Jury: Death for Deleon

Looking pale and wearing a wrinkled striped shirt and black slacks, former child actor Skylar Deleon did not flinch Thursday as a jury recommended death for his role in the 2004 slayings of Newport Beach yacht owners Tom and Jackie Hawks and the 2003 murder of Anaheim resident Jon Jarvi.

“I think of this as a small piece of justice,” said Tom Hawks’ son, Ryan Hawks, 32, after the verdict. “My parents are still tied to an anchor 3,600 feet below the ocean. They’re still stuck down there waiting for justice.”

Deleon briefly whispered in defense attorney Gary Pohlson’s ear after the verdict was read, but expressed no visible emotions.

“I look at him [Deleon] at every hearing and not once has he looked over at the victims’ families,” said Ryan Hawks.

The seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated for most of the day Wednesday and about four and a half hours Thursday before recommending death over a life-without-parole sentence for Deleon in the killings of Tom, 57, and Jackie Hawks, 47, and Jarvi, 45. Deleon is slated to return for formal sentencing Jan. 16.

Deleon, 29, who once had a bit part on the television show “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,” stole $50,000 from Jarvi in 2003 before slashing his throat in the desert outside of Ensenada, Mexico, and leaving him to die. In a separate scheme, Deleon also conned Tom and Jackie Hawks into thinking he was interested in buying their 55-foot yacht, the Well Deserved, in November 2004 before he and two other men bound and gagged the couple, lashed them to the anchor and tossed them overboard somewhere between Newport Beach and Catalina. Their bodies were never found.

Perhaps the most heinous part of the yacht slayings was the fact that Deleon gained the Hawkses’ trust before he killed them, said Senior Deputy District Atty. Matt Murphy.

“It boggles the mind, because he got to know them before he killed them,” Murphy said. “When Jackie Hawks begged for her life because she wanted to see her grandson ... he knew who that grandson was. He had seen photographs.”

Alonso Machain, an accused accomplice of Deleon, testified during the trial that the Hawkses were duped by Deleon’s story that he was a child actor who had money to burn and was looking for a boat for him, his wife and two kids.

After subduing the couple on their boat, during a test cruise to Catalina in November 2004, Deleon forced the couple to sign over legal power and access to their bank accounts under the guise they would be spared, Machain testified. Instead, Deleon sailed farther out and tied them to an anchor and threw them overboard.

Machain told jurors that Jackie Hawks cried and begged for mercy before she and her husband were cast overboard into the ocean.

The trial reopened old wounds, for the Jarvi family, said Jon Jarvi’s mother, Betty Jarvi.

Deleon reportedly lured Jarvi to Mexico in 2003 with promises of an easy-money business deal before robbing him and slitting his throat.

“It opened it all up again,” Betty Jarvi said.

Betty Jarvi had not seen the bloody crime scene photographs exhibited in court before the trial, she said.

“I had been shielded from that,” she said.

The jury deliberated for about two hours before convicting Deleon of all three killings Oct. 20.

Pohlson acknowledged his client’s guilt during opening arguments in the trial, focusing instead on saving Deleon from the death penalty by parading Deleon’s unhappy childhood before the jurors. Deleon’s family members testified during the penalty phase of the trial that he was beaten and emotionally abused by his drug-dealing father, John Jacobson Sr., and possibly molested.

Deleon’s stepmother, Melissa Wildin, testified in the trial that Jacobson would shove toothpicks underneath Deleon’s fingernails as punishment for biting them.

Jacobson also would beat Deleon for not tucking his shirt in properly, Wildin testified.

Pohlson did not regret focusing on the penalty phase of the trial, he said Thursday after the verdict was read. He prepared Deleon to expect a recommendation from the jury for the death penalty, Pohlson said.

“It was the only thing that gave us a chance,” Pohlson said. “Without that, they would have given me the death penalty.”

Deleon’s ex-wife, Jennifer Henderson, was convicted for her role in the Hawks killings last year and was sentenced to life without parole.

Another alleged co-conspirator in the yacht murders, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, is scheduled to stand trial in January, Murphy said.

Ryan Hawks called his brother, Matt Hawks, in Phoenix after the jury handed down their verdict Thursday.

“Two down, one to go,” he told his brother.

BRIANNA BAILEY may be reached at (714) 966-4625 or at [email protected].