A Reno man suspected of stabbing his wife to death and shooting the family court judge who was hearing the couple's divorce turned himself in on Thursday in Mexico, officials said.
Darren Roy Mack, 45, was taken into custody about 10:30 p.m. in the lobby of a Puerto Vallarta hotel, said David Staretz, a spokesman for the FBI in Las Vegas. A bearded, unarmed Mack surrendered to Mexican immigration authorities, who were accompanied by an FBI agent.
In a statement, Mack's lawyer, Scott Freeman, said his client had chosen to surrender and return to Nevada instead of fighting extradition from Mexico. "He did so to be with his family, his children and to defend himself," the attorney said.
"The arrest of accused killer Darren Roy Mack proves that criminals cannot find a safe haven on either side of the border," Tony Garza, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said in a statement released by the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.
Mack was flown Friday from Mexico to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and was booked at Dallas County Jail. He was expected to be extradited to Nevada later, authorities said.
Earlier Thursday, authorities said Mack had failed to appear at the U.S. Consulate in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, as he had promised Washoe County District Attorney Dick Gammick, said Reno Police Chief Michael Poehlman.
Mack, who had owned a pawnshop in Reno, had been sought on a Nevada arrest warrant charging him with murder with the use of a deadly weapon in the killing of his wife, Charla Mack. Her body was found June 12, face-down in a pool of blood in a Reno home where Darren Mack had been living, according to a police affidavit.
The FBI had been seeking Mack on a federal warrant accusing him of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. The agency had placed Mack on its list of "Most Wanted" fugitives.
"We are greatly relieved that Darren Mack has been apprehended without any additional senseless bloodshed," the victim's brother, Christopher Broughton, told reporters Friday. "We look forward to justice being served for Charla's murder and the shooting of the judge. Nothing will bring my sister back. However, we don't have to look over our shoulders the rest of our lives."
Once Mack returns to Reno, it is expected he will be arrested on suspicion of attempted murder in the shooting of Family Court Judge Chuck Weller, who was shot once in the chest by a sniper through a window in his chambers, Reno police said Friday. Weller, who had been handling Mack's divorce case, has been released from a hospital. In a statement Friday, Jim Denton, a spokesman for Weller, said the judge and his family "are grateful that Mr. Mack has been apprehended and that this tragedy has been resolved in a peaceful manner without further bloodshed."
SFGate
:smoking:
uppy:
:lolBIG:
