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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.

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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 .

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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. 

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“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. 

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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. 

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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.

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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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Thomas and Jackie Hawks Murders: How Did They Die? Who Killed Them?

When a pair of the adventure-loving couple went missing for several days, it raised the alarm with friends and family members who were expecting to see them soon. Thomas and Jackie’s closest acquaintances were worried that something bad had happened to them. They turned to the police for help. What the police found subsequently will go down as one of the most brutal and spine-chilling crimes in American criminal history. The crime has been covered by several true-crime features and podcasts, including ABC’s ‘20/20’ under the episode titled ‘Overboard.’ The harrowing details of the crime have left us shocked and wanting to know more. We indulged in a little investigation of our own to find out more about this crime.

How Did Thomas and Jackie Hawks Die?

57-year-old Thomas Hawks and his 47-year-old wife, Jackie Hawks, were living the dream retired life. Thomas and Jackie were described as a very happy, healthy, and athletic couple who had worked hard all their life to fulfill their early retirement aspirations, living on adventures and whims of traveling. Tom worked as a Yavapai County deputy probation officer in Arizona, and his wife, Jackie, was stepmother to his two sons from a previous marriage. Shortly before commencing his retirement from his job, in August 2001, the Hawks couple sold their house and shifted to a yacht, referred to as their dreamboat. The yacht moored in Long Beach, named “Well Deserved,” had luxurious interiors with two decks, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a gallery.

Tom indulged himself in renovating the yacht, adding the latest technology and features to the yacht to make it suitable for long voyages. Tom and Jackie were known to be dedicated fitness buffs, with strict gym regimes that the two of them followed religiously. According to his sons, Ryan and Matt, Tom had also made a name for himself in the Arizona arm-wrestling circle. Tom and Jackie met during a chili cookoff and married in 1989. Tom was known for having a passion for boating. Hence, soon after the couple bought “Well Deserved,” they pulled out of Long Beach in 2002 and set sail on an almost two-year-long cruise down the coast of Baja California, around Cabo San Lucas, and into the Sea of Cortez, stopping in Baja and the Mexican mainland.

The Hawks decided to call their cruise to a rather wonderful end when they were blessed with a grandson back in Arizona. The proud and happy grandparents, eager to spend their time with the little boy, put up their adored yacht “Well Deserved” for sale. They decided to sell the yacht themselves rather than heftily commissioning a yacht broker to do so.  The Yacht advertisement in ‘Yachting World Magazine’ asked $435,000 in exchange for the fastidiously maintained “Well Deserved.”

On November 15, 2004, the couple boarded their precious ship to embark on the last trip to Santa Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles, California, to commemorate the yacht’s sale. They had finally found a buyer for “Well Deserved,” and they had informed their family of the upcoming sale, which was to take place within a few days. After this, they disappeared. The yacht was found in its usual spot in Newport Beach by the family the next day. However, the couple’s car and the couple were nowhere to be found.

The family was sure that the person to have last seen the Hawks was the buyer. Jim Hawks, Tom’s brother, also a retired police officer, left his card with his number on the yacht, hoping they would contact him. Before leaving the card, he and the Hawkses’ friend Carter Ford surveyed the yacht to find any signs. They smelled trouble as soon as Ford observed the 11-foot dinghy that ferried Tom and Jackie between the Well Deserved and Balboa Peninsula was tied sloppily to the dock. On the yacht, they noticed similar imperfections that were not characteristic of the Hawkses, for example, a towel hanging out of a porthole. On the next day, a lady called Jennifer Deleon called Jim and told him, she and her husband had paid for the boat in cash.

When there was reportedly no activity on the Hawks’ bank accounts, the family knew that something wasn’t sitting right. It was eventually revealed that Skyler Deleon and her then-wife Jennifer Deleon had entrapped the Hawkses in a heinous plan that led the Hawkses to their death.

A witness to the crime who testified against Skylar Deleon detailed the events leading up to Jackie and Thomas Hawks’ death. The yacht’s buyer had reportedly expressed a willingness to test the yacht before buying it by taking it out to the sea. The Hawkses agreed after Skylar Deleon managed to create a good impression of herself on them by bringing in her former pregnant wife Jennifer Deleon and their daughter. On the day of their last trip onboard “Well Deserved,” the Hawkses received their buyer on the yacht along with two other men, one of whom Skylar had claimed to be her accountant. Once they set sail and were on waters, Jackie and Tom were ambushed by Skylar and her two companions, who became Alonso Machain (who later testified against Skylar) and a notorious gang member John Fitzgerald Kennedy respectively. Skylar managed to make the couple hand over the ownership of their yacht by making them sign attorney papers and promised them mercy if they cooperated, according to Machain’s testimony.

However, the couple was handcuffed with their mouths and eyes shut, covered by duct tape, and then kept under watch for several hours. Alonso Machain was given the responsibility to “baby-sit” them, following which the couple was then tied to an anchor and “yanked” over the yacht and into the Pacific Ocean. Their bodies have not been recovered to this day.

Who Killed Tom and Jackie Hawks?

The primary convicts in the conspiracy and murder of Thomas and Jackie Hawks are Skylar Deleon, her wife Jennifer Deleon, Alonso Machain, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, an Insane Crips Gang member, and Myron Sandora Gardner, also a member of the Insane Crips Gang who had introduced Skylar to Kennedy.

The family filed a missing-persons report approximately two weeks after they went missing. An investigation into the missing couple was fueled by a sudden activity in the couple’s bank accounts, three weeks after their disappearance. The Deleons, who were living out of Jennifer’s parents’ garage in Long Beach at the time, were trying to gain access to the Hawks’ financial resources. The investigators found out more about Skylar, who turned out to be on probation for an armed robbery. Besides, documents suggested that Hawkses had handed him over their power of attorney, which seemed unrealistic.

When the police investigated the interiors of the “Well Deserved,” they came across a receipt from Target dated two days after friends say the couple had taken their prospective buyers on a trial trip. Newport Beach Detective Sgt, Dave Byington said , “If I was going to kill somebody, I’d have my clean kit. And it would be bags to get rid of the evidence, bleach to wipe down the scene, and maybe, if I had a conscience, some Tums to settle my stomach after killing some poor people.” The police then found the SUV the Hawkes owned in Ensenada, Mexico, at a mobile home.

The Mexican authorities got in touch with the homeowner, who said they did not know the Hawkses and that the car was given to him by his friend, Skylar Deleon. In December 2004, Skylar Deleon was arrested on money laundering charges, mostly based on the fact that he had previously told the police that the payment for the yacht to the Hawkses, of about $400,000, had been made in cash. But the investigators kept looking into the Hawkses’ murder. They found the Hawkses’ laptop and their video camera at Deleon’s home. The videocamera which initially had films of the Hawkses’ travel, suddenly cut off to Deleons celebrating Thanksgiving with their family.

Machain had turned himself in, and the police arrested Kennedy later. In 2006, Jennifer Deleon, previously arrested in connection to the murder, was also convicted of the murders of Tom and Jackie Hawks and was later sentenced to two consecutive life imprisonments without the possibility of parole in 2007. Skylar and John Kennedy were sentenced to death in April 2009 and May 2009, respectively. Machain was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June 2009.

Read More: Where Are Skylar Deleon and Jennifer Deleon Now?

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A receipt from Target, a stolen car in Mexico and a third unsolved murder: Investigation into yacht murder of California couple

Hawks worked for decades toward their dream - then, strangers took it all away.

Tom Hawks, a Vietnam veteran and father of two boys, had a beautiful dream: to retire in his 50s and live on a boat with his wife Jackie. He eventually achieved it after prudently saving and investing his money for decades. But over the course of a week, another couple — complete strangers to the Hawks — took it all away.

After planning for years, Tom and Jackie Hawks eventually bought a 55-foot trawler yacht for about $300,000 and named it the “Well Deserved,” which their tight-knit circle of friends and family agreed was perfectly fitting.

The couple outfitted the vessel with the latest technology and for two years traveled from their Newport Beach mooring along the California coast and to Mexico. Then, when their younger son, Matt, told them he and his wife were going to have a baby, they decided to sell the boat and get a house back on land to be closer to their grandchild.

Watch the full story on "20/20" FRIDAY at 9 p.m. ET

On November 12, 2004, the couple took their last trip to Santa Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles, California, to commemorate their passion project’s imminent sale. By this time, Tom and Jackie Hawks had told family and friends that they’d found a buyer and that the sale was going to take place in the next few days.

“Next thing you know is, no one could get a hold of them,” their son, Ryan Hawks, told “20/20.” “For them just to shut off their cell phones and drop off the face of the earth is...extremely out of character.”

The family found the Well Deserved moored in its usual berth at Newport Beach but the couple and their car — a silver Honda CR-V — were nowhere to be found.

“My uncle knew something was…wrong right away,” said Ryan Hawks, adding that his uncle had noticed the dinghy his parents used to get to their yacht hadn’t been tied properly to the dock and its motor hadn’t been lifted from the water. “My uncle was a hundred percent positive that my dad didn’t leave the boat that way.”

Tom Hawks’ friend Don Trefren also noticed things were out of place on the yacht.

“I noticed that the tarps up above on the deck, on the flying bridge, were all off. All the controls were just kind of peeled back and there was a towel hanging out one of the portholes,” Trefren told “20/20.” “I got a sick feeling in my stomach, you know, just like, just a sick feeling that something wasn't right.”

The receipt from Target

The couple’s tight-knit group of friends and family knew Tom and Jackie Hawks had gone with the prospective purchaser to take the boat out for a test ride. They also knew that the buyer of the boat was likely the last person to have seen them.

Jim Hawks, Tom Hawks’ brother and a retired police officer, left a note on the Well Deserved with his phone number in hopes that the buyer would contact him.

It was Jennifer Deleon who called him back, telling him she and her husband Skylar had paid for the boat with cash in full. Still suspicious, Jim Hawks reached out to Trisha Schutz, a friend of the family who managed the missing couple’s finances while they were traveling.

“Tom and Jackie, if they would have sold that boat, they would have deposited that money into their bank account,” Schutz told “20/20.” “There was no activity on their account. So we knew that something was really wrong. [Jim Hawks] told me that he was gonna contact the police department and file a missing persons report.”

Newport Beach police took on the case once a missing persons report was filed, nearly two weeks after the couple’s disappearance.

“This couple…were in the process of selling, or sold a vessel to this other couple, Skylar and Jennifer Deleon,” Newport Beach Det. Sgt. Dave Byington, now retired, told “20/20.” “Skylar happens to be a convicted felon. He's on probation. I go, ‘Geez… OK, well this doesn't sound good right now.’”

MORE: Yacht Murderer: I 'Never Really Felt Evil'

Skylar Deleon had a troubled childhood. He had been a child actor, with one of his most prominent roles as an extra in the 1990s TV show “Power Rangers.” Later, he met Jennifer online, got married, and had a little girl. He was expecting another child with her at the time that the Hawks went missing.

Jennifer, a hairstylist, was the breadwinner for the family while they lived in a converted garage behind her parents’ home in Long Beach. Given their living situation, the couple did not seem to police like buyers of such an extravagant yacht.

Police searched the Well Deserved, where they found a receipt from Target. The purchase, which was dated two days after the day friends said the Hawks were taking the prospective buyer for a test ride, listed trash bags, bleach and the antacid Tums.

“If I was going to kill somebody, I'd have my clean kit. And it would be bags to get rid of evidence, bleach to wipe down the scene and maybe, if I had a conscience, some Tums to settle my stomach after killing some poor people,” Byington said.

Target was able to provide surveillance photos of the purchaser to police. But investigators, who expected to see Skylar Deleon buying the supplies, were surprised to find Steve Henderson, Jennifer Deleon’s father, in the photos instead.

Police learned Jennifer Deleon sent her father to buy the bleach, Tums and trash bags so the couple could help clean their new boat. Henderson pointed investigators to a nearby church that he said the couple was helping to clean.

“When I see a family volunteering in a church, I was put at ease a little bit with that, thinking, ‘OK, this is going to turn out OK. The Hawks are fine,’” Byington said. “I was talking to Jennifer and basically said, ‘We're looking for the Hawks. The family's very concerned.’ And she said, and she was very genuine, she goes, ‘We're really concerned, too.’”

“Then she goes, ‘We've been trying to reach out to them continually since we bought it.’ She said they have a lot of property, clothes and stuff. ‘We don't know what to do,’” Byington continued. “She was very specific and seemed very genuine in her concern for the Hawks and finding them. Skylar…proceeded to tell me the same thing that Jennifer did.”

Skylar Deleon produced paperwork for the boat’s purchase, complete with signatures, fingerprints and a notary public’s certification.

Much to their surprise, Skylar Deleon openly admitted to police that he used drug money to buy the vessel.

“At this point, I already knew that Skylar was on probation for armed burglary, so he's a felon,” Byington said.

“‘I'm telling you, Sergeant, I want to go straight with my family. I'm a father now. I have another child on the way and I want to do the right thing. So I'm trying to invest this money in a way that I can support them,’”Byington said Deleon told him.

MORE: A Moving Love Story, Drowned by Greed

Deleon told police that on Nov. 15, 2004, he paid the couple for the Well Deserved, presenting them with a briefcase full of cash in the parking lot near the moored yacht. Deleon said that his wife, child, a notary public and a friend from Mexico, Alonso Machain, were also there for the transaction.

“According to Skylar, Tom [Hawks] asked him, ‘Is it all here?’ Skylar kind of giggled at me and said, ‘Yep, it's all there.’ And so they basically said, ‘Here's the keys to the yacht,’” Byington said. “Tom and Jackie drove off in the Honda and Skylar and Jennifer said that was the last time that they saw them.”

The 1998 silver Honda CR-V

Nearly a month after his parents vanished, Ryan Hawks was urged by his uncle to go to the media to ask the public for help after investigators hit a dead end.

A retired couple in San Miguel, Mexico, heard his plea, telling police that they saw the missing couple’s 1998 silver Honda CR-V parked next to a mobile home.

The mobile home’s owner told Mexican authorities he didn’t know Tom or Jackie Hawks, but that the car was given to him from a friend: Skylar Deleon.

“And at that moment…any possibility that the Hawks were still alive died right there, unfortunately,” Byington said.

Caitlin Rother, a consultant for “20/20” on this story and author of “ Dead Reckoning ” about this case, said with the discovery of the car, police “realized that Skylar Deleon and Jennifer, who is also described [by others at the mobile home park], had been down there.”

“They had, now, witnesses who knew them and [the witnesses] said, ‘[The Deleons] gave us this car,’” Rother said.

“Skylar murdered these people,” Byington said he concluded after finding the Hawks’ car. But investigators still didn’t have enough to prove it.

On Dec. 17, 2004, police arrested Skylar Deleon on money laundering charges while they continued investigating him for the murder of the Hawks.

Investigators searched the Deleon’s home, finding the Hawks’ laptop and their video camera, which the Deleons used to document the Thanksgiving that the Hawks never got to spend with their family.

For months after Skylar's arrest, Jennifer Deleon continued to insist on her husband’s innocence in the Hawks’ disappearance, even declining an offer of immunity in exchange for information as to the whereabouts of the Hawks.

A third murder

Newport Police discovered another interesting clue in the Deleon’s home – a business card for Los Angeles Police Department Det. Joe Bahena, who worked as a liaison with Mexican police. They found that Bahena was helping Ensenada State Police investigate the case of Jon Jarvi. Jarvi had been found murdered with his throat cut in Mexico in 2003.

Jarvi met Deleon while the two were serving time at the City of Seal Beach jail, where some inmates were allowed to go out during the day on work release. After Jarvi was freed, he stayed in touch with Deleon, who promised him a big score.

MORE: Tearful Testimony in Yacht Murder Trial

In December 2003, a year before the Hawks’ disappearance, Deleon sold Jarvi on a business proposition to make a large sum of money – Jarvi gave Deleon $50,000 in cash, then accompanied Deleon to Mexico where he was supposed to complete the big score Deleon told him about. Jarvi never returned.

“There never was any deal in Mexico,” Jeff Jarvi, Jon’s brother, told “20/20.” “He took my brother down there with, specifically with the role of murdering him.”

Mexican police questioned the Deleons at the time, but Jarvi’s case remained unsolved until Newport Beach detectives started working the Hawks case.

The dominoes fall

Kathleen Harris, the notary who certified the paperwork for the sale of the Well Deserved, was interviewed by police several times. She repeatedly denied that anything was amiss, until the day she came clean.

“She came in and she said she'd never met Tom and Jackie Hawks. She had nothing to do with the murder,” former Orange County prosecutor Matt Murphy, now an ABC News consultant, said. “She was given documents and paid in cash to backdate the documents. And so she backdated them to Nov. 15, which was the day that they went missing.”

“That was the first domino to fall,” Byington said. “Then we started pressuring everybody else because we knew everybody else had lied to us, too.”

Alonso Machain was the next to reveal his role in the murder. He told police that he first met Skylar Deleon when he was a jailer at the City of Seal Beach jail. Machain admitted he took part in the murders and revealed the full scope of the murder conspiracy to investigators.

Machain said Skylar Deleon convinced him that Deleon was an international hitman and that he needed to take out Tom and Jackie Hawks because they were evil.

Machain told police that on November 15, 2004, he, Skylar Deleon and another accomplice, John Kennedy, set out toward Santa Catalina Island on the Well Deserved with Tom and Jackie Hawks on a “sea trial,” or a test run of the boat.

Machain said Skylar Deleon and Kennedy overpowered Tom Hawks and handcuffed him, while Machain subdued and handcuffed Jackie Hawks. Machain said he, on Deleon’s orders, taped over the couple’s eyes and mouths and tied them together as Deleon navigated the boat toward the deepest point of the sea. Machain said they then tied the couple, handcuffed, to one of the yacht’s anchors – then Deleon threw the anchor overboard and it dragged the couple over the side.

Jennifer was not on the boat during the murders. So it came as a surprise to many when she, too, was arrested, just weeks after giving birth to her second child. Investigators discovered that Skylar and Jennifer spoke by phone numerous times on the day Jon Jarvi was murdered, and again when the Hawks were killed.

“That woman was physically not on the boat during the murders, but she was absolutely on the boat with guidance in spirit,” said Matt Murphy.

Machain testified in three separate trials against Jennifer and Skylar Deleon, as well as Kennedy. In a deal with the prosecution, he pleaded guilty to two counts of voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 20 years and four months in prison.

In 2006, Jennifer Deleon was convicted of the murders of Tom and Jackie Hawks and later sentenced to two life terms without the possibility of parole. She was charged in connection to Jarvi’s murder, which she denied any involvement in. In a preliminary hearing before her trial for the Hawks’ murders, a judge dismissed that charge.

Nearly two years later, Skylar went to trial for the murder of Tom and Jackie Hawks and Jon Jarvi. He was convicted of all three murders.

John Kennedy was also convicted of the Hawks’ murders, and like Skylar Deleon, sentenced to death. Both remain on death row today.

“At the end of the day, they all get what they deserve,” Byington said. “Only Alonso [Machain] will ever see the light of day again. He got sentenced to 20 years and he actually will be out soon.”

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Where Is The Well Deserved Yacht Now?

The disappearance and death of Jackie and Thomas Hawks, a beloved couple, shook the entire country. They were living out their retirement on board their 55-foot Lien Hwa trawler, Well Deserved. The couple had worked on the yacht, which was kept in dry storage for four years as evidence after the 2002 murders. The sons of Jackie and Tom Hawks claim that although Henderson was not on the yacht when Tom and Jackie were murdered, she played a critical part.

A Southern California man, Skylar Deleon, was found guilty of murdering Tom and Jackie Hawks and Jon Jarvi. The Hawks son, Ryan, called the verdict “heavy.” The yacht was kept in dry storage and plastic wrap for four years as evidence. Now that the criminal cases are over, the yacht has been returned to Ryan and Matt Hawks, who are now fixing it up at the Newport Beach Basin Marina.

The Hawks’ dream was rooted in two simple things: being together and having a successful seafaring career. The Well Deserved, a 55-foot Lien Hwa trawler, was one of the most famous yachts in Newport Beach since The Wild Goose, actor John Wayne’s character. The couple’s car, a silver Honda CR-V, was nowhere to be found.

The Well Deserved is now up for sale since their murderers have been brought to justice. The couple’s boat, Well Deserved, was released earlier this year to Ryan and Matt Hawks, after sitting in a city shipyard for the past four years.

📹 Retired California couple disappears after showing their yacht to buyer

Instead of paying a hefty commission to a broker, Tom and Jackie Hawks were going to sell their boat themselves. After a sea trial …

📹 Yacht Murder Mystery: Unspeakable Cruelty

Tom and Jackie Hawks had a dream – to retire early, buy a boat and sail the Pacific. The couple worked hard, saved their money, …

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• Where Is The Well Deserved Yacht Today?
• What Happened To The Well Deserved Yacht?

Debbie Green

I am a school teacher who was bitten by the travel bug many decades ago. My husband Billy has come along for the ride and now shares my dream to travel the world with our three children.The kids Pollyanna, 13, Cooper, 12 and Tommy 9 are in love with plane trips (thank goodness) and discovering new places, experiences and of course Disneyland.

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