I think that she just infuriated him.

During the investigation, we learned

that Darren Mack had been accused of violence

in their relationship.

Law enforcement was called to the Mack mansion

where both parties alleged domestic abuse.

Charla did call me and tell me he choked her,

and she was really scared.

She was sobbing on the phone.

Charla Mack was a very small woman.

Darren Mack was a large bodybuilding male.

But he claimed that Charla Mack had been the primary aggressor

and that he was the victim.

You see, ladies and gentlemen,

Charla has a pattern of behavior.

Some call it borderline personality disorder.

She could be kind and giving in public.

She could be violent and abusive at home.

It was too much for Darren to take.

The defense claimed that Darren started

carrying a gun on his person

when he had interactions with Mrs. Mack.

He was claiming he was afraid

of what she was going to do to him.

The defense said that Charla had been so horrific

that it just wore on Darren

and wore on Darren like a rubber band.

And that Darren had just snapped.

This was our Montessori school's auction.

We were a little bit of the Three Musketeers, you know?

And honestly, I felt like we were just getting started.

So I wanted to be at the trial every day.

I know you couldn't go.

It was quite the event just to sit there every day

and listen to all these things, all these lies, all these--

Did you hear things that were disturbing

that you didn't know?

I didn't hear a lot I didn't know,

but I heard a lot I didn't believe.

On October 24, 2007, Darren Mack's attorneys

presented in their opening statements

what they claim happened

on the morning of June 12, 2006.

Charla was supposed to bring Erika over at about 9:00,

but Charla also wanted to discuss

settling the divorce.

Darren's attorneys would say

that Darren brought a knife and a gun

to this meeting with Charla.

Darren said she walked up to him

and slapped him across the face and said,

"Darren, give me my money."

"Darren, drop the appeal," says Charla.

'Make your mother pay me.

You know you owe me what I deserve."

As they're having an argument,

she hits him on the head,

causing the gun to fall out of his pants.

Charla looks at the gun, pulls the hammer back,

smiles, and fires.

But it misfires.

Darren thinks he's been shot. He's not.

Charla starts to cock the hammer again.

Darren knew he was going to die.

So he's forced to stab her to death.

He acted in self-defense.

But an autopsy was performed on Charla Mack's body,

and she had several defensive injuries--

a stab wound to her calf, very consistent

with somebody who's on the ground,

kicking at her attacker.

She also had defensive wounds to her hands

and to her forearms as she was trying

to parry off those stabbing blows.

With the physical evidence on their side,

prosecutors made their case against Darren Mack

for the shooting of Judge Weller.

After he actually followed through

with killing Charla Mack,

I believe that he fully intended

to drive to the parking garage to try to kill Judge Weller.

During the trial,

they showed video footage of Darren

driving a rental car into the parking garage

across from the courthouse.

Behind me is the Mills Lane Justice Center.

The surveillance footage was very important.

Darren Mack arrived here at about 10:42 in the morning.

He obtained a ticket at the gate,

drove up to the fifth floor, and then backed the vehicle in

so the rear of the vehicle was facing

the Mills Lane Justice Center.

At about 11:05 a.m. is when we began getting

reports of the shooting.

And at about 11:06, surveillance cameras show

the rear hatch of the Explorer being closed

and the Explorer leaving the parking garage.

Who fired the bullet?

Well, if there's a common denominator

between Charla Mack and Judge Weller,

it's the defendant, Darren Mack.

The judicial system, the third branch

of the American government, is larger than the interests

of any one individual.

And so no violent person, no judge

should ever think that they have

the ability to change the operation

of the judicial system.

We're servants of the judicial system.

There is no defense to the shooting, right?

There's no imminent need.

There's no, "Some other dude did it."

There's no other real defense to the shooting

other than he didn't have the intent.

And you get that one of two ways--

he either didn't formulate or he couldn't formulate it

because he was "temporarily" out of his mind.

At the time of the shooting of Judge Weller,

you will find that Darren Mack was suffering

from delusional disorder.

The defense claimed that he, as a result of the attack

that he faced with Charla Mack, had a moment of insanity

when he went and shot Judge Weller.

Everything is happening basically on automatic pilot,

which is consistent with somebody

suffering from the delusions

that Darren Mack was suffering from

at the time that he went and shot Judge Weller.

I thought his defense was clever

because it would allow them to attack

both, from a self-defense perspective, the murder

and to have a defense to the shooting.

But there was a mountain of evidence,

including a to-do list in the defendant's own hand,

that corroborated the sequence of events that had occurred

on the day of the crimes.

So this was a very difficult case to defend.

And there is only so much even the best attorneys

in the world can do under our system.

I received a telephone call

that the defense had approached the prosecution

with a possible plea deal.

If we drop the deadly weapon enhancement,

Mr. Mack was willing to plead to first-degree murder,

as well as attempted murder with the use of a deadly weapon

on Judge Weller, which would save Mr. Mack

about 20 years' worth of sentence.

I was gobsmacked Monday morning

when they announced that a deal had been struck

and that he was going to enter a plea of guilty.

I was gobsmacked.

He changed his not guilty plea to a guilty plea

and didn't present any defense in the courtroom.

All right, as to count one, murder of the first degree,

it's my understanding, Mr. Mack,

that on June 12th of 2006,

you willfully, feloniously, and without authority of law

stabbed into the body of Charla Mack,

causing her death.

Is that correct? - That's correct.

And as to count two, it's my understanding

that willfully, unlawfully, and without authority of law,

you shot Judge Weller with a firearm.

That's correct.

I was just in shock.

He had gone from being this reasonable, calm,

collected, successful person

to someone who would kill somebody.

Unfortunately, that November 5th day

was not the end of the Mack trial.

Fairly soon after he struck that plea deal,

he fired Mr. Chesnoff and Mr. Freeman.

He claimed his defense attorneys had

overborne his will, basically pestered him,

and he was unable to freely, knowingly, and intelligently

enter a plea of guilty.

Hired a new attorney, William Routsis,

and sought to withdraw his plea.

I really think that he's narcissistic

and thinks he's smarter than Freeman and Chesnoff.

He's a little bit delusional about how life is.

He reminds me of a little kid having a tantrum.

He doesn't like the outcome.

"Fire all those people.

We're going to try again."

And he wanted to get on the stand

to tell the world his story.

I've remained quiet through this whole thing,

and now I would like to come forward and speak

because there's some very important things

I would like to share.

I have much at stake.

On January 16, 2008, Darren Mack took the stand

to decide whether he would be allowed

to withdraw his guilty plea.

Please raise your right hand.

Thank you. Please have a seat.

It's generally not a good idea

for a guilty defendant to take the stand.

But he felt he needed to make

some kind of statement to the court.

Charla had threatened my life numerous, numerous times,

as well as attacking me.

What happened was--is,

after she was trying to kill me,

we both went to the ground.

She then got stabbed.

And you got to understand the state of mind.

It was an instinct.

But the thing you don't--

a lot of people don't recognize--

I lost a wife too.

And even though that this happened,

I still love Charla.

I just couldn't live with her, and I was afraid of her.

Mr. Mack's narcissistic mindset really showed through

in that hearing when he took the stand

and talked about being the victim.

It was just unfathomable to me

to listen to his perceptions of the process.

At the conclusion of that hearing,

Judge Herndon ruled that Mr. Mack

knowingly and voluntarily entered his plea

and denied his motion to withdraw his guilty plea.

It's time set for the court to address

the sentencing of Mr. Mack.

This case, in my mind, obviously cries out

for incarceration, and the defendant

is going to be incarcerated for a very long time.

Mr. Mack was sentenced to the maximum

on first-degree murder of life with the possibility

of parole after 20 years.

That sentence is to be served consecutive

to the attempted murder charge of Judge Weller.

So in total, under Nevada law,

Mr. Mack would have to do a minimum of 36 years

before he could actually walk the streets

as a free man again.

After Judge Herndon gave him the maximum sentence,

Darren was in shackles.

And he's walking by all the people

that he had known in his life and his children

and his mother, and this is the end of his life

as he'll ever know it.

And it brought me a sense of peace.

In addition to the criminal charges,

the estate of Charla Mack initiated

a wrongful death suit in civil court

against Mr. Mack.

When I say what I do matters to me,

the reason I went to law school

was cases like this.

Really, the theme is that, by killing Charla,

Darren stole what should have been the happiness

and the fairy tale of this child's life from her

because he took not only her mother

but, of course, himself by that act.

Ultimately, her estate prevailed,

and there was a judgment of approximately $590 million

against Mr. Mack

for the wrongful death of his wife.

I was glad of the reward.

A little girl lost her mother.

She's growing up without parents.

She deserved every penny.

There was also a final order struck

between family members related to the care,

custody, and control of Erika.

And the result is that Erika then lived

primarily with Soorya Townley.

This is not a unique story.

This is just a story that I personally knew the people.

And it's still tragic.

And it's still heartbreaking.

You think about a lot of us, hopefully,

we'll have the luxury of being surrounded by people

who love us when we die.

And she didn't get that luxury of dying with love.

She died in pain and terror.

And that haunts me.

And it's very, very difficult to let go.

Justice is a very difficult word.

I believe that law and order was served justly.

But I suspect that the Charla Mack family

and Judge Weller may not see it that way.

To the Charla Mack family or to Judge Weller,

justice would be bringing their loved ones back

and to removing that day from their lives.

The criminal justice system doesn't have

the ability to do that.

I've been a judge for 17 years

since this event occurred.

I've raised my children. They're successful.

I try to have as normal a life as I can.

You think you have eternity to be together,

and then you realize, you know...

Hold on to your children.