well deserved yacht sold

The Final Voyage: Retired California couple chained to anchor, thrown off their own yacht

04/30/2018 5:44 pm pdt.

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A headline-dominating murder mystery in California. A brutal crime filled with so much greed, deception and pure evil that it will continue to be talked about for years to come.

Thomas and Jackie Hawks were living the life they always dreamed of: sailing the Pacific Ocean for nearly two years on a yacht appropriately named Well Deserved .

"The best example one could ever hope for of how couples should treat each other," said Carter Ford, a friend of the Hawks. "They were just totally devoted."

The loving couple had worked hard their entire lives, Tom as a probation officer and Jackie as a stepmom to Tom's two sons. And when they retired, they bought their dream boat, the Well Deserved , a 55-foot yacht. Life couldn't have been better on board.

"They personally were precious people to talk with," said friend Judy Weightman.

Weightman and Ford moored their boats near the Hawks in the same upscale harbor in ritzy Newport Beach, California.

"They lived on the boat better than most people can live in a house," said Ford.

The Hawks cruised the most exotic ports of call from California to the Mexican Riviera. Little did Tom and Jackie know they would soon be headed into troubled waters and a dangerous transition they never saw coming.

After two years of endless vacations, Tom and Jackie's dream is suddenly interrupted in the most wonderful way.

"They had a new grandbaby in Arizona," said author Caitlin Rother.

Crime writer Caitlin Rother says Tom and Jackie decided to embark on a new journey.

"They wanted to get back to Arizona and spend time with this little boy," said Rother.

Tom and Jackie put their beloved Well Deserved up for sale. Instead of paying a hefty commission to a boat broker, they were going to sell the yacht themselves.

"For Tom and Jackie the savings of that fee was going to be significant with what they were going to have left, so they advertised in boating magazines," said Carter Ford.

The Hawks place a small ad in Yachting World magazine, asking $435,000 for the meticulously maintained Well Deserved.

Now all they needed was a legitimate buyer. And it didn't take long.

"They got interest from a buyer for the Well Deserved ," said Caitlin Rother. "This buyer though was young, 25 years old."

The buyer tells Tom he has cash -- lots of it.

"This guy said he had made money as a child actor and made some money in real estate," said Rother.

Initially Tom, the former probation officer is skeptical. But then the buyer does something that eases both Tom and Jackie's fears.

"He brought his wife, and his wife was pregnant, and she brought their little baby daughter in a stroller and that made Jackie and Tom trust them," said Rother.

The Hawks accept an all-cash offer for their asking price of $435,000, and an additional $15,000 for some personal items. Tom and Jackie celebrate their financial windfall with one last trip on board the Well Deserved .

But before the deal is officially sealed, the buyer calls with one more request: a sea trial to inspect the hull and to test the motors.

"The idea is to take the boat out on a sea trial and then they're going to come back and finish the deal," said Rother.

Tom and Jackie expect the buyer and his wife to show up. But this time he has a different crew.

"The buyer comes with a young guy, skinny guy and a much bigger guy, who he says is his accountant," said Rother.

The Hawks are a little suspicious, but agree, and cautiously navigate their way out of Newport Harbor and into open waters for one final voyage on the Well Deserved .

Carter Ford says he made plans to meet up with the Hawks later that night. But as darkness descended over Newport Harbor, he got a troubling message from Jackie.

"'Hey Carter, we don't know why we're not back at shore yet, we're still out here on the sea trial.' We really don't know what's happening other than the fact that they're telling us that there still sea-trialing the boat," said Ford.

Jackie says they'll let him know when they get back to the harbor. But they never called.

When the sun rises, the Well Deserved is moored back in Newport Harbor, but Tom and Jackie are nowhere to be found.

"When they never turned up, it sends chills up your back, of course," said Ford.

The 55-foot yacht is moored back in Newport Harbor, but the Hawks seemed to have vanished into the ocean air.

"They're not calling their friends, they're not calling their family, they're not answering their cellphones, and you know something's wrong," said author Caitlin Rother.

Rother says Tom and Jackie's SUV was also missing, so initially friends assumed the Hawks took a road trip to celebrate their financial windfall.

But when the Hawks failed to contact anyone for more than a week, the family asks Carter Ford to cruise out to the Well Deserved and dig around a little. And when Ford steps onboard the normally meticulously kept yacht, his heart sinks.

What first alerted you that something was wrong with the boat?

"The way it was left, not only was the boat sloppy, there was a white towel hanging out the port hole on the side," said Ford. "This does not look good."

The family immediately files a missing-persons report.

"When I first got the call, I had one of the detectives, I said 'Head out to the yacht, see what you can see,'" said retired Newport Beach Police Detective David Byington.

Retired Detective Sgt. Byington says the detective smashed the lock on the cabin door and entered with caution.

"There wasn't any signs of violence," said Byington.

They find that white towel and a fresh inkpad wedged between the master bed and a wall. Then something else stops him dead in his tracks: a receipt.

"And on this receipt were bleach, cleaning supplies, heavy-duty trash bags and Tums," said Byington. "Just something in the back of my head said 'Well, if I was going to commit a murder, that would be my 'clean kit.' I'd get bags to destroy evidence, clean up and down with bleach wipes, and maybe my stomach would be upset so I would take some Tums."

Newport Police now want to know who was buying the Well Deserved.

"So the buyers were this young couple, Skylar Deleon, 25 years old, and his wife, Jennifer. Jennifer's pregnant and they have a little baby daughter," said Caitlin Rother.

Skylar Deleon may look familiar: he's a former child actor appearing on the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" TV show. His wife Jennifer, the daughter of Christian evangelical parents, worked as a hairdresser.

"He wanted to get the boat with his wife to live on and charter and so have a business on the boat and take families out fishing," said Rother.

With still no sign of the Hawks, Byington secretly puts a surveillance team on the Deleons.

Undercover officer David Moon tracks them down at a local church, but they aren't there to pray. They're actually cleaning the church.

"We show up at a church and he's volunteering his time there with his wife and baby," said Byington.

"We'd also followed Jennifer, she was a hairdresser, and to her job, and she was just walking in, cutting hair," said Newport Beach Police Officer David Moon. "They looked pretty normal. Just a young couple doing their thing.

"I'm expecting to see, you know, some bad guys that you'd get from Hollywood casting. This wasn't it. This was this husband and wife volunteering their time at a church, cleaning," said Byington.

Skylar Deleon and his wife are regulars at church, but they're not volunteering much to help police find the Hawks.

Detectives uncover that Skylar was on probation after being busted for burglary. And when they dig into their finances, they find the couple is $87,000 in debt, living in Jennifer's parents' garage.

Cops start to wonder where in the world did they get the money to buy the Well Deserved ? It certainly wasn't from Deleon's acting career.

"Skylar Deleon had told people that he had been on 'Mighty Morpin Power Rangers,' but in fact it turned out he had just had two minor non-speaking roles," said Caitlin Rother.

Detective Byington hauls Skylar in for questioning, and in the recorded interrogation, Skylar adamantly maintains they did in fact buy the Well Deserved .

"We spent like 485 on it."

"And that was cash, right? That you paid them that day?"

"I go 'How is it that you have this money that you could buy this yacht?' And he said, he almost dropped his shoulders, and said 'I have to be honest with you, the money I got was from drug sales,'" Byington tells Crime Watch Daily.

Skylar says he gave Tom Hawks a briefcase filled with mostly one hundred dollar bills he'd laundered out of Mexico; he handed over the dirty money, and Tom and Jackie signed over the Well Deserved .

"Did he seem nervous?"

"He was excited but nervous. He was just like 'Let's just close this up.'"

"Was it in the trunk so you're out of view, or was it just on the back of the trunk?"

"We were out of view."

Skylar tells Byington the Hawks then asked him if he would use his connections to help the couple open up a bank account in Mexico so they could buy a house.

"He was saying that him and his wife, they were looking at places in San Carlos."

"Did he say anything specific regarding that? 'Cause that's what we're trying to focus looking for them."

"He just said that they liked the Sea of Cortez."

Skylar takes his story one step further, telling Detective Byington that Tom and Jackie even signed a power of attorney giving him full access to move all of their money to Mexico.

"You're telling me you got these two power of attorneys specifically for that, you didn't embellish it any other way. Nothing like that."

As suspicious as it all sounds, the Deleons produce a power of attorney that looks legitimate.

"They hand them over to the police, they are signed, everything looks OK," said Rother.

"Skylar, you have nothing to do with disappearance, wife doesn't either, nobody in your family, your dad. Nobody, right?"

"Even though the story didn't ring true, my first instincts, when I talked to Skylar, was that I don't see him doing anything," said Byington.

Adding to Skylar Deleon's credibility, cellphone towers show the Hawks' phones were "pinging" near the Mexican border the morning after they sea-trialed the boat with Skylar.

Detectives are back at zero, and they turn to the Hawks family for help.

"The Hawks' son Ryan is a really good-looking individual, so we put him in front of the cameras on national news for a plea to find this car and his parents," said Byington.

Cops get the hit they've been waiting for, and it's across the border.

"We finally got a call from an American citizen down in Mexico who said 'Hey, I'm watching the news right now and you say you're looking for a car and I'm looking at it,'" said Byington. "And sure as hell, here's the Hawks' vehicle sitting there."

Thomas and Jackie Hawks did what thousands of people do: They took out an ad to sell their yacht. Little did they know they were setting themselves up for a trap.

Detectives are staring at Tom and Jackie Hawks' missing SUV. It's spotted outside a house near Ensenada, Mexico.

Is this the break Newport Beach Detective Sgt. David Byington has been waiting for? The Hawks mysteriously disappeared more than a month prior, last seen heading out to sea onboard their yacht.

A Mexican federale takes the lead and knocks on the door. Byington speaks very little Spanish, but even he understands what the man says.

"The gentleman inside the house said the name Skylar Deleon," said Byington.

The same Skylar Deleon who bought the Well Deserved , and he wasn't alone.

"And then I hear the same Mexican gentleman inside say Jennifer's name," said Byington.

The gentleman at the door is an old surfing buddy, and says Skylar gave him the car. After that, Deleon's very pregnant wife Jennifer picked him up and drove him back to the States.

"He swabbed the knobs within the car and end up hitting Skylar's DNA on the heater knob in there, so it turned out to be amazing," said Byington.

Detectives now believe something bad happened to Tom and Jackie on the Well Deserved -- but what?

Orange County Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy smells big trouble.

"This case was uniquely diabolical," Murphy tells Crime Watch Daily.

Murphy suspects Skylar and possibly his wife Jennifer are both involved in the Hawks' disappearance, but he needs proof.

So he circles back to that power of attorney. Skylar told detectives the Hawks willingly signed it, hoping Skylar Deleon could help them buy a home in Mexico.

"They had a durable power of attorney, OK. That makes no sense," said Murphy. "That would give this young 22, 23-year-old couple, strangers to them still, access to their bank accounts."

Here's the problem: the notary, a woman named Kathleen Harris, tells cops it's the real deal, claiming she witnessed the Hawks signing the papers and personally took the required fingerprints to make the documents legal.

"She said, 'I was down there, I saw the transaction. I didn't see how much money was in the suitcase,' but she tells the same story essentially that Skylar told. They also had fingerprints all over the documents," said Murphy.

But when cops ask the notary to physically describe Tom and Jackie Hawks, she stumbles.

"She describes Tom to a tee, but she described Jackie as having brown curly hair, which was odd because Jackie, when they moved onto the Well Deserved , she cut her long curly hair and she spiked it and dyed it blonde. So that was one of those things, it didn't quite make sense."

Could the notary just be confused? The fingerprints on the power of attorney are an exact match, and the signatures also appear to be legitimate.

"We send these things off to the FBI and the finest handwriting experts in the world look at it and go, 'That is Tom's signature,'" said Murphy.

The experts also confirm it's Jackie's signature -- but there is something strange.

"Their last name is Hawks with an 's,' OK, and she wrote 'Jackie Hawk,' and somebody else came in later and wrote in an 's' that's inconsistent with her signature," said Murphy.

Murphy believes Jackie may have been secretly trying to alert someone they were in deep trouble.

"She wanted to send a signal to somebody in the future that something here is not right," said Murphy.

And just as Murphy is about turn the spotlight on the Deleons, the D.A. gets tipped off that Skylar is about to scramble like a cockroach looking for cover.

"Suddenly Skylar contacts his probation officer and says 'Can I get permission to leave the country?'" said Caitlin Rother.

So the quick-thinking D.A. comes up with a plan, and it's all caught on audio tape. An arrest warrant is issued for Skylar Deleon for money-laundering. During Skylar's interrogation, he confessed to laundering money from a Mexican drug deal.

As the officer moves in to cuff Skylar, he is reportedly wearing an adult diaper at the time.

"So they arrest Skylar and Jennifer has the gall to start being angry at the police officers, like 'You have some nerve to take my husband away,' and it was just an unbelievable scene," said Rother.

Detectives also head to that converted garage apartment at Jennifer's parents' place, where the two have been living. Cops hit the jackpot.

"They find all of Tom and Jackie's stuff. They find their camera, they find driver's license and other kinds of very personal belongings," said Rother.

And detectives can't help but notice that in Jackie's driver's license, she looks remarkably similar to how the notary described her.

"So that raised suspicions about the notary, and did the notary actually witness these documents being signed or not," said Rother.

Cops are beginning to suspect there are more people involved with the Hawks' disappearance than just the Deleons.

Detectives also stumble across something else in the garage that raises a few eyebrows.

"One of my detectives found a business card from LAPD and the detective was assigned to as a liaison with Interpol," said Byington.

Newport Police contact the Interpol agent, and when detectives reveal they're investigating Skylar's possible involvement in the disappearance of the Hawks, the agent hits them with a jaw-dropper.

"He says 'That's funny because I was talking to him a year ago because we were looking at him for murder of an American citizen in Mexico," said Byington. "I go, 'They killed the Hawks, because this is no way,' you know, this is too much of a coincidence."

But Mexican federales could never link Skylar Deleon to the murder.

"We have no proof he did anything illegal but its stinks on ice," said Byington.

The noose is quickly tightening around Skylar Deleon in the disappearance of Tom and Jackie Hawks. Cops just need to figure out motive and method.

On a hunch, Murphy calls an old boating buddy he met in Indonesia named "Salty Sam."

"I'm like, 'Hey, man. What should we be looking for on a boat if we're trying to figure out if there was a murder committed?' And without skipping a beat, he said 'Look for missing anchors,'" said Matt Murphy.

Investigators go back to the ad the Hawks had placed in that yachting magazine.

"And in every single photo there were two anchors on the bow," said Murphy.

They rush back out to the harbor to check the Well Deserved . And sure enough:

"On the bow of the boat there's only one anchor, and there should have been two," said Murphy.

"Our working theory was 'Hey, they had him sign the paperwork, they shot them, they threw them overboard,'" said retired Newport Beach detective David Byington.

Cops claim Skylar Deleon is actually a master manipulator. Detectives don't believe Deleon ever intended to buy Tom and Jackie Hawks' yacht. Instead, they say, he hatched a twisted plan to steal it by murdering the Hawks in cold blood, then dumping their bodies into the Pacific Ocean.

"Utterly diabolical," said Orange County Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy. "He used his kids to get two innocent people to trust him enough that he would go out to sea with them and they'd let their guard down. And that's what happened."

Murphy has Deleon arrested for money-laundering so he can build a case. But it becomes crystal clear Skylar Deleon didn't pull of the elaborate scheme by himself. Authorities believe his pregnant wife Jennifer was his partner in crime who helped him set the trap.

"The entire investigation at that point shifted to her," said Murphy.

Still, Murphy needs solid evidence to prove Jennifer was a willing accomplice. And he finally gets it.

"We actually have video surveillance pictures of them walking up to the teller, and Jennifer's got a grin ear to ear," said Byington. "They came up and said 'We want to get money out for the Hawks, and here's the power of attorney,' and the manager comes over and says 'I know the Hawks and I'm not giving you a dime until we verify this.'"

"Physically, she wasn't on that boat, she was absolutely on that boat in every other way. She's cheerleading the whole time," said Matt Murphy.

It was all the proof Murphy needed to charge Jennifer as an accomplice. But instead he makes Deleon's wife an offer he thinks she can't refuse: immunity. All Jennifer has to do is rat out her husband.

"She's probably about seven months' pregnant, at that point, so she told us to pound sand," said Murphy. "Young love prevailed and she said no."

Murphy then goes back to Kathleen Harris, the notary that he suspects lied about witnessing the Hawks sign the power of attorney documents. But Harris doesn't flinch either.

"Everybody stuck to the same story. So we had to see if there was somebody that would tell us the truth," said Murphy.

And there in black and white is the mistake that will sink the Deleon's story, a name staring prosecutors right the face: A signature on that power of attorney of a man who witnessed the deal going down, Alonso Machain.

"So Alonso was 19 years old at the time, living with his parents, and he's working at the Seal Beach city jail," said Murphy.

Machain worked as a jail guard, and he'd befriended Deleon when he was serving time for burglary.

"They develop this weird sort of friendship. And I mean he wraps Alonso around his finger and gets Alonso to go with him for all these meetings with Tom and Jackie Hawks," said Murphy.

But when cops try to haul Machain in for questioning, he flees to Mexico. Again, Murphy offers up a deal. He can't give Machain complete immunity, but if he returns and tells his side of the story, Murphy will take the death penalty off the table.

"He decided at that point to do the right thing," said Murphy.

Detectives turn on a tape recorder and Alsono Machain tells his story.

"Skylar approaches me with this plan he has. He was going to do something that was going to make some money. So he offers me to help him."

Machain tells detectives there was another man in Deleon's crew that day. Deleon introduced him to the Hawks as his accountant. But he was actually a notorious gang-banger and a convicted killer named John F. Kennedy.

"He'd been to prison before, he was an original founding member of a gang called the Long Beach Insane Crips," said Matt Murphy.

Machain says before he, Deleon and Kennedy board the Well Deserved , Deleon gives them strict orders.

"The plan is that we were supposed to kidnap them and take them out to sea and toss them overboard."

"And how was he planning to do that?"

"Tasers. He thought of Tasers."

Machain says once out to sea, they set their plan in motion. Kennedy pretends to be seasick and goes down below into the cabin.

"Mr. Hawks becomes concerned because John F. Kennedy is not returning, so he goes down, Skylar follows Mr. Hawks down to the lower area and that's when he gets ambushed," said David Byington.

Up on deck, Jackie Hawks hears the commotion.

"She says 'What's going on,' and that's when they were actually holding him down. Then that's when I realized that I had to, you know, hold her."

"Alonso at that point produces a Taser and tasers her," said Murphy.

"I was able to cuff Mrs. Hawks. At this time I walked her down to the bedroom area where Skylar told me to go get some tape from the engine room. He got the tape and he told me to tape their eyes, tape their mouth."

"Jackie Hawks is crying and screaming through the piece of cloth over her mouth, and Alonso says the only thing he can see is Mr. Hawks stroking her hand with his fingers, the handcuffed hands, trying to calm her down, and rightly so, because I know Tom Hawks knows what's going to happen," said Byington.

"They had them one by one go up to the kitchen area where she was first. They had her sign a power of attorney."

"Skylar told them 'I'm going to let you go if you cooperate. If you don't we're going to kill you here,'" said Byington.

Alonso Machain says Deleon then heads to the cockpit and punches coordinates into the GPS to steer straight toward the deepest part of the ocean near Catalina Island.

Jackie and Tom, still cuffed and blindfolded, are led to the deck of the boat.

"Got some rope, got up to the back, tied them together."

Then a sound pierces through the ocean waves, a sound Tom and Jackie have heard hundreds of times.

"At that point Skylar disconnects one of the anchors from the bow of the boat and he drags the chain, so they're inside a fiberglass boat and he's dragging the chain to the back," said Murphy.

"He knows that sound," said Byington. "You don't need vision to know that, 'cause they're blindfolded. That chain's coming down the side."

"And she's begging for her life and she's saying 'I have to see my grandchild one more time. I have to see my grandchild again. I'm too young to die,'" said Murphy. "And Tom was stroking her hand, saying 'It's OK, we're going to be together.' So at that point they know what's going to happen. They're going overboard."

"I didn't believe what I was looking at, just pushed them."

The brand new grandparents were still alive when the 50-pound anchor plummeted to the bottom of the sea, dragging the helpless couple 3,600 feet straight down.

Alonso Machain witnessed the inhumanity, and unbearable cruelty of Skylar Deleon, the twisted mastermind behind the murders.

"Skylar picked up this massive anchor and threw it over the side of the boat, and they have the most horrific death I can imagine, and their bodies were never recovered," said retired detective David Byington.

Machain, who helped Deleon kidnap the Hawks, is now a witness against him, telling investigators after Deleon threw the Hawks overboard, he started getting rid of any sign of the Hawks.

"He collected all of Tom and Jackie's personal photographs and tossed them overboard like they were Frisbees," said Matt Murphy. "Skylar had no remorse at all. Skylar Deleon is a complete psychopath."

Once Deleon got rid of the evidence, Machain tells investigators, Deleon and John Kennedy kicked back and started fishing on the way back to harbor in Newport Beach, California.

"How was Skylar acting maybe while this was happening?"

"He was calm, like it was the most normal thing."

Skylar Deleon, John Kennedy and Alonso Machain are all charged with two counts of first-degree murder. Days later, Jennifer Deleon is still standing by her man, telling a Los Angeles television station her husband is absolutely innocent.

Cops say not only is Skylar guilty, but Jennifer is too. Prosecutors charge Jennifer with two counts of murder, claiming she helped carry out the murders from the shore. The motive clear and simple: the Deleons wanted money.

"She's a witch. She knew that they had no money, and yet she's going out to meet the people that are selling Skylar this yacht, and she's bringing her child," said Byington. "She might as well have tied the anchor to those people and thrown them over too."

Separate juries hear each case, but they all come back with the same verdict: guilty.

Jennifer Deleon is sentenced to life in prison.

Alonso Machain is given leniency and sentenced to 20 years.

John F. Kennedy is sentenced to death for the double murder.

Before Skylar Deleon's trial even begins, he's hit with a third murder rap.

"He not only murdered the Hawks, but he murdered, slit the throat of another American in Mexico a year earlier," said Byington.

Cops say Deleon slit the throat of a man named Jon Jarvi after luring him with a promise of turning an investment of $50,000 into more cash. Prosecutors say there was no deal; the motive for the murder was all for fun.

"They purchased a new car because they wanted something to tool their little brood around in," said Matt Murphy. "And then he made a bunch of internet purchases including a $658 piston-driven sex toy."

Nearly five years after the Hawks were murdered, Skylar Deleon faces trial. He was found guilty and sentenced to death.

"There was another motive, and it was a primary motive, and that was that Skylar Deleon wanted to get gender-reassignment surgery," said crime author Caitlin Rother.

Rother, who wrote the book about the Hawks' grisly murders, titled Dead Reckoning , says Deleon desperately needed $17,000 to pay for surgery to transition.

"He had already put down a $500 deposit on this surgery and had one scheduled for two weeks after the Hawks were murdered, but they didn't have the money," said Rother.

Rother knows Skylar Deleon as well as anyone. She started visiting him in prison while researching her book.

"All Skylar wanted to talk was how he wanted to get rid of his penis," said Rother.

But with no money and thinking there was no chance of making the transition while sitting in a cell, Rother says Skylar made a desperate attempt.

"He tried to cut his penis off in jail with a razor," said Rother.

But now the state of California is paying for Skylar Deleon to transition to a woman. Deleon is currently sitting in the psych ward on death row at San Quentin.

"And Skylar is now living as a woman and wants to be called 'she,'" said Rother.

"It's ridiculous," said Byington. "There are legitimate people out there with transgender issues that work their tails off their whole life, if they are lucky enough to get a surgery. Skylar doesn't deserve that right. Skylar doesn't get to kill people and then get rewarded, and that's kind of the way it feels."

Skylar Deleon and his wife have since divorced while behind bars. Deleon continues to maintain he had nothing to do with the Hawks' deaths and has appealed his conviction.

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Tom and Jackie Hawks Killed in Yacht Murder By "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" Actor and His Wife

Skylar Deleon, who appeared on  Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,  tied Tom and Jackie Hawks to the anchor of their yacht and then threw them overboard with the help of his pregnant wife.

Thomas and Jackie Hawks christened their yacht “Well Deserved.” It was a fitting name for a happy and successful seafaring couple whose hard work enabled them to retire early and realize their dream lives in Newport Beach, California.

How to Watch

Watch The Real Murders of Orange County on Peacock and catch up on the Oxygen App.

But in 2004, the dream turned into a nightmare. They were murdered in what Caitlin Rother — the  author of Dead Reckoning and former San Diego Union-Tribune reporter —  described as the “most unbelievably horrible” way to Oxygen’ s The Real Murders of Orange County ,  streaming now   on Oxygen.com .

RELATED:  19-Year-Old Ashton Sachs Shoots And Kills Parents In "Brutal Crime" Before Sobbing At Their Funeral

After spending years traveling and living on their 65-foot-boat, Tom Hawks, a 57-year-old bodybuilder and former probation officer with two sons from a previous marriage, and his wife, Jackie, 47, were ready to leave the California coast and get their land legs back. 

Destination: Arizona, where they’d wed in a joyous Hawaiian-themed ceremony years before and now had their first grandchild. In mid-November 2004, they put Well Deserved up for sale and appeared to have found buyers.

But around that time, the Hawkses vanished. They didn’t return calls. Their bank account went untouched , the San Diego Union Tribune reported at the time.

Family and friends wondered if the Hawkses had possibly taken an impromptu voyage as a celebratory last hurrah, but it soon became clear something was amiss. Jim Hawks, a former police chief in nearby Carlsbad and Tom’s older brother, called authorities, according to the outlet . Officers from Carlsbad and Newport Beach police departments got busy on the missing persons case. 

The search began at the couple’s boat, and the discovery of what could have been a bloody partial fingerprint on the Hawks’ yacht gave authorities probable cause to enter the vessel and search for clues. 

No clear evidence emerged, however. Crime Scene Investigation analysis revealed that the suspected partial bloody fingerprint was actually rust. 

How did former  Mighty Morphin Power Rangers  actor Skylar Deleon become a suspect in the yacht murders?

Detectives then turned to Skylar Deleon, 25, and his wife, Jennifer Deleon, 23, who were listed as the buyers of the boat, Well Deserved. Skylar was a former child actor who appeared in the TV series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers  and dabbled in real estate. Jennifer was pregnant with their second child.

Detectives interviewed the couple in Long Beach, where they lived with Jennifer’s parents. They told authorities that they had paid cash — a whopping three quarters of a million dollars — for the yacht. The money had been saved from Skylar’s acting days, they claimed.

Authorities expressed doubts to Skylar about his story, and they were shocked when Deleon admitted that he was actually flush with cash because he was involved in large-scale drug sales — a felony. 

RELATED: Retired Marine's O.C. Murder Traced To His Ex-Girlfriend and Her Two Accomplices

“He admitted to money laundering,” investigators told producers. However, they decided to table this revelation to focus on the missing persons case.

Three weeks after the Hawkses disappeared, there was suspicious activity on their bank accounts. The people trying to access the money were the Deleons. 

This break in the case became doubly alarming. Investigators learned that Skylar was on probation for armed robbery. Moreover, documents showed that the Hawkses had given durable power of attorney to Skylar, which defied logic. 

Skylar, meanwhile, claimed the Hawkses signed over an all-access pass to their money because he was helping them secure a vacation home in Mexico.  

Careful scrutiny, though, raised a red flag: Jackie’s surname appeared to have been signed as Hawk, not Hawks. Did someone else add the “s”? Was it a subtle signal that Jackie signed under duress? 

Despite their suspicions, the document seemed to be above reproach. It bore the name of a witness — Alonso Machain, a friend of the Deleons — and a notary, Kathleen Harris. When questioned separately, their stories confirmed the transaction was legitimate. 

By mid-December, authorities “were desperate to find” the Hawkses, retired Newport Beach Police Department Det. Sgt. David Byington told producers. 

RELATED: "His Throat Was Cut On Both Sides": 24-Year-Old O.C. Man Murdered "With Sincere Hate"

After fliers and bulletins were distributed with information about the missing couple’s car, the vehicle was found across the border. 

Detectives recovered the missing couple’s Honda CR-V in Ensenada, Mexico, the Union-Tribune reported in 2004. The person who had the car said it had been a gift from the Deleons. 

“My heart stopped right there,” Byington told producers.

Inspecting the car for evidence became an urgent priority. Skylar had insisted during police interviews that he’d never been in the Hawks’ car. DNA evidence could prove otherwise. 

While awaiting that proof, detectives learned from Skylar’s probation office that the former child actor requested permission to leave the country for work.

Investigators needed to arrest Deleon, and luckily, they had a reason to in their back pocket: his admission of money laundering. They arrested Skylar at his Long Beach residence. Searching the premises, police found personal papers, IDs, videotapes, and a laptop that all belonged to Tom and Jackie Hawks. 

“Any hope the Hawkses were alive died right there,” Byington told producers.

Meanwhile, Deleon’s DNA turned up on a dashboard knob of the Hawks’ car. 

It was potentially a game-changer, but there was still a high hurdle, according to Newport Beach retired Det. Sgt. Mario Montero. “It’s hard to have a murder case when you don’t have any bodies,” he told producers.

There was more digging to do. Detectives re-interviewed Harris, who initially swore she saw Thomas and Jackie Hawks sign a document giving their power of attorney to Skylar Deleon.  Harris eventually admitted that she never laid eyes on Tom and Jackie Hawks. Motivated by making some extra money, Harris had backdated the documents to Nov. 15, 2004, at the Deleons’ request. 

RELATED: “Evil to the Bone”: O.C. College Student Stabbed 41 Times in Campus Parking Lot

Investigators then set their sights on Machain, who, they discovered, was in Mexico to elude arrest. Investigators believed that he was the only avenue to find out what happened to the Hawkses, so they took the death penalty off the table and Machain returned to California. 

The Yacht Murders

In early 2005 he related the details of the murder: Machain said he was present when the Hawkses were lured out to sea, forced to sign legal documents, and then tossed overboard chained to an anchor.  

Skylar had sought help from a Long Beach gang member named John F. Kennedy to help physically subdue the burly Tom Hawks. He passed Kennedy off as part of his business team. The presence of Jennifer Deleon, a mom with a baby on the way, helped convince the victims there was nothing to fear.

“She’s as evil as anybody on that boat,” Byington told producers.

How did Tom and Jackie Hawks die?

Tom and Jackie Hawks “were pulled down 3,500 feet to the bottom of the ocean,” said former San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Caitlin Rother. “They were drowned alive.”

Alonso Machain was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the heinous crime. Jennifer Deleon was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole . John Fitzgerald Kennedy was sentenced to death for his part in the murder of Thomas and Jackie Hawks. 

What happened to Skylar Deleon?

Convicted murderer Deleon was sentenced to die by lethal injection . However, because of California’s moratorium on the death penalty, the ringleader in the deaths of Tom and Jackie Hawks will live out his days on Death Row.

Where to Watch  The Real Murders of Orange County

You can watch The Real Murders of Orange County on the  Oxygen app . The first two seasons are also available on  Peacock .

Originally published Nov 15, 2020.

The Real Murders of Orange County

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Yacht from murder for sale

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EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the ninth in a series of the top stories of each year since 2000. Look for the 2009 story of the year Thursday.

The 55-foot yacht where Thomas and Jackie Hawks met their fate between Newport Beach and Catalina Island is still up for sale at a local yacht brokerage firm.

Yacht broker Jerry Wakefield of Dixon Yachts International in Newport Beach has had serious buyers look at the Well Deserved, a fiberglass Lien Hwa trawler with a hand-carved teak interior, but none have been able to put the funds together to finance the boat.

Because of the bad economy, it’s harder for potential buyers to finance an older boat like the Well Deserved, Wakefield said.

“It’s just about getting the right person in it,” he said.

The Well Deserved was released earlier this year to Thomas Hawks’ sons, Ryan and Matt Hawks, after sitting in a city shipyard for the past four years, a piece of evidence in one of the most publicized murder cases of the past decade.

The sons put the boat up for sale last summer.

Attempts to reach Ryan Hawks, who has acted as a spokesman for the family in the past, were unsuccessful.

“I know it’s been tough for them because it’s pretty much the worst time to sell a yacht in this economy and it’s a notorious boat now,” said Orange County Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Murphy, who prosecuted the case.

The boat is priced at $229,000, a little more than half what the Hawkses were asking for it in 2004, when con man Skylar Deleon convinced the couple he was a successful former child actor with money to burn who wanted to purchase the vessel.

Deleon, 30, who once had a bit part on the television show “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,” was convicted in 2008 of conning the Hawkses into showing him the Well Deserved before he and two other men bound and gagged the couple, lashed them to the anchor and tossed them overboard. Their bodies were never found.

In April, Orange County Superior Court Judge Frank Fasel handed Deleon a death sentence for the Hawkses’ murders and the separate 2003 murder of Anaheim resident Jon Jarvi.

Deleon is incarcerated at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville. The men’s prison is reserved for inmates with serious mental or physical health problems.

Citing state and federal privacy laws, officials from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said Tuesday that they could not disclose why Deleon was being held at the medical facility instead of San Quentin State Prison, where most death row inmates reside.

Calls to Deleon’s attorney, Gary Pohlson, were not immediately returned.

Deleon’s accomplice, Long Beach Insane Crips gang member John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was also sentenced to death in May.

Deleon’s ex-wife, Jennifer Henderson, was convicted for her role in the Hawks killings in 2007 and sentenced to life without parole. Henderson helped Deleon gain the Hawkses’ trust by visiting the Well Deserved with her infant daughter. She was also pregnant with her and Deleon’s second child at the time of the murders.

Another accomplice, Alonso Machain, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in the Hawkses’ deaths as part of a plea agreement. Myron Gardner, who played a tangential role in the murders, was sentenced to a year in jail and given credit for time served.

The fact that Jackie Hawks cried and begged Deleon to spare her life that November night in 2004, while lashed to the anchor of the Well Deserved will always stick with Murphy, he said.

“It was a horrific way to die, crying and begging for her life,” Murphy said. “The lingering thing for me is how do you cry and hold your breath at the same time.”

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The Gruesome Yacht Murder Case of Thomas and Jackie Hawks

• Well Deserved

Monday, Nov. 15, 2004, was the perfect day for a cruise. Clear and bright, the temperature was in the mid-70s with winds less than 10 mph. A typical California day.

It was at times such as this that Thomas and Jackie Hawks probably felt twinges of regret for deciding to sell their beloved 55-foot yacht, the Well Deserved . The vessel had been their home for the previous three years as they had cruised the western coast of Mexico, living a life of which most people can only dream. The retired couple had advertised their yacht for sale in a boating magazine, wanting to find owners who would take good care of it.

Skylar and Jennifer Deleon seemed to fit that bill. Young, charming, good looking, with one daughter and another on the way, the Deleons appeared to be the perfect buyers. Skylar identified himself as a former actor and entrepreneur, Jennifer a hairdresser. On a prior visit to see the yacht, Jackie had been won over by the couple's infant daughter and couldn't help talking about how excited she was to see her stepson's new baby.

The deal appeared to be settled; all that remained was a test cruise. Skylar arrived around 3:30 p.m. with two men he introduced as his accountant and a friend, John F. Kennedy and Alonso Machain, respectively. The Well Deserved was docked at Newport Harbor, and the group would sail off the coast of Orange County. Jackie made a cell phone call to a friend at 4:06 p.m. saying "We're out at sea." It was the last anyone would hear from them.

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Retired California couple suspiciously disappears after selling dream yacht: Part 1

Tom and jackie hawks traveled for two years on their yacht, the "well deserved." when one of their sons told them he and his wife were expecting, they decided to sell it to be closer to the baby., january 18, 2020, what’s next for russia, what comes next after texas school shooting, what's next for abortion rights in america, the new battle for voting rights, how we can build a clean and renewable future, the fight for kyiv, examining extremism in the military, gun violence: an american epidemic, border crisis: what’s happening at the us-mexico border, remembering george floyd: a year of protest, the source of covid-19: what we know, how did the gamestop stock spike on wall street happen, why are people hesitant to trust a covid-19 vaccine, how climate change and forest management make wildfires harder to contain, disparity in police response: black lives matter protests and capitol riot, 2020 in review: a year unlike any other, examined: how putin keeps power, why don’t the electoral college and popular vote always match up, us crosses 250,000 coronavirus deaths, 2nd impeachment trial: what this could mean for trump, presidential transition of power: examined, how donald trump spent his last days as president, how joe biden's inauguration will be different from previous years, belarus’ ongoing protests: examined, trump challenges the vote and takes legal action, 2020’s dnc and rnc are different than any before, what is happening with the usps, voting in 2020 during covid-19, disinformation in 2020, abc news specials on, impact x nightline: on the brink, impact x nightline: unboxing shein, the lady bird diaries, impact x nightline: it's britney, impact x nightline: natalee holloway -- a killer confesses, impact x nightline: who shot tupac, impact x nightline, power trip: those who seek power and those who chase them, the murders before the marathon, the ivana trump story: the first wife, mormon no more, leave no trace: a hidden history of the boy scouts, keeper of the ashes: the oklahoma girl scout murders, the orphans of covid: america's hidden toll, superstar: patrick swayze, the kardashians -- an abc news special, 24 months that changed the world, have you seen this man.

“Muscle” in Yacht Killings Convicted of Murder

Published february 19, 2009 • updated on february 19, 2009 at 8:24 pm.

SANTA ANA, Calif. -- A former gang intervention worker for the city of Long Beach was convicted Thursday of two counts of first-degree murder in the killings of a couple tied to an anchor and thrown off their yacht, which they had put up for sale.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 43, was the third person to go on trial for the murders of Thomas and Jackie Hawks, who took prospective buyers out for a test run on their 55-foot trawler on Nov. 15, 2004, and were never seen again.

The seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated several hours before convicting Kennedy of the two murder counts, and found true the special circumstance allegations of multiple murder and murder for financial gain.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Kennedy, who prosecutors said was recruited as "muscle" in the killings. he penalty phase of his trial will begin Monday morning.

Jurors will have to decide between recommending capital punishment or life in prison without the possibility of parole for Kennedy, who has a prior strike for a 1988 attempted murder conviction.

Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy said the mastermind of the plan to steal the yacht "Well Deserved," which was offered for sale for $465,000, was Skylar Deleon, who was convicted of the murders and faces the death penalty when he is sentenced on March 20.

Deleon's wife, Jennifer Henderson, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in October 2007 for her role in the plot.

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When Skylar Deleon and Alonso Machain, a former jailer at the Seal Beach Jail, met with the Hawkses early in November, they realized they needed help from a third person because Thomas Hawks, a retired probation officer, was a strapping, fit man who had been a wrestling champion in high school, the prosecutor said. 

Deleon turned first to another Long Beach resident, who turned down the job and suggested another man who "flaked," at which point Kennedy's name came up, the prosecutor said.

"They told him they'd pay him a lot of money if he helped commit those murders," Murphy told the jury last month. 

The plan was to introduce Kennedy as an accountant to get him aboard and to quell any suspicions, he said.

After getting Thomas Hawks below board on a pretext, Kennedy grabbed him by the throat and got him in a headlock, at which point Deleon pulled out a stun gun and kicked the 57-year-old boat owner in the face, Murphy said.

Machain subdued Jackie Hawks in another area of the boat, and for two hours as the boat headed out to sea, the 47-year-old woman begged for her life while her husband tried to calm her, according to the prosecutor, who said both victims had duct tape over their eyes and mouths.

He said the couple quickly agreed to cooperate with their attackers, and had signed over a boat ownership form as well as a power of attorney form that Deleon later told detectives he was going to use to help Tom Hawks set up a bank account in Mexico for buying property there.

While on deck, Tom Hawks fought back, kicking Deleon in the groin and almost knocking him off the boat. Kennedy punched the victim in the side of the head, and he went limp, the prosecutor said. The men then tied the couple to the anchor and threw it overboard, he said.

The three divided up $3,600 that was on the boat, and on the way back, Kennedy popped open a can of beer and fished, Murphy said.

Defense attorney Winston McKesson told jurors that his client, formerly known by the moniker "CJ" for Crazy John, had left street violence behind and was preparing to take over a ministry that helps former gang members get away from their past.

McKesson argued that Machain, the main witness against his client, did not know Kennedy's name and identified him only by picking out a photo from a police "six-pack."

Murder yacht ‘Well Deserved’ is a blessing and…

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Murder yacht ‘Well Deserved’ is a blessing and a burden

The 55-foot boat named "Well Deserved" is the scene of Thomas and Jackie Hawks murder, according to Orange County Disrict Attorney Tony Rackauckas.

The yacht the 'Well Deserved' being moved along city streets to dry dock so it coud be preserved as evidence in the murder trials for three defendants accused of murdering owners, Tom and Jackie Hawks, by tying them to an anchor and throwing them overboard.

Thomas and Jackie Hawks, a couple who had a mooring in Newport. Police believe the couple is dead. HANDOUT

Thomas and Jackie Hawks wanted to sell their yacht so they could move closer to their new grandsonm, Jace, in Arizona.

The gunwale on the port side of Well Deserved can be seen past covered feet of Det. David Byington. This is the location were Skyler Deleon threw the anchor, attached to Thomas and Jackie Hawks overboard, dragging them both into the water. Jackie's head hit the gunwale as she was dragged off the yacht.

The port side of the Well Deserved shows the narrow passage that the anchor was dragged through so Thomas and Jackie Hawks could be tied to it.

In the lower center of the photo, the weight bench Thomas Hawks attached to the mast of the Well Deserved is visible. The box at the bottom left held the weights and dumb bells Hawks would used for his workouts.

A box located next the mast of the Well Deserved holds the dumb bells and weights Thomas Hawks used for workouts while on the yacht.

Det. David Byington of the Newport Beach police department looks back towards the mast of the Well Deserved where Thomas Hawks had a weight lifting bench attached for his workouts.

The plastic covering on the Well Deserved is visible on the bow where one of the two anchors is missing and was the one bound to Thomas and Jackie Hawks when they were thrown overboard in 2004.

Above the instrument panel in the cockpit of the Well Deserved yacht Thomas Hawks placed a label stating: "The destination is not rewarding if you have not experienced the journey."

The cockpit of the Well Deserved yacht.

A letter dedicated to Jackie Hawks is on display in the stairway inside the Well Deserved yacht.

The downstairs bedroom where Thomas Hawks was subdued. Then both he and his wife Jackie were put on the bed where they were restrained and duct taped.

The downstairs bedroom is where Thomas Hawks was subdued.

The kitchen area of the Well Deserved is where Alonso Machain overpowered Jackie Hawks. The counter to the left is where they brought up Thomas and Jackie one at a time to sign over the documents to the yacht. The stairway at the right is where Skylar Deleon sat with his laptop and input bank account numbers and PIN numbers the Hawks were forced give up.

Det. David Byington of the Newport Beach police department, wearing booties and gloves, walks through the kitchen area of the yacht Well Deserved. The countertop at left is where Thomas and Jackie Hawks were brought up one at a time and forced to sign documents transferring ownership of the yacht. The stairway at right is where Skylar Deleon sat with his laptop inputting the Hawk's bank account numbers and PIN numbers.

The living and kitchen area of the Well Deserved owned Thomas and Jackie Hawks who were murdered after being subdued, tied to an anchor and thrown overboard in 2004. The Hawks' sons, Ryan and Matt, are now faced with relocating and selling the yacht.

This is the location were Skyler Deleon threw the anchor overboard that was attached to Thomas and Jackie Hawks dragging them into the water. Jackie's head hit the gunwale as she was dragged off the yacht.

Det. David Byington of the Newport Beach police department points out where Thomas and Jackie Hawks were bound to an anchor and thrown overboard in 2004.

Det. David Byington of the Newport Beach police department climbs up a ladder to open up an entry to the plastic enclosed yacht Well Deserved. The yacht is largest piece of evidence preserved in an Orange County criminal case.

The dry-docked yacht Well Deserved is wrapped in plastic and stored in a city yard near Fashion Island. The yacht is lthe argest piece of evidence preserved in an Orange County criminal case. It was owned by Thomas and Jackie Hawks who were murdered when a band of thieves subdued them, tied them back-toback to an anchor and threw them overboard in 2004. The Hawks' sons, Ryan and Matt, are now faced with relocating and selling the yacht.

Thomas and Jackie Hawks on their 55-foot-yacht "Well Deserved."

The Well Deserved, wrapped in an evidence preserving plastic wrap is making it the largest piece of evidence preserved in an Orange County criminal case.

Det. David Byington of the Newport Beach police department exits grounds where the dry-docked yacht Well Deserved is wrapped in plastic and stored in a city yard near Fashion Island. The yacht was owned by Thomas and Jackie Hawks who were murdered when a band of thieves subdued them, tied them to an anchor and threw them overboard in 2004. The Hawk's sons, Ryan and Matt, are now faced with relocating and selling the yacht.

The 55-foot boat named "Well Deserved" is the scene of Thomas and Jackie Hawks murder, according to Orange County Disrict Attorney Tony Rackauckas.

To read Part 1 click here

NEWPORT BEACH Tom and Jackie Hawks loved their adventures aboard their dream yacht , the Well Deserved.

But in 2004, after two years at sea, a new adventure presented itself: A grandchild.

Problem was, the baby boy was in Prescott, Arizona. They weren’t.

So Tom and Jackie put the Well Deserved up for sale.

And that’s what brought them into contact with Skylar Deleon, a felon and former child actor, who wanted the yacht for his own.

Instead of buying the boat, Deleon intended to steal it.

On Nov. 15, 2004 Tom and Jackie Hawks were lured to sea by Deleon for what was supposed to be a test to demonstrate features of the Well Deserved.

But somewhere near Catalina, Deleon and accomplice John F. Kennedy subdued Thomas Hawks, 57, below deck with the help of a Taser gun.

Alonso Machain, another co-conspirator grabbed Jackie Hawks, 47, in the galley. The couple was bound, blindfolded, gagged and told if they wanted to live, they must cooperate.

Deleon sat on a stairwell near the galley with a laptop as Tom and Jackie were forced to sign sales documents.

Then they were tied to a 55-pound anchor and – as Jackie Hawks begged for their lives – thrown overboard.

Their bodies have never been recovered.

The plot did not succeed.

Deleon and Kennedy were tried separately and convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and are awaiting possible death sentences later this month.

Jennifer Henderson, Deleon’s former wife, was convicted for her role in putting the Hawkses at ease so they would agree to go on the fatal cruise with her husband. She is serving a life term without the possibility of parole.

Machain, the third thief on board, cooperated with law enforcement and testified against the others in exchange for escaping a potential death sentence. He is expected to plead guilty and is looking at a life term in prison.

During the four-plus years that the case has been in the criminal courts, the Well Deserved was preserved as evidence – perhaps the largest single item ever saved in an Orange County criminal case.

Life as a piece of evidence has not been easy on the Well Deserved.

Teenagers vandalized the boat when it was tied to its mooring off 15th Street in Newport Beach, unaware that it was the yacht in the headline-making murder case. Incontinent sea lions trashed the Well Deserved when they turned it into their own private sun deck.

After a year, Newport Beach police and the Orange County District Attorney’s Office towed the trawler on a large flatbed truck through city streets to a dry dock on scaffolding on city-owned land near Fashion Island.

The boat that once was a dream for the Hawkses was locked up and encased in white plastic.

Even then, some neighbors complained the notorious “murder boat” was stored near their backyards and was hindering their view.

Now, with all the trials over, the boat is no longer needed as evidence.

It will soon be released to Ryan Hawks and his brother Matt.

It is a blessing for the brothers, because it was their parents’ home for the final two years of their lives, and has some financial value: Before they were murdered, the Hawkses advertised the yacht for sale for $465,000.

But it is also a burden, because now Ryan and Matt must decide what to do with it. Ryan is an operations manager for a medical equipment company in San Diego. Matt is a firefighter in Prescott. They don’t have a lot of extra money.

They will need to quickly find a new location for the Well Deserved, either in the water or in another dry dock. Then they will have to pay rent, maintenance, insurance and taxes.

Susan Kang Schroeder, spokeswoman for the DA’s Office, said this week that authorities will pay to move the yacht to a new location.

But, after the move, the boat will be the responsibility of Ryan and Matt Hawks.

The long range plan, Ryan Hawks said, is to sell the yacht — not because of what happened to their parents aboard it, but because they are not at a point in their lives where they can afford or maintain the yacht.

The problem, Ryan Hawks said, “is this is not the best time in the world to be selling anything right now, especially a yacht.

So they may have to keep the Well Deserved in storage until the market improves.

But until then, the Well Deserved sits on scaffolding that is sinking into the asphalt under the weight of the boat in a city yard.

Inside, the yacht looks just as the way it did when Tom and Jackie Hawks cruised along the coastline in 2003 and 2004, a place for everything and everything in its place.

“The Well Deserved is like a museum,” said Newport Beach Detective Sgt. Dave Byington during a tour of the boat last week.

Byington and Detective Evan Sailor played the lead roles in the four-year investigation, turning a missing persons report into the prosecution and murder convictions of three defendants. Along the way, they came to know every detail about the Well Deserved.

“It was such a perfect boat for Tom and Jackie,” Byington said. “It was aptly named the Well Deserved, because they so deserved that life style.

“No one will ever enjoy it as much as they did.”

To contact Ryan Hawks, go to tomandjackiehawks.com

Contact the writer: [email protected] , or 714-834-3784

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Yacht With Chilling Past Up for Sale

By jonathan lloyd • published june 19, 2009 • updated on june 19, 2009 at 6:43 am.

Tom and Jackie Hawks wanted to sell their yacht -- the Well Deserved -- because they planned to move closer to their newborn grandchild in Arizona.

The 55-foot Lien Hwa trawler has two decks, two staterooms and hand-carved teak interior. The couple put about $50,000 into improvements.

All attractive features for any potential buyer.

But the Well Deserved will forever be associated with what happened on Nov. 15, 2004. That's when  the Hawks were bound, tied to a 60-pound anchor and thrown overboard. Long Beach residents Skylar Deleon , 29, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy , 43, were sentenced to death in the case. Investigators said Deleon, posing as a buyer and Kennedy, posing as an accountant, went aboard the Well Deserved under the guise of taking a test run. In a video posted on the OCRegister.com , detective David Byington explains what happened next. Byington tours the boat and describes the confrontation between the Hawks and their attackers. "I don't like being down here," Byington said while showing the camera crew the bedroom in which the Hawks were bound. "I don't even like being on this boat. I feel like I'm still invading their home. The worst part is they were downstairs for several hours, and they knew they were going to die." The Hawks' dream boat will be for sale next week. The couple intended to spend some of the happiest years of their lives aboard the boat after Tom Hawks retired after 17 years as a probation officer.

They wanted to sell the Well Deserved so they could return to Arizona to live near their newborn grandson. Tom Hawks' sons, both of whom are in their early 30s, were left with the responsibility of maintaining -- and now selling -- the boat. It will be placed on the market next week after it is returned to Newport Harbor, according to the newspaper. Ryan Hawks , one of Tom's sons who lives in Carlsbad, said the yacht broker indicated it will be listed for about $229,000. That's about $70,000 less than the Hawks paid in 2002.

Investigators were holding the yacht until the end of the criminal cases.

These practical finds will make any routine easier, starting at $10

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Former child actor admits killing couple for yacht

For nearly four years, Ryan and Matt Hawks have felt certain that a former small-time child actor masterminded the vicious murder of their parents, who were tied to the anchor of their yacht and thrown to their deaths in the Pacific Ocean off Catalina Island.

The brothers sat in the TODAY studio in New York Friday with the show’s co-host, Meredith Vieira, and looked at photographs of their father, Tom Hawks, and stepmother, Jennifer Hawks, tanned and smiling aboard the “Well Deserved,” the 55-foot yacht they had saved a lifetime to buy.

Two days earlier, the attorney for Skylar Deleon, who once had a non-speaking bit part in “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,” admitted in an Orange County, Calif., courtroom that Deleon was the mastermind of the plot to murder the Hawks and steal their yacht. The admission was made during opening arguments in the trial, which is no longer about whether Deleon did it, but what his sentence should be: death, or life behind bars.

Back to land Tom Hawks had planned for most of his life to retire on a yacht with his second wife, Jackie. A body builder and probation officer, he realized his dream while still in his mid-50s.

After cruising the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Cortez off Mexico for two years, the Hawks had decided to sell their boat to move back to Arizona, where they could be closer to their first grandson. Their sons, Matt and Ryan, looked forward to having them back home and sharing their lives with them.

“They realized there was more to life than this boat and seeing the curve of the earth, and that’s what really made them want to sell the boat and come back and be a part of our lives, and especially part of their grandson’s life,” Ryan Hawks told Vieira.

He last talked to his parents by phone on Nov. 14, 2004, the day they disappeared. “I was flying to Seattle for work,” Ryan Hawks said. “It was on the last voyage of ‘Well Deserved.’ I kind of pushed them off the phone; I was running late for a plane. I just felt bad. I had no idea that was the last time I’d talk to them.”

On that day, Tom, 57, and Jackie, 47, set sail for Catalina Island on a test cruise with Skylar Deleon and two other men, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Alonso Machain. Deleon was a smooth-talking 29-year-old career criminal who bragged about being a former child television star who wanted to buy the boat. In reality, Deleon had had just one non-speaking bit part in 1994 on “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers,” and had been in trouble almost ever since. He introduced Kennedy and Machain as his accountants.

Thieves fall out Machain admitted his role in 2005 and is awaiting sentencing. Kennedy is to be tried next year. The fourth member of the plot, Deleon’s former wife, Jennifer Henderson, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder last year and will spend the rest of her life in prison.

According to that confession, after overpowering the Hawks with a stun gun, the conspirators forced them to sign over title to the yacht. Then, duct-taped together and tied to an anchor, they were thrown into the ocean to drown. Their bodies were never recovered.

Now Ryan and Matt Hawks just want to see justice served on Deleon, who, according to his own lawyer, Gary Pohlson, also killed another man in 2003. Deleon committed that murder when he was on work furlough from a sentence he was serving for burglary.

Pohlson told the jury Tuesday that his purpose in admitting Deleon is guilty was to save his client from the death penalty.

Justice at last Matt Hawks said when he heard Pohlson’s statement, “I was kind of relieved in a way, just [at] the thought that they’re admitting guilt. It’s been four years; it’s been a long time. I’m looking forward to this trial, and I’m sure the jurors will make the correct decision.”

Ryan Hawks said it isn’t easy being at the trial and hearing again about the murders. But, he told Vieira, “It’s important to us as a family, because this is the last thing we’ll ever get to do for our parents. And as much as it hurts, we just need to be there and represent them. We’re a true testament to our parents’ parenting, and we feel it’s necessary.”

Matt Hawks said the hardest part for him is thinking about what he and his two children are missing. “It’s just been very difficult,” he said. “I’m raising two beautiful children now. And I don’t have the grandparents so that they can share their lives with them. It’s just very hard not having them around to share the best part of our life, and the best part of our family’s life with them.”

Both brothers said their parents had talked about their plans to sell the yacht and move back home. The parents mentioned that the man who wanted to buy it was a former child star, but neither of the two sons had ever watched “Power Rangers,” so they weren’t especially impressed.

“I was just happy they were selling the boat and coming back to spend a lot more time with [their grandchildren],” Matt Hawks recalled. “They’d be much more grounded with my family. We’d be able to travel out to see them, as I was able to back when I didn’t have children.

“I was looking forward to them coming home.”

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Murder at sea

May 1, 2009 / 12:56 PM EDT / CBS News

Skylar Deleon Murder Yacht Ready To Be Sold By Yacht Broker

Contributor

Skylar Deleon, 29, along with two co-conspirators, overpowered the couple, forced them to sign over ownership of their yacht, then tied them to an anchor and threw them overboard.

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Mike Lynch, Tech Mogul Acquitted of Fraud, Dies at 59

The British entrepreneur was found not guilty of fraud charges in the sale of his company to Hewlett-Packard. He was celebrating his acquittal when his yacht sank off the coast of Sicily.

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By Michael J. de la Merced

Michael de la Merced reported on Mike Lynch’s career and legal battles over the course of 13 years across two continents.

Mike Lynch , a British software mogul who was once celebrated as a top technology leader — only to spend more than a decade defending himself against accusations that he orchestrated one of the biggest frauds in Silicon Valley history — died on Monday after his yacht sank off the coast of Sicily . He was 59.

An official in the Italian city of Palermo confirmed on Thursday that Mr. Lynch’s body had been recovered by divers.

Twelve guests and 10 crew members were onboard the yacht, the Bayesian, when it went down during a violent storm. Mr. Lynch’s wife, Angela Bacares, was rescued, along with nine crew members and six passengers. Seven bodies have been recovered, including one thought to be that of Mr. Lynch’s daughter, Hannah Lynch.

Mr. Lynch’s death came two months after he was acquitted in federal court in San Francisco of criminal fraud charges, tied to the $11 billion sale of his company, Autonomy, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. The takeover, widely regarded among investors as one of the worst deals in history , led HP to accuse Mr. Lynch of deception.

Prosecutors in the United States charged Mr. Lynch with more than a dozen counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the deal, with a potential sentence running to about two decades in prison.

On the day in 2023 that a British judge found him liable for civil fraud in the matter, the British government — despite numerous appeals by Mr. Lynch — approved his extradition to the United States. He was confined to a townhouse in San Francisco under 24-hour surveillance, on his own dime. During his house arrest, his mother, Dolores, and his brother, Richard, died.

The accusations sullied the reputation of Mr. Lynch, who was known at one point as Britain’s Bill Gates.

Michael Richard Lynch was born on June 16, 1965, to Michael and Dolores Lynch, working-class immigrants from Ireland, and grew up outside London. He attended private school on a scholarship and graduated from Cambridge before founding Autonomy in 1996. The company helped clients analyze unstructured information to unearth hidden insights about their businesses.

By 2011, Autonomy had become one of Britain’s most prominent technology companies, with its home base sometimes called “Silicon Fen” — a name derived from its location at the southern tip of the Fenland, a marshy area in eastern England.

Mr. Lynch became a celebrity in British tech circles. He was a member of the Royal Society, one of the country’s top scientific associations; an adviser to David Cameron, the prime minister at the time; and a member of the BBC’s board.

Autonomy drew the attention of HP, which had sought to transform its fortunes by buying a high-powered software company, and which eventually paid 60 percent over the British company’s market value. But investors and analysts opposed the deal, and HP wrote down the value of the transaction by $8.8 billion. HP fired the chief executive who led the deal and, soon after, Mr. Lynch himself.

Meg Whitman, the former eBay leader who took over HP, accused Mr. Lynch and his lieutenants of “serious accounting improprieties” that misled her company over the state of Autonomy’s business.

But Mr. Lynch — armed with the hundreds of millions that he collected from Autonomy’s sale — hired an army of lawyers to argue that HP had been aware of the company’s practices. His team also said that Mr. Lynch had largely delegated the company’s day-to-day financial operations.

Mr. Lynch’s trial began in San Francisco in March. It stretched out over three months and involved reams of often dense internal documents. After two days of deliberations, a jury found Mr. Lynch and Stephen Chamberlain, a former Autonomy vice president of finance who faced similar charges, not guilty on all counts. (Mr. Chamberlain was fatally struck by a car on Saturday while out for a run, his lawyer, Gary S. Lincenberg, said Monday in an emailed statement.)

After the verdict, Mr. Lynch said in a statement, “I am looking forward to returning to the U.K. and getting back to what I love most: my family and innovating in my field.” He later returned to his homes, in London and Suffolk.

While defending himself against the HP accusations, Mr. Lynch became a venture capitalist, founding Invoke Capital to invest in companies including the cybersecurity provider Darktrace.

More recently, he had begun to focus on artificial intelligence research, including ways the technology could help those with hearing difficulties.

His survivors include his wife and another daughter, Esme.

Kirsten Noyes contributed research.

Michael J. de la Merced has covered global business and finance news for The Times since 2006. More about Michael J. de la Merced

Mike Lynch death: Tributes flow for Autonomy cofounder and ‘creator of dreams’

It has now been confirmed that Mike Lynch, one of the most prominent and controversial figures in the U.K. tech scene, died in the sinking of his superyacht off Sicily on Monday. At least five others also died when the vessel capsized in a violent storm; Lynch’s teenage daughter Hannah remains missing.

I encourage you to read my colleague Ryan Hogg’s obituary of Lynch , who I was writing about just a couple weeks ago in the context of his legal travails. Following a lengthy extradition drama, Lynch, 59, was acquitted in June of criminal fraud charges relating to the sale of his data software firm Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011. Indeed, his fateful trip with family, friends and lawyers was reportedly a celebration of that victory.

Morgan Stanley International chair Jonathan Bloomer, who had chaired Autonomy’s audit committee during the HP sale, and who testified in Lynch’s defense, also died in the sinking of the Bayesian. In a grotesque coincidence, Lynch’s also-acquitted codefendant in the U.S. trial, former Autonomy finance VP Stephen Chamberlain, was fatally struck by a car while jogging in England on Saturday.

Although he was acquitted in the U.S., a U.K. civil case over Autonomy’s misrepresentation of its financials to HP resulted in a ruling that Lynch had known what was going on. As a result, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (which has been handling the case since it was spun out of HP in 2015) had been hoping to recoup billions of dollars from Lynch and former Autonomy CFO Sushovan Hussain, who received a five-year sentence in the U.S. over the affair.

“We’re saddened by this tragic event and our thoughts are with the families and friends of all those who lost their lives,” said an HPE spokesman, while declining to comment on the future of the legal proceedings.

Friends say Lynch had been at the “beginning of a new life” following his U.S. acquittal, and many tributes followed the confirmation of his passing.

“The world has lost a genius. His family have lost a giant of a man,” said Autonomy cofounder David Tabizel.

“Mike Lynch should be remembered as the person who catalyzed a breed of deep tech entrepreneurs in the U.K.,” said John Browne, the former BP CEO and the chair of the Francis Crick Institute, a biomedical research center for which Lynch once helped to raise funds. “His ideas and his personal vision were a powerful contribution to science and technology in both Britain and globally. I send my condolences to those close to him. We have lost a human being of great ability.”

David Yelland, the former editor of The Sun and Lynch’s public relations advisor, said Lynch was “failed in life by his country and his peers when he needed them most—as he looked for help in the unjust U.S. demand that he be extradited—and he has then suffered the most unfair and brutal of fates.”

“I was in touch with Mike just before he sailed,” Yelland wrote on X . “He wasn’t a mere dreamer of dreams, he was a creator of dreams not just for himself but for all those that knew him, worked with him or invested with him.”

Lynch was a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the board of which said it was “deeply saddened” to hear of his death. A spokesperson from industry body TechUK told the Evening Standard that Lynch had been “a hugely significant and pioneering figure in the U.K. technology sector.”

More news below. And do read my colleague Eleanor Pringle’s piece on X’s true owners , whose identities have just been revealed in the context of a lawsuit by former employees. Bill Ackman is no surprise, but the same can’t be said for Diddy.

David Meyer

Want to send thoughts or suggestions to Data Sheet? Drop a line  here .

Walmart sells JD.com stake. Walmart has sold its entire $3.7 billion stake in the Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com and says it will focus on its own Chinese operations now. As Reuters reports , the move may have something to do with how the ultra-competitive nature of Chinese e-commerce squeezes profit margins. Walmart has in recent years been pulling out of a few international markets where it can’t turn a decent profit.

Head-to-head spectacle. The second half of next month will see the unveiling of not one but two big plays in the augmented reality glasses space, The Verge reports . Snap will apparently show off the fifth generation of its Spectacles on Sept. 17, with Mark Zuckerberg revealing Meta’s entry into the AR specs business the following week. Meta’s effort is code-named Orion.

Google targeting teens. Not long after the Financial Times reported that Google broke its own rules by letting Meta target teens with its YouTube ads, Adweek reports that this was no one-off. Citing three ad buyers, plus written documentation, the publication says Google’s salespeople have been advising ad buyers on how to reach teenagers despite the fact that Google doesn’t allow targeting that age group. The key, it seems, is to target the cohort of “unknown” users, about whom Google doesn’t know age or other details, as teens are probably included in the group. Google says it will remind its reps not to help agencies and advertisers skirt the company’s rules.

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BEFORE YOU GO

Plans laid for new streamer. There’s reportedly going to be a new streaming service in town, coming from…Chick-fil-A? According to Deadline , the fast-food company has been talking to big production companies about the creation of original, family-friendly content, with a tilt towards reality TV. The publication notes that Chick-fil-A has made content for its own website before, but this would be something else—and it could be a boon for the ailing reality TV sector.

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