I shook hands with Darren Mack for the final time last summer in Las Vegas. He had just completed a day's worth of tests I recommended to measure his propensity for violence and abuse.

Mack had retained me to consult on his contentious divorce and custody case. As is my standard practice, I mapped out a strategy for him and his attorney to obtain a fair and equitable trial. This included psychological testing of the now-45-year-old Reno bodybuilder and millionaire swinger. As expected at the time, he passed all the tests with flying colors.

What happened to Darren Mack between then and June 12, when, according to police, he stabbed Charla Mack to death and shot Family Court Judge Chuck Weller with a high-powered rifle? Hindsight is 20/20, but my opinion is that this "family man turned hit man" was cracking under the strain of trying to hold onto his business, his assets and his daughter while navigating a misguided Family Court system that only poured gasoline on an already incendiary situation.

After all, Mack's test results in the summer of 2005 were encouraging. He claimed his wife and her very aggressive and competent attorney were drumming up a story to gain the upper hand in their demands for custody and assets. To wit: If she was so scared of him, why did she drive to his townhome the morning of June 12 without an adult witness by her side?

Meanwhile, in an e-mail to those of us on his team in the custody case -- now tragically moot -- Mack followed his complaints about his wife with a question about whether they could ever get along. His answer to his own question: "IMPOSSIBLE!" followed by 50 more exclamation points.

If Darren Mack is found guilty of the charges against him, he could lose all contact with the 8-year-old daughter he wanted to be with so much, as well as his two teenagers from his previous marriage.

The awful reality of the allegations against him may have another unintended impact: Because of such bad apples among us, men everywhere are more likely to be wrongly accused, and women will struggle with the belief that all men are monsters and even more Draconian laws would somehow help them.

Unless cooler heads prevail, the Mack case could further harm the prospects of those of us who wrestle every day to fix an unfair system in which men are presumed guilty until proven innocent, and which could be made so much better with a few simple reform:

--Court-appointed "parental coordinators," proven to work in several states including Florida, California, Massachusetts and New Jersey, should be an approved alternative to judges and lawyers to handle minor points of acrimony before they escalate.

--Joint custody should be the preferred option. Even though the rule of law is "the child's best interests," too often it is interpreted as, "the father should get the shaft and the mom should get everything."

--The standard of law needs to be increased in family court from "a preponderance of evidence," which means 51 percent certainty, to "clear and convincing evidence," deemed as 75 percent or better. The current standard is too much of a fine line, and judges would still retain their omnipotence.

--Judicial review committees should be established to handle appeals of family court rulings. Mack was sure in this case there was a trend of court orders against him. But for him to file a complaint against the judge in his case would have been legal suicide. The review committees should consist not just of other judges and lawyers, but also a psychologist.

--Because family court cases can turn deadly fast, we need to better educate judges and other family court personnel on ways to defuse them rather than add to the frustrations, and on the mental-health challenges of litigants and the children involved. All mediators should be certified as having received this training, too.

As part of Darren Mack's defense team, I empathized with him during his proceedings because he felt he was losing it all. Now that he truly has, if I could talk to him right now, I'd say, "How dare you, Darren Mack, leave your beautiful child parentless? How dare you harm the prospects of wrongly accused fathers all over this country who despair of ever seeing their own children again?"

Florida resident Dean Tong is a consultant in contested divorces, custody and abuse cases. He is the author of the book "Elusive Innocence: Survival Guide for the Falsely Accused." His Web site is www.abuse-excuse.com.