Defense: Killer’s past led to crime

Like pillars removed from a building, every aspect of a normal childhood not available to convicted killer Skylar Deleon growing up narrowed his choices and made it harder for him to make good decisions, a psychologist for Deleon’s defense testified this morning.

“There’s always a choice, but people don’t always get the same choices,” testified Mark Cunningham, a 30-year veteran of clinical and forensic psychology, during Deleon’s death penalty trial Wednesday.

Cunningham acknowledged that Deleon knowingly chose to kill Newport Beach couple Tom and Jackie Hawks in 2004 and John Jarvi in 2003, but explained that his experiences growing up perhaps contributed to his criminal path as an adult.

The jury has found Deleon guilty of the murders and is now in the penalty phase.

As if a wall stood between a person and criminal activity, Cunningham said every positive aspect of growing up — a stable, supporting family, friendships — were bricks added to the wall.

The more bricks, the less likely it was for someone to make that leap into criminality.

For Deleon, he testified, there were barely any bricks, or positive aspects to his childhood, to deter him from a criminal future.

Cunningham listed nearly a dozen factors from childhood, all based on testimony and reports provided by the defense, to rationalize Deleon’s thought process. Cunningham did not personally interview Deleon.

He was “criminally indoctrinated” by his father, John Jacobson Sr., from the outset, Cunningham testified. Deleon’s relatives testified that from birth, Deleon was exposed to physical and emotional abuse, use of and dealing of illicit drugs, and graphic sexuality, including being molested himself. All of these would cloud Deleon’s perception of boundaries — legal, interpersonal and sexual — Cunningham told jurors.

But, he asked rhetorically, “Why is it that some people grow up in adverse circumstances and come out OK and others come out with extraordinarily bad outcomes?”

He broke it down to how the brain develops in the first five years, the “rebar and concrete” of personality and judgment.

“Some people, by the grace of God, get more rebar and concrete” for their foundation, he told jurors.

By the time Deleon was 6, when relatives testified he finally was put in a stable family environment with his mother and her new husband after his father went to prison, it was too late, Cunningham testified. Four to five years of a decent upbringing won’t deprogram his earliest years and won’t combat the nearly nine years afterward he spent with his father until Deleon joined the Marine Corps. Deleon’s value system was destroyed at the beginning, Cunningham testified.

“The foundation of this house is fundamentally fractured from the outset,” he told jurors.

Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Murphy punched as many holes into Cunningham’s assertions as he could during cross-examination.

Through sometimes heated exchanges, Cunningham maintained that his testimony about how Deleon’s upbringing could affect his choices was not an evaluation of the defendant, and was based solely on what defense attorney Gary Pohlson provided.

Murphy capitalized on that, disputing nearly every form of abuse and trauma Cunningham based his testimony on.

Was there any proof presented in court that Deleon was molested? No. Not even a police report, Murphy told Cunningham. What about the assertion that Deleon was “socially isolated” as his half-sister testified? Murphy asked Cunningham. A factor, if true, that would bolster the notion that Deleon did not value people outside of his relatives.

Murphy came back during cross-examination that Cunningham should have considered that Deleon’s cousin, Mike Lewis, testified that they grew up together as teenagers, when Lewis would hang out at Deleon’s house nearly every afternoon. Lewis painted a more stable environment during that time in his testimony. Murphy said sports activities like martial-arts classes, becoming a competitive surfer for Huntington Beach High School, getting married and befriending people at work as an adult did not point to the socially isolated person the defense was alleging.

“If what Gary Pohlson described to me was inaccurate, then my findings are...inaccurate,” Cunningham said. He maintained he was only testifying as to risks associated with certain incidents in a person’s childhood, regardless of who the person may be.

The trial will continue Monday. Murphy is expected to call in a family member of Deleon’s to rebut claims he was molested as a child and psychologist Park Dietz, who has testified in criminal cases for Ted Kaczynski, a.k.a. the Unabomber, Andrea Yates, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer and the so-called “D.C. Snipers” Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad to rebut Cunningham’s testimony.

JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at [email protected].