Friend testifies in Mack murder trial
Darren Mack had a “weird look,” and his hand was wrapped in a towel as he rushed upstairs behind a blood-spattered dog from the garage of his townhouse the morning his estranged wife was stabbed to death, a friend testified Thursday.
“A weird, scared kind of look,” said friend and housemate Daniel Osborne, testifying at Mack’s trial in Las Vegas.
Mack is accused of stabbing Charla Mack to death in the garage and minutes later wounding the judge who handled their divorce with a shot fired from a parking structure near the courthouse in downtown Reno.
Osborne said he and Mack’s 8-year-old daughter were watching television when they heard what he described as “kind of a faint yelping sound” downstairs. That was when the dog appeared at the top of the stairs, followed by Mack.
“Did he say, ‘My wife just attacked me?'” prosecutor Robert Daskas asked.
“No,” Osborne responded.
“Did he say, ‘My wife tried to shoot me?'”
“No.”
Mack had no visible marks on his body, Osborne said, and the dog was uninjured. However, Charla Mack, 39, was found later by authorities with her throat slashed and several of what a forensic pathologist said appeared to be defensive knife wounds.
Osborne said he and Mack’s daughter never looked in the garage after the girl noticed the blood on Osborne’s dog. Instead, he said, he took the child from the townhouse and headed for Mack’s mother’s house.
Under questioning by defense lawyer Scott Freeman, Osborne said he didn’t feel threatened by Mack, who he said didn’t acknowledge his presence or the presence of his daughter.
“Fair to say trancelike in some ways?” Freeman asked.
“That’s probably a good description,” Osborne said.
Mack’s defense lawyers say Charla Mack attacked Darren Mack and pointed a gun at him before he killed her in self-defense. Then, they say, Mack became delusional and shot Family Court Judge Chuck Weller sniper-style as he stood in his chambers. Weller has since recovered.
Prosecutors used testimony from Osborne and Garret Idle, a self-described “teammate” with Mack in a father’s rights advocacy group, to portray the attacks as a premeditated plot to end a contentious divorce and send a message to a legal system that he believed had wronged him.
Idle was blunt about his disdain for Weller. He said his first act after hearing Weller had been shot was to call Mack, with whom he said he shared views about Weller being unfair and the Family Court system as “dysfunctional” and needing “to be torn down.”
“We were both teammates trying to tackle a very important issue,” Idle said.
Mack “told me that he was really busy and that he would call me back,” Idle said.
“Do you consider yourself delusional?” prosecutor Christopher Lalli asked.
“I don’t think so,” Idle said.
Mack, 46, who became a multimillionaire in the pawnshop business, is charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder in the June 2006 slaying and shooting. He has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. He could face life in prison if convicted.
The case made headlines and led to a manhunt after Mack fled to Mexico, where he surrendered 11 days later. The trial was moved to Las Vegas from Reno this month after state Judge Douglas Herndon ruled that an impartial jury could not be found.
The trial is to resume Monday.