While in a waiting room today I was bored and picked up an old Marie Claire magazine from 2006 to read. While thumbing through it I found an article about the Darren Mack murder case, "Murder in Reno". It is written by a local journalist from Reno who was familiar with Darren Mack and his wife.

Not surprisingly I found a reference to both of their involvement in Landmark Education. As I thought, I did run across a quote that was Lekkie speak. Darren's wife accused him of being concerned about "Looking Good". As I read the article and how their relationship fell apart and the crap that went on I clearly saw the Landmark influence. It was both unsettling and reminded me of how pissed I am about Landmark and the destruction it causes.

To me its amazing how I can now see right through what went down by reading an article that before I would not have seen a correlation. Now that I have stood before the proverbial Landmark Beast and looked it in the eye's I can see it's handy work readily.

Has anyone else read the article? I've made a copy of it.

I would like to hear what people have to say about this.

Hey Zorro,

I think it would be fantastic to get a copy of the article.

John

Here ya go:


[www.accessmylibrary.com]

Murder in Reno the biggest little city in the world: on a Monday
morning, Darren Mack knifed his wife, shot a judge, and booked it to a
swinger's joint across the Mexican border. It's a story straight from
a daytime soap opera--or, as it happens, from the hometown streets of
writer Amanda Robb. An inside look at domestic homicide, Reno-style.
(TRUE CRIME)

Publication: Marie Claire

Publication Date: 12/01/2006

Author: Robb, Amanda

One night last June, my sister called and said, "Turn on the news."
CNN was reporting on Reno, NV, pawnshop owner Darren Mack, who had
stabbed his estranged wife, Charla, to death, then shot--sniper-style--
the judge hearing their divorce case.

"Roseanne is engaged to his cousin," my sister said of her best
friend. "She used to be engaged to his brother."

"His first wife was the prettiest girl in my grade," I said. "She and
I both made out with Mark Dolby. Wait." I climbed up on a chair to get
my 1983 yearbook. "The wife he killed was in our class, too."

"Congressman Gibbons is on the local news saying what a great family
the Macks are," my sister said. "And D.A. Richard Gammick is e-mailing
Darren little notes--never mind that Darren's on the FBI's most-wanted
list."

"We come from a weird place," I said.

"No shit," my sister said.

Reno, for those of you who have never visited, is a city of 200,000
souls located in the westernmost crook of Nevada, where the Sierras
give way to the Great Basin. Neither mountains nor desert are of
postcard quality, but viewed together, they have a scrubby, stark
charm. The town itself never had any particular architectural
identity--save for a relatively new gambling hall made to look like a
Western take on Victorian. Today, spots of man-made prettiness are
obscured by big-box sprawl and mega-casino neon. Still, smalltown
habits remain. Many families have lived here for generations, and when
something--marriage, mayhem, murder--goes down, six degrees of
separation are usually at least two too many.

Quick, easy divorce was Reno's first claim to fame (a marriage can be
dissolved in a week at a cost of $479). The town's second raison
d'etre was gambling, legalized statewide in 1931. Prostitution became
lawful in 1971, as long as it took place in counties with populations
of fewer than 200,000. There was definitely something liberating about
growing up believing one parent is plenty, money is for fun, and sex
is always available. But that trifecta isn't necessarily a winning
ticket. Nevada does have one of the highest domestic-homicide rates in
the country. And my hometown did spawn Darren Mack.

Mack is a swarthy, long-faced man with metrosexual habits and a
monochromatic style of dressing. His wife, Charla, was a stop-and-
stare-beautiful brunette with a taste for over-the-top, strong men.

On the morning of June 12, 2006, Mack--millionaire, amateur
bodybuilder, public figure, father, and soon-to-be-ex husband--is
accused of nearly severing his estranged wife's head with a military
knife, shooting the judge hearing their divorce case, and hightailing
it out of town to Los Cabos.

Sex, gambling, and murder--none of it seems out of place in Reno. It's
a soap-opera city, where fortunes can be lost in five minutes at the
craps table, and you can get married--and divorced!--all in one
vacation. Between 1977 and 1984, my mom worked graveyard weekend
shifts as a 21 dealer at Harrah's, the oldest casino on the town's
main drag. Over the course of seven years, she took, by her estimates,
about $2 million out of the hands of her players. Some of those losers
could be found 30 minutes later across the street, at the Mack
family's empire.

Darren's parents came to Reno in 1957. Using their own wedding
presents, they opened up a pawnshop, Palace Jewelry & Loan, in 1958,
in a three-story faux-stucco building that they once shared with the
Agape Love Wedding Chapel (half-hour packages from $139.21). Since
opening, Palace has earned the Mack family upwards of $15 million.
Darren became half-owner of the pawnshop 20 years ago, at age 26, when
his dad died in an airplane accident. Darren's mom, Joan, owns the
other half.

Inside the store, leather jackets hang on a rack near the doorway and
jewelry displays glitter in the windows. CDs, TVs, and stereo parts
take up the middle section. Along the back wall is a mother lode of
knives, guns, and rifles. Next to the weapons, a neon sign announces,
"loan department." This is where you pawn your treasures--or stolen
goods. (If you're robbed in northern Nevada, the first thing police
often tell you to do is check pawnshops for your property.)

One of Darren's ex-employees, a former Palace loan officer, recalls "a
nice lady with a gambling problem" who used to come into the pawnshop
every few weeks to sell the entire inventory of her jewelry store.
"Finally, one day, I told her, 'You can't keep doing this. You have a
problem. You really need help,'" he tells me. "Afterward, Darren
called me over. He got mad. He said to me, 'She'll just go down the
street.' I'm sure Darren was right. But still."

Darren wasn't the only one in Reno with a pragmatic outlook on the
financial universe. Perhaps any state so spare of natural resources
would come to count on taking advantage of others. At any rate, it
wasn't a big surprise to me to learn that as soon as Family Court
Judge Chuck Weller ordered Darren to pay Charla $10,000 a month in
interim spousal support (based on his monthly income of $44,000), a
good chunk of Darren's assets (which totaled $9.4 million) suddenly
began to disappear, and he declared personal bankruptcy. Nor was it
shocking to find out that Palace was suing Charla for a $195,000
diamond ring and a $14,400 Rolex watch, which Charla claimed Darren
had given her as gifts. (No, said Darren's family, the jewelry pieces
were loans from the pawnshop.) In fact, I didn't even blink when I
heard that Darren had stopped paying the utility bills at the $1.6
million Tudor-style house Charla shared with their 8-year-old
daughter.

Murder, most likely, was not something Charla worried about. She had
no problem taking care of herself; this much everyone in town seems to
agree on. Once, during a heated argument at the Las Vegas airport, she
slapped Darren in the face (for general jerkiness). Another time, she
socked his son in the chest (for hitting her dog: The animal and boy
recovered; a judge ordered Charla to attend step-parenting classes).
She complained publicly about their sex life, saying that Darren
hadn't gotten her off in years--and she reportedly told their young
daughter, Erika, "Mommy has AIDS because Daddy won't stop having sex
with whores."

Before Charla met Darren, she was an aspiring actress in Los Angeles,
where she moved after high school. (She left Reno Public High School
after sophomore year and graduated elsewhere. Charla, Darren's first
wife Debbie, and I were all in the same class until then.) When Arnold
Schwarzenegger came into the restaurant where she was waiting tables
in L.A., she was starstruck. She waited on him repeatedly. "I'm
European," Charla claimed he told her one day, "and people in Europe
have a more relaxed attitude about having mistresses."

Charla, according to several Renoites, reportedly "dated"
Schwarzenegger for two years. "But Arnold wasn't helping her career at
all," Charla's mother tells me. "She finally asked him for a part in a
movie. And that was the end of that."

Charla eventually landed herself roles in two films--Heaven, directed
by Diane Keaton, and Poison Ivy, starring Drew Barrymore. She also
became a course supervisor for the extreme self-improvement group
Landmark Forum, where she and Darren met. He taught a communications
course for the organization and kept a LifeClock that ticked backward,
reminding him constantly of how little time he had left before he
died. When Darren met Charla (who bore a physical resemblance to
Darren's first wife; the women even shared the same birthday), the
timing was perfect: He had recently announced to friends that he was
"committed to being married within the year."

Together, Charla and Darren lived the Reno high life. They married in
a lavish Lake Tahoe ceremony in May 1995. Shortly thereafter, they
bought a $950,000, 5700-square-foot Tudor-style home on six acres,
then spent another $350K digging a pond for their backyard and
transforming a room on the property into a private gym, the walls
plastered with mirrors.

Money was also spent on sex--and copious amounts of pornography.
(Local boys hired to help move them in gleefully told the entire
neighborhood that the couple had "boxes of porn!") The pair became
fixtures at Fantasy Girls, a local strip club with three poles, bare-
knuckle boxing broadcasts, and a back room for private lap dances.

"She was into it, too," says Phil Pape, Mr. Nevada 2002 and Darren's
posing coach for local bodybuilding competitions. "I used to see them
at BuBinga Lounge, the Reno nightclub, and Charla would sit on other
guys' laps. She used to give me huge hugs in front of her husband,
which was awkward. I didn't know what to do. But then someone told me
they were swingers."

Soon, the Macks became regulars on the partner-swapping circuit,
joining swinger groups such as Eutopia. After they separated, Darren
held a "divorce party" at the Moonlite BunnyRanch, a brothel 34 miles
south of Reno made famous in the HBO series Cathouse.

Violent reactions to the Macks' lifestyle would be understandable. As
a feminist, I feel like I should now begin a rant against the sex
industry and insinuate that its debauching influence contributed to
Charla's murder. But, Gloria Steinem forgive me, I'm a Reno girl, too.
Puritanical attitudes about basic human instincts just aren't in me.
Of course, there's such a thing as gluttony. And Reno--offering a
plethora of dazzling bikini waxes, sex toys, and paid-for partners--
can certainly cause sensation overload.

In court documents, Charla claimed she was divorcing Darren because of
the nonstop sex. "Mr. Mack has certain sexual interests," her lawyer
wrote to Judge Weller. "While Mrs. Mack was prepared to go along in an
effort to save the marriage, she ultimately decided that his interests
left her feeling unloved, unsupported, and unfulfilled."

Darren countered that Charla was the pervert. "She has physically
attacked me over 20 times," he told his lawyer. He also wrote in a
diary that Charla threatened, "I will cut off your penis and put it in
the freezer if you leave me."

Personally, I don't buy that Charla was leaving Darren over the sex.
"She'd tell him he had to stop swinging to save the marriage," one of
the (many) counselors the couple saw confides to me. "He'd say, 'OK,
baby, if that's what it takes.' Then she'd make reservations for them
to go sexing, saying, 'Oh, sweetie, I know it makes you happy.'"

I think what really drove Charla out of her million-dollar home and
her fancy jewelry was Darren's infantile whining. Excerpts from
Darren's seven-page, single-spaced "Diary of Incidents of Unacceptable
Behavior by Charla":

--"Charla would call me multiple times a day at work and would
criticize me"

--"Months of withheld sex"

--"Tried to kick me in balls but missed"

--"Eats bad foods for her, asks me to help her with her food
compulsiveness, then when I attempted to support her she would
denigrate me"

Granted, it's a big leap from whiner to murderer. Darren made the jump
in late spring, around the time he learned that Charla had uncovered
some damaging information.

"Darren never changed the passwords on his swingers' websites," says
Mark Phillips, a weight lifter Charla dated for the last year of her
life. "After they separated, Charla was able to log on and figure out
when Darren was going swinging--and noticed that the dates
corresponded to the days he had Erika." Taking children to sex
parties--not likely to win Darren sympathy in the eyes of Judge
Weller. And if Renoites found out, well, the humiliation would be
huge. And Darren, Phillips tells me, "was all about looking good."

Weapon access was not a problem. At his pawnshop--Darren had a virtual
arsenal for sale. To kill Charla, he chose a Gerber dagger, a knife
trusted by the military. For Judge Weller, he used his own Bushmaster .
223 rifle, the same kind of weapon John Allen Muhammad and Lee Malvo
used for their 2002 sniper spree in the Washington, DC, area.

On a sunny Monday morning in June, Darren set out to complete a
cryptic to-do list that police would later find in his kitchen.

--"Dan take Erika to Joan"

--"Close garage door"

--"End problem"

--"Put Lex in garage"

--"Parking garage--if yes"

Around 9 a.m., Charla arrived at Darren's townhouse, where he'd been
living since the divorce proceedings began, to drop off Erika. Later,
the girl would remember how her father's hands were shaking when he
answered the door.

Inside the townhouse, Darren's friend, Dan Osborne, greeted her. Big
surprise! Dan was going to take Erika over to her Grandma Joan's house
so Darren and Charla could talk in private. "OK," said Erika, but
first she wanted something to eat. She and Osborne went upstairs.

Fifteen minutes later, Erika put down her snack and turned away from
the Animal Planet show on TV. "Is that your dog barking?" she asked.
Osborne went to investigate. Downstairs, his dog--face, neck, and paws
covered in blood--slinked in from the garage. Darren was right behind,
a large towel swathed around one hand and a weird look on his face.
Osborne ran upstairs and told Erika they needed to leave for her
grandma's house. Immediately.

En route to Joan's, Osborne's cell phone rang. Could he and Erika come
to Starbucks? Darren wanted to know. He needed to see his daughter.
After a quick cup of tea and a lemon bar, Darren left Starbucks in his
gray Ford Explorer.

At approximately 10:46 a.m., the Explorer entered a parking garage
near Reno's family court. At 11:05, a courthouse employee called 911
to report that Judge Weller, who'd been hearing the Macks' divorce
case, had been shot in the chest by a sniper.

At 2:12 p.m., police detectives found three drops of blood in Darren's
driveway. Inside the garage, they found Charla, dead from stab wounds--
a severed carotid artery, a nearly cut-in-half esophagus--similar to
those that killed Nicole Brown Simpson.

Meanwhile, after shooting the judge, Darren sped west toward
California, tossing Charla's phone out his window near Robb Drive
(named, incidentally, after my grandfather, a local college athlete in
the 1930s). From Sacramento, he drove to Mexico. But instead of lying
low, he checked into a Los Cabos resort where he'd gone swinging in
the past. Around the same time, Darren apparently began e-mailing Fox
News Channel anchor Greta Van Susteren (with whom he had no previous
connection): "I have a story to tell and a difference to be made. They
want me as the sacrificial lamb. They want the pleasure of executing
me ... People have to understand that condemning any act in response
to ... divorce court ... is like condemning us now for using violence
with Osama."

Van Susteren later wrote on her blog that she thought the messages
were "a hoax or someone who might be troubled" and ignored them. In a
matter of days, Darren Mack made it onto the FBI's most-wanted list.
Friends and family expressed concern for the pawnshop king, now on the
lam.

In true Reno fashion, there was less than one degree of separation
between Darren and the Nevada authorities who finally convinced him to
turn himself in--Richard Gammick, Washoe County's district attorney,
was also one of Darren's closest friends.

Now Darren sits, in a red jumpsuit, in Washoe County Jail, awaiting
trial for murder. His daughter is the object of a new custody battle,
between her two grandmas. The child worries that her dad doesn't like
jail food and isn't allowed to shower as often as he'd like.

Killers, at least serial killers, are made from a perfect emotional
storm of an abusive past, mental illness, and neurological defect,
according to some forensic neurologists. The ballad of Darren and
Charla makes me wonder if there's an ideal environment for murder,
too. If so, I bet Reno's got it covered.

It's late in the evening when I walk out of the oppressive Nevada heat
and into Fantasy Girls strip club, Darren and Charla's old stomping
ground. Onstage, shimmering waxed crotches gyrate enthusiastically.
Directly behind them, a floor-to-ceiling screen broadcasts life-size,
live telecasts of ultimate fighter "Iceman," choking his opponent into
unconsciousness with his hands. The explicit linking of sex and
violence grosses me out--but not as much as the men slumped in their
seats, moaning in pleasure over it. Six miles southwest, Charla is
cold in her grave; four miles south, Darren is sweltering in a cell.
Money, sex, violence, and murder. It's a story only Reno could do so
well. And damn, with my mouth, I'm just glad I got out alive.

Elena, thank you!

Woo-hoo!

John

You bet.

And don't you just love the "Landmark influence," as Zorro puts it, in these people's lives?

I'd like to hear some examples Zorro has sniffed out.



Ellen

Thanks Ellen for finding and posting the article.

I'll dissect what I see as "Landmark's influences", as they are encountered when reading the article from the beginning.

1. The article mentions that they had problems with their sex life. This certainly happens with people in Landmark Education and was one of the first things I encounterd myself where none had existed before. Also other people I know in Landmark were experiencing problems in their love / sex life, I know of at least four people this was occurring with while I was in there.

2. Darren was an instructor for one of the Communications Courses. The instructors for the Communications Courses are strange people. The one I had for my Advanced Communications Course (where I finally realized Landmark was bad) was an over the top jerk and straight up jack ass. Hmmm didn't Charla slap Darren once for being a jerk? Also Charla was a Course Supervisor, I'm not pointing fingers to poor Charla, but the fact that there are two people that deeply involved with Landmark problems might just start popping up. From what I've seen Lekkie couples do seem to have a lot of problems.

3. The life clock that Darren kept that was ticking backwards reminding him of how little time he had left before he died. It's borderline to consider that a Landmark influence, unless it is taught somewhere, but its definately out there enough to cause me to take notice. Everyone has eccentric ways to some degree, but that is just a little on the creepy side. But I can see where a Lekkie might go that far.

4. Around the time that Darren met Charla he announce to his friends that he was "committed to being married within the year." Now this my friends is straight up Landmark jargon and something that a Lekkie wanting to get married would say. Big Red Flag! Now of course non Lekkies say the same things, but they don't use the Landmark Jargon.

5. Charla quoted to her lawyer that "she ultimately decided that his interests left her feeling unloved, unsupported, and unfulfilled." Hmmm.....unloved, unsupported, and unfulfilled....Three words in that manner, reminds me of the Advanced Course where you decide the person your going to be and you get to use up to three words to do so. Also unloved, unsupported, and unfulfilled...anyone involved with a Lekkie has probably felt that way at some point.

6. Mark Phillips, the weight lifter that Charla dated said Darren "was all about looking good." Hello world! More lekkie speak! This is was Landmark preaches as the common persons down fall and that people are "all about looking good." Darren didn't wan't people to find out that he was taking his daughter along with him on his Swinger Sex Capades. Looks to me like Mark Phillips is a Lekkie.

7. When Darren contacted Greta Van Susteren of fox news he said "I have a story to tell and a difference to be made." Here we go again Lekkies are "all about making a difference." From what I can tell, even though parts seems to be missing, the rest of what he told Greta is typical Lekkie reasoning.

8. Finally, and a very big one that should be looked into. The reporter is very close! She wrote "Killers, at least serial killers, are made from a perfect emotional storm of an abusive past, mental illness, and neurological defect, according to some forensic neurologists. The ballad of Darren and Charla makes me wonder if there's an ideal environment for murder, too. If so, I bet Reno's got it covered."

If you take a look at the statement it points you in the right direction and any of us familiar with LGAT's and Cults can see it. Let's not blame it on Reno, you can say that about any city anyplace on earth that is wild. Let's put the blame where blame belongs....Landmark. We all know that Landmark can cause psychosis in certain individuals, it's documented here on RR and other places. We've seen these things happen to our friends and loved ones. Heck, some of us have even experienced it first hand. The Communications Course disturbed me deeply once I grasped what was going on and put all the pieces together. I'm putting forth the notion that the fact that Darren was Communications Course instructor and his involvement with Landmark eventually pushed him over the edge. The "Technology" created an emotional storm, mental illness, and maybe even a neurological defect in Darren Mack. It eventually caused him to break. It could be said that he may have been prone to murder to begin with, but only if certain things were present to cause it, otherwise it may have stayed dorment. I believe that Landmark can create those circumstances.


I would like to hear everyones input on what I have said, whether you agree or disagree.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2008 07:13AM by Zorro.

Hey Zorro, that's a great post. Really appreciate your mentally crunching through this for us.

Just to clarify with sex life problems .... people start the course with no problems, and they then develop ... becoming evident during or after the Landmark Education course?

John

Quote
John Fox
Hey Zorro, that's a great post. Really appreciate your mentally crunching through this for us.

Just to clarify with sex life problems .... people start the course with no problems, and they then develop ... becoming evident during or after the Landmark Education course?

John

Not really sure. But it seemes odd to me that so many people I knew in Landmark were having problems in their love life. My love life / relationship problems didn't start until after I joined Landmark.

I also found it odd that many of the men didn't seem to have much of a sex drive. I didn't encounter many guys talking about pursuing women. Neither do I recall women trying to set up single guy friends with women in Landmark either. I know my pursuit of Lekkie women went no where.

One would think that with all the talk about getting complete and enrolling of people in common way of thinking that it would be one big love fest for the single Lekkies. But the reality was that it was much more of a desert waste land full of sexless robots!

Would Landmark induced "emotional unavailability" possibly be involved in this?

John