Amanda Roth

She was found in his garage. wearing no shoes or socks, with seven stab wounds. When you're being stabbed or you're dying, you curl into fetal position to try to protect your core. This was a desperate woman who was curled up like a baby, trying not to die.

I would say that Darren and Charla Mack were a pretty explosive cocktail.

They got increasingly into adventurous sex during their marriage. It was a roller coaster. When it went wrong, it went really wrong. So when his wife left him, it was a terrible blow. In a state known for divorce, this was about as nasty as a divorce can get anywhere. It was ugly. It was vicious. It was mean. Judge Weller was hearing their divorce case.

He had to pay her a lump sum of $480,000 out of which she was supposed to buy a home and a car. And then over the next five years, she was supposed to receive $10,000 a month in spousal support.

Darren is somebody who doesn't like to lose. Losing is unacceptable.

We all have the means to murder somebody every day. 99.9% of us will never ever do it.

You can get married and divorced in Reno probably in the same week. And lose everything you have in a matter of minutes. Darren?

After Judge Weller was shot, suspicion almost immediately fell on Darren because Darren had been so contentious with the judge.

If Darren was capable of shooting a judge, what did that mean for his wife, Charla?

They had two really big, big personalities.

I think when you saw the two of them walk into a room, they were explosive together. Charla just fired him up, you know. She was more explosive than he was, you know. She was fire.

They were high profile in the community. They knew everybody. Everybody knew them.

The Charla and Darren Mack story is a story of explosive love. Smile, honey. It's really good-looking people, a lot of money, a lot of sex, and high, high, high emotion. And eventually, murder. I'm Amanda Roth, and I'm a writer, and I grew up in Reno, Nevada. Darren Mack is handsome, larger than life, very charismatic, was an extraordinarily wealthy man.

She wanted to be famous more than anything. That really was her dream, was to be famous.

got herself two roles in two films. One was a film with Drew Barrymore.

And one was a documentary with Diane Keaton.

Darren Mack is a handsome, charismatic millionaire. He takes very good care of himself.

He liked going to seminars about improving himself all the time, achieving his goals, which was money, money, money, money.

They lived large. She drove a Lexus. He drove a Hummer. They had fancy things, fancy jewelry. Oh, it was fabulous.

Oh, she was a lovely girl. She was very quiet, very sophisticated.

He would not stop fighting with Debbie. She spent more than a quarter of a million dollars in legal fees, you know, just responding to him.

And Charla was on his side at the time.

Darren liked to seem to be a devoted father, a devoted husband. He liked having a beautiful wife, a beautiful home. He liked looking very all-American, squeaky clean.

They became sort of a fixture on the strip club circuit in around Reno. Then it moved up into swinging.

Then they actually went to swinger conventions in California, Arizona, and Mexico, where there'd be group sex parties. They called it sexing.

Sexing is when you go to these swinging clubs.

She didn't like this lifestyle. She did it for a while because it was really important to Darren, but that she tired of it.

He kept a diary in which he said that she kicked him in the testicles but missed, that she scratched his car, she yelled at him on the phone, she belittled him in front of his friends, went on and on and on for six pages like this.

He was cutting her off. He canceled the credit cards. He wouldn't pay the utilities at their home. She had to keep warm by fire because they had no heat.

He worked in and around gaming in that he owned a pawn shop.

Darren Mack was married to a 39-year-old woman named Charla. She was a stop-and-stare beautiful brunette. Absolutely gorgeous woman.

Somehow Darren lured Charla into his garage. The daughter upstairs heard a dog yelping and told Darren's friend, I think your dog is yelping.

And he became incredibly frightened and said to the little girl, we have to leave. They left.

And Darren says, meet me at Starbucks. The friend, who's completely flipped out at this point, meets him at Starbucks with the little girl.