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Rage
Case Featured On Dateline and 48 Hours
Divorce Is Violent. . .
Darren Mack had it all. A beautiful home in Reno. A lovely wife. Three children. And a million-dollar business. Then his wife Charla filed for divorce, winning a large settlement in a heated courtroom battle. According to friends, Mack was "angry." They had no idea how far his fury would take him...
Revenge Is Bloody. . .
Over the next year, the rage only intensified. Finally, Darren Mack snapped, stabbing and killing his ex-wife in his condo. Hours later, he stalked and shot their divorce judge in broad daylight. Before the blood had even cooled and law enforcement could react, he fled to Mexico, eluding police hot on his trail.
Justice Is Final. . .
The case made headlines nationwide, propelled by lurid details of Mack's wild "swinger" lifestyle, the shocking discovery of explosives in his apartment, and the chillingly prophetic remark made by his "Someday he's going to kill me. . ." Catching him was the hardest part. . .
With 16 Pages Of Shocking Photos
Divorce Is Violent. . .
Darren Mack had it all. A beautiful home in Reno. A lovely wife. Three children. And a million-dollar business. Then his wife Charla filed for divorce, winning a large settlement in a heated courtroom battle. According to friends, Mack was "angry." They had no idea how far his fury would take him...
Revenge Is Bloody. . .
Over the next year, the rage only intensified. Finally, Darren Mack snapped, stabbing and killing his ex-wife in his condo. Hours later, he stalked and shot their divorce judge in broad daylight. Before the blood had even cooled and law enforcement could react, he fled to Mexico, eluding police hot on his trail.
Justice Is Final. . .
The case made headlines nationwide, propelled by lurid details of Mack's wild "swinger" lifestyle, the shocking discovery of explosives in his apartment, and the chillingly prophetic remark made by his "Someday he's going to kill me. . ." Catching him was the hardest part. . .
With 16 Pages Of Shocking Photos
- GenresTrue CrimeNonfiction
350 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2010
8 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
About the author
Gary C. King
30 books939 followersGary C. King is a freelance author and lecturer who has published more than 500 articles in true crime magazines in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. He is also the author of several true crime books including: Blood Lust: Portrait of a Serial Sex Killer, Driven to Kill, Web of Deceit, Blind Rage, Savage Vengeance, An Early Grave, The Texas 7, Murder in Hollywood, Angels of Death, Stolen in the Night, Love, Lies, and Murder, An Almost Perfect Murder, Butcher, Rage, The Murder of Meredith Kercher, Crime Scene: True Stories of Crime and Detection, and Murder Most Foul: True Crime Stories of Murder and Mayhem.
Driven to Kill, the story of serial child killer Westley Allan Dodd's killing spree, was nominated for an Anthony Award in the Best True Crime Book category at Bouchercon 25.
Blood Lust: Portrait of a Serial Sex Killer, details the bizarre case of Dayton Leroy Rogers, Oregon's worst serial killer. A German language edition of Blood Lust was published in 1995. Both Blood Lust and Driven to Kill were chosen as featured selections of Doubleday's True Crime Book Club.
King’s television appearances have included Entertainment Tonight, Larry King Live, Inside Edition, Court TV, MSNBC’s Headliners and Legends, E!, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Extra TV, and several other programs. He also frequently provides radio interviews and has given talks at libraries as well as organizations devoted to readers and writers interested in the genre of true crime.
After years of traditional publishing, King recently joined the growing ranks of indie authors.
Driven to Kill, the story of serial child killer Westley Allan Dodd's killing spree, was nominated for an Anthony Award in the Best True Crime Book category at Bouchercon 25.
Blood Lust: Portrait of a Serial Sex Killer, details the bizarre case of Dayton Leroy Rogers, Oregon's worst serial killer. A German language edition of Blood Lust was published in 1995. Both Blood Lust and Driven to Kill were chosen as featured selections of Doubleday's True Crime Book Club.
King’s television appearances have included Entertainment Tonight, Larry King Live, Inside Edition, Court TV, MSNBC’s Headliners and Legends, E!, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Extra TV, and several other programs. He also frequently provides radio interviews and has given talks at libraries as well as organizations devoted to readers and writers interested in the genre of true crime.
After years of traditional publishing, King recently joined the growing ranks of indie authors.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 4, 2012
This is another I waited too long to review. (Really have to stop doing this.) I read this over a month ago so this won't be as detailed as I'd like it to be and I'll be going from notations made while reading.
First, Gary King is a very good author. One of the best in t.c. IMO and I never hesitate to get his books. This sat on a shelf for awhile because the description didn't grab me. Finally I picked it up for whatever reason and found it a lot more interesting than I thought I would.
It also needs to be noted that the photos aren't great. There are none of Charla Mack yet numerous shots of Darren Mack from many different angles. A shot of the sign at the front of their neighborhood is shown - why? Nothing happened near that sign. I'd have rathered seen the house although that wouldn't be all that great either.
The pictures should have been better. Quite frankly, if this was all there was to pick from I'd have liked to have seen one or two of Mack and that's it. Less is okay sometimes.
The crime featured here isn't as "bad" (that feels way weird to say... what I mean is that it's not a serial killer, etc.) as what's in *most* t.c. books today. I guess with killers getting worse and worse and bolder and bolder t.c. authors have their pick of which crazies to write about.
Anyway,this is pretty simple, this Mack guy got pisses at his wife during their divorce and instead of handling things the correct way he decided to play God. He even had Mommy step in to help in a few small ways. (She wasn't involved with the murders or anything like that, she was more involved in the legal and professional aspects.)
I love how an defense attorney will lower him or herself to any level to "get the job done". So, Mack's defense for killing his wife was this:
Darren's mind was messed up due his past partying and drug use during the marriage. His fight with his wife that morning in the garage (the one where he lured her there despite the courts warning to say away from each other) made him "snap". Well hey, okay! No problem! Let him go! He didn't mean it! What the fuck. According to this type of thing no murderer should be held accountable.
Oh, let me not forget this little tidbit - "...said that Mack shot Weller (the divorce court judge who presided over the Mack's case) because he believed that that the Second Amendment allowed for people to use weapons against tyranny."
That's freaking awesome. So basically, this grown man who ran a successful business and was by all accounts totally involved in his community, thought he was allowed to shoot people he deemed should be shot because of his rights. Okay then.
But... he was crazy. Yet lucid enough to lure his ex-wife to her murder, lucid enough to have someone there (yet not close enough to see) for his daughter (she was 9 I believe and directly upstairs while her father murdered her mother), lucid enough to pack up his weapons and drive to where he could have a clear shot of Wellers' chambers. Not just any judge mind you, his judge from his divorce. Yup, sounds like a crazy person to me. All the way.
It gets better - Mack was supposedly acting in self-defense when he murdered his wife yet he was insane when he shot Weller. I guess he went insane somewhere on the ride over. Can't get more interesting than that.
Mack ended up being sentences to twenty to life for the murder of his ex-wife and sixteen to forty years for the attempted murder of Weller. Consecutive of course. If he made parole eventually on those two charges he would be smacked with the eight years for use of a dangerous weapon.
Best scenario (for him - not society, but then, who actually cares about the potential victims?) thiry-six years behind bars. He had already been locked up for almost 600 days if I remember right and that came out to him being about 81-years-old before being able to be paroled.
I think I remember reading that ths was the longest sentence the law would allow.
I've said this about other p.o.s.'s and I think I'm going to make it an all the time thing - I hope he's rotting wherever he is. I hope he's tortured every day. Anyone like him doesn't deserve to live.
Instead of thinking about his daughter (he wasn't man enough to think about his ex-wife) and about how he was getting ready to take both of her parents away, not to mention the lavish lifestyle she'd grown up in thus far, he thought only of himself. He should have gotten the death penalty.
One other thing that I would have taken further had I reviewed this on time when I remembered more - Weller apparently, supposedly, wasn't the most up-and-up judge. I remember something about a class action suit and that he was far more partial to women than men. Judge's like that have no place in our courtrooms. Weller's actions, whatever they may have been do not excuse Mack's in any way, shape or form, but it goes along the way to a possible explanation.
If Weller had been fair would Mack have been pushed over the edge? He hadn't been before despite an already volatile divorce.
**It's mentioned in the book that Soorya Townley would be releasing a book on her daughters murder but I haven't been able to find anything on that on-line.
If anyone reads this review and knows anything about that suppoed book feel free to let me know.**
First, Gary King is a very good author. One of the best in t.c. IMO and I never hesitate to get his books. This sat on a shelf for awhile because the description didn't grab me. Finally I picked it up for whatever reason and found it a lot more interesting than I thought I would.
It also needs to be noted that the photos aren't great. There are none of Charla Mack yet numerous shots of Darren Mack from many different angles. A shot of the sign at the front of their neighborhood is shown - why? Nothing happened near that sign. I'd have rathered seen the house although that wouldn't be all that great either.
The pictures should have been better. Quite frankly, if this was all there was to pick from I'd have liked to have seen one or two of Mack and that's it. Less is okay sometimes.
The crime featured here isn't as "bad" (that feels way weird to say... what I mean is that it's not a serial killer, etc.) as what's in *most* t.c. books today. I guess with killers getting worse and worse and bolder and bolder t.c. authors have their pick of which crazies to write about.
Anyway,this is pretty simple, this Mack guy got pisses at his wife during their divorce and instead of handling things the correct way he decided to play God. He even had Mommy step in to help in a few small ways. (She wasn't involved with the murders or anything like that, she was more involved in the legal and professional aspects.)
I love how an defense attorney will lower him or herself to any level to "get the job done". So, Mack's defense for killing his wife was this:
Darren's mind was messed up due his past partying and drug use during the marriage. His fight with his wife that morning in the garage (the one where he lured her there despite the courts warning to say away from each other) made him "snap". Well hey, okay! No problem! Let him go! He didn't mean it! What the fuck. According to this type of thing no murderer should be held accountable.
Oh, let me not forget this little tidbit - "...said that Mack shot Weller (the divorce court judge who presided over the Mack's case) because he believed that that the Second Amendment allowed for people to use weapons against tyranny."
That's freaking awesome. So basically, this grown man who ran a successful business and was by all accounts totally involved in his community, thought he was allowed to shoot people he deemed should be shot because of his rights. Okay then.
But... he was crazy. Yet lucid enough to lure his ex-wife to her murder, lucid enough to have someone there (yet not close enough to see) for his daughter (she was 9 I believe and directly upstairs while her father murdered her mother), lucid enough to pack up his weapons and drive to where he could have a clear shot of Wellers' chambers. Not just any judge mind you, his judge from his divorce. Yup, sounds like a crazy person to me. All the way.
It gets better - Mack was supposedly acting in self-defense when he murdered his wife yet he was insane when he shot Weller. I guess he went insane somewhere on the ride over. Can't get more interesting than that.
Mack ended up being sentences to twenty to life for the murder of his ex-wife and sixteen to forty years for the attempted murder of Weller. Consecutive of course. If he made parole eventually on those two charges he would be smacked with the eight years for use of a dangerous weapon.
Best scenario (for him - not society, but then, who actually cares about the potential victims?) thiry-six years behind bars. He had already been locked up for almost 600 days if I remember right and that came out to him being about 81-years-old before being able to be paroled.
I think I remember reading that ths was the longest sentence the law would allow.
I've said this about other p.o.s.'s and I think I'm going to make it an all the time thing - I hope he's rotting wherever he is. I hope he's tortured every day. Anyone like him doesn't deserve to live.
Instead of thinking about his daughter (he wasn't man enough to think about his ex-wife) and about how he was getting ready to take both of her parents away, not to mention the lavish lifestyle she'd grown up in thus far, he thought only of himself. He should have gotten the death penalty.
One other thing that I would have taken further had I reviewed this on time when I remembered more - Weller apparently, supposedly, wasn't the most up-and-up judge. I remember something about a class action suit and that he was far more partial to women than men. Judge's like that have no place in our courtrooms. Weller's actions, whatever they may have been do not excuse Mack's in any way, shape or form, but it goes along the way to a possible explanation.
If Weller had been fair would Mack have been pushed over the edge? He hadn't been before despite an already volatile divorce.
**It's mentioned in the book that Soorya Townley would be releasing a book on her daughters murder but I haven't been able to find anything on that on-line.
If anyone reads this review and knows anything about that suppoed book feel free to let me know.**
February 25, 2011
With a title like " Rage " I expected much more of the emotional aspect of the story - that was totally lacking . I found it odd that among the pictures there was not even one of Charla Mack .
April 7, 2020
I really wasn’t that into it. It was actually quite boring. But because I bought it, I read it.
October 10, 2023
The case itself was interesting but over half the book was all courtroom battles and it just drug on and on. I was barely able to finish reading it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews