Prescott couple took fatal voyage

Dennis Wagner - The Arizona Republic

Apr. 15, 2007

Tom and Jackie Hawks huddled on a bed in the cabin of their yacht, miles off the coast of California, handcuffed, muzzled and blindfolded.

"I don't want to die," Jackie pleaded, her words muffled by duct tape. "I have a new grandchild in Arizona. I want to see him."

Her husband leaned back, reaching for her hand, trying to calm her.

Three armed assailants loomed over the Prescott couple, ordering them to sign title documents for the boat, demanding all their bank account information. Jackie wept, trembling. Tom remained stoic.

They were bound to each other, marched onto the deck at night, tied to an anchor. It was thrown overboard, yanking the Hawkses along. Jackie's head bounced off the deck before she and Tom splashed into the ocean and sank 3,600 feet.

Their bodies have never been found.

Since that day 29 months ago, the fate of Tom and Jackie Hawks has been portrayed as a crime mystery, a tragedy.

Matt Hawks, the couple's son in Prescott, talks about an adventure, a love story.

His parents retired early to live their fantasy life at sea. For three years they sailed from port to port, following the curve of the horizon over an endless ocean.

Then, when Matt and his wife, Nicole, had a son, the first-time grandparents agreed to give up Margaritaville for family: They would sell the yacht and return to Arizona to be near a baby named Jace.

But on Nov. 15, 2004, the Hawkses vanished. Their boat, the Well Deserved, was found at its mooring in Newport Beach Harbor, Calif. The normally tidy yacht was a mess. Phone calls went unanswered. Matt, a Phoenix firefighter, had premonitions of disaster: His parents were always in touch and never would have left the yacht in shambles.

As days passed, the truth began to unfold: A man named Skylar Deleon had answered ads for the yacht. He claimed to have been a child actor on the Power Rangers show, with earnings invested in real estate. He asked to go on a test cruise and brought along two friends.

The Hawkses met their grandson only once, when he was 2 weeks old. Matt recalls Jackie arriving with hand-beaded boats to hang in a nursery full of sailing images. Tom cuddled the infant, saying, "I'm going to teach you how to swim. I'm going to teach you how to build things and go sailing."

"My parents were willing to give up their life on the ocean to be grandparents," Matt says. "They would have been the absolute best grandparents. . . . And Jace would have gotten to learn so much from them."

Now 28, Matt sits in the Prescott boathouse built by his father, eyes lost in a family album full of pictures at sea. "We had always done boating. From the time I was a little kid," he says. "We just spent our whole lives on the water."

Matt lists every vessel they owned: an 8-foot dinghy, a 20-foot pontoon boat, a 16-foot Boston whaler, a 21-foot Cabo, a 28-foot Skipjack.

Tom Hawks had been a firefighter, a bartender, a probation officer. But he was a seaman at heart, taking a 14-foot dory to Catalina Island when he was just 17, working summers as a sailing instructor.

As husband and father, he dedicated every other weekend to boating, from Arizona's lakes to the Baja peninsula. The family went on two long voyages each year, one in the Gulf of California and another around Catalina Island. For as long as anyone can remember, Tom dreamed of being an ocean vagabond.

After a divorce in 1979, Tom Hawks left his firefighting job in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, a San Diego County beach town, and moved to Prescott so he and his sons, Matt and Ryan, could be close to family.

He built a hilltop home amid the piñons. He bought Matt's Saloon on Whiskey Row, and with his bulging muscles, practical jokes and positive attitude, he became a local icon. Later, he took a job with Yavapai County's Probation Department, keeping tabs on ex-cons.

In 1986, while at a canoe race on nearby Lynx Lake, Tom met Jackie.

They were married two years later, wearing Hawaiian outfits. "My dad thought more of her than anyone," Matt says. "They were a perfect couple. . . . Like a ship and a rudder, one doesn't work without the other."

Hal Slaughter, a friend and former employee at the bar, says Tom was as good-natured as he was strong, an irrepressible prankster who once left a giant boulder on his porch just for kicks.

"You never knew what he was going to do," Slaughter says. "Afterward, he'd stare at you with those penetrating eyes, and all of a sudden laugh and slap you on the back."

Slaughter says Tom had a Zen-like zest for life, reflected in his daily body-building regimen: "He was as religious about that as he was about keeping his boat clean. And, this is no joke, if you walked on his boat with wet feet, Tom would be right behind you with a rag, wiping it up."

Matt says his dad was an uncomplicated man with a simple philosophy: "Be honest. Work hard. Buy your toys with cash."

Tom and Jackie Hawks lived by that simple code, investing in real estate, planning to retire at sea.

In 2001, earlier than planned, Tom found a dream ship for sale: the Well Deserved, a 55-foot trawler with teakwood staterooms, a spacious cockpit and a range of 2,500 miles.

He told his sons, "The sea was calling us, and we can't wait any longer. Life is too short to put things off, and one cannot discover new oceans unless they have the courage to lose sight of the shore."

At 54, Tom quit his job. He and Jackie, 10 years younger, sold the house and moved aboard the yacht in Long Beach Harbor, Calif. They spent a year varnishing, remodeling, adding amenities. They became scuba divers. Friends joined them on local island cruises.

Finally, the Hawkses cruised south to the tip of Baja peninsula, across toward the Mexican mainland and up the Gulf of California, stopping at coves to dive or fish for dinner, sailing to San Carlos, Sonora.

"They'd go away to sea," Slaughter says, "and come back with shells and stories. They lived a life most of us want to live. ... No worries. Stop where and when you want."

Matt and Ryan got frequent satellite calls and e-mails from their folks, gloating about life in the sun. "They're retired. They're in no rush to get anywhere," Matt says. "When the weather's good, they swim and kayak everyday. . . . 'We've got these beautiful beaches. The water's clean.' "

During two years at sea, the Hawkses undoubtedly ran into battering storms. But Tom had his captain's certificate and knew how to handle himself. He'd been a wrestler in college, then a military police officer. He'd bounced drunks out of the saloon and handled all kinds of bad actors as a probation officer.

In the late summer of 2004, with Jace Hawks on the way, the prospective grandparents put their yacht on the market for $440,000.

A baby-faced 25-year-old named Skylar Deleon answered the ad. Tom and Jackie did not know that his Power Rangers story was exaggerated or that he had just served time for armed burglary in the Seal Beach jail in Southern California.

While behind bars, Deleon befriended a 22-year-old guard, Alonso Machain. The two remained in touch after Deleon was released.

One day, Deleon told Machain about a plan to make money, a plan he had used before. "He would go and look for these people, kill them, and he would keep whatever money was left," Machain later recounted in court. "He approached me and said, 'Would you like to make a few million dollars?' "

The two men bought stun guns and handcuffs. They visited the Well Deserved and aborted takeover plans twice, Machain said, because Tom Hawks was so cautious, so powerfully built.

Deleon had his pregnant wife, Jennifer, tour the boat, thinking the 23-year-old would help to put the Hawkses at ease. She also took the couple's baby along in an effort to connect with the couple.

The new grandparents relaxed when they met the young mother.

Days later, the Well Deserved chugged out of Newport Beach Harbor for a test cruise. On board were Skylar Deleon, Machain and an ex-con named John F. Kennedy, who had served time for attempted murder. When the vessel was miles from shore, Machain said, Kennedy ambushed Tom Hawks in the cabin, putting him in a choke hold. Jackie Hawks, who was in the galley, screamed. Machain tried to use the stun gun, failed, then managed to subdue her.

As Tom and Jackie - handcuffed, bound, blindfolded and gagged - were marched up to the deck,Tom made a desperate attempt to fight back.

"He knew what was going on, and he pushed back," Machain said. "I think it was his, his right leg, I guess, kicked backwards, and Deleon was behind him trying to tie him and Deleon kind of flew back on his back. . . .

"The third guy (Kennedy) took a hard swing to his right temple and basically - it was a pretty hard blow. He (Tom) was having a hard time staying up at that point. . . . If it wasn't for Mrs. Hawks, he probably would have been on the floor."

Minutes later, the Hawkses were thrown overboard.

As the Well Deserved headed back to shore, Machain said, he helped the others loot the yacht. As they returned to port, he said, Kennedy grabbed a beer from the refrigerator: "He pulled out one of the fishing poles and started fishing from the back of the boat while he was also drinking."

One day later, a friend first raised the alarm: Tom Hawks had asked for help moving to Arizona, but he wasn't at his boat.

Family members began phoning and sending e-mails. Tom's brother, Jim, a former police chief in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, drove to Newport Beach and found the yacht in shambles. Police began investigating.

Within days, they were interviewing Skylar and Jennifer Deleon. The couple told detectives they had bought the Well Deserved and said the Hawkses had gone to Mexico. There were signed, notarized documents as proof.

"They both came off as genuine," recalls Sgt. Evan Sailor, a Newport Beach detective. "They were cool as cucumbers. . . . This guy was probably the best pathological liar I've ever met."

Days passed, then weeks. Matt and Ryan Hawks handed out fliers at the docks. Ryan, 30, went on Good Morning America and TV news shows, pleading for help. They called every hospital from Prescott to San Carlos. Matt drove south to speak with boaters at the Mexican seaport.

"I knew I was chasing something that wasn't true," he says. "I was 99 percent sure they were dead four days after it happened."

During that time, Skylar Deleon was telling police a series of stories, finally claiming he paid cash for the boat with money from a drug deal.

Ryan Hawks never believed that story: "My father took more than $400,000 in unmarked, laundered money across the hood of their car in the dark . . . and then ran off to Mexico? Right. Now I have three questions: How, why and where?"

For police, it was a matter of slowly gathering clues, such as a receipt found aboard the Well Deserved. The receipt listed items bought at a Target: bleach, trash bags and Tums. Video showed Jennifer Deleon was the buyer.

Then the Hawkses' Honda CRV was discovered near Ensenada, in Baja California, Mexico. The people who had it said the Deleons gave it to them.

A notary confessed that she was paid a $2,000 bribe to backdate documents for the yacht sale.

And when authorities searched Jennifer Deleon's parents' house, they found items taken from the yacht.

Finally, in March 2005, four months after the Hawkses disappeared, Machain confessed.

In the end, police say the Hawkses were killed for $3,800 taken from the boat.

Because Jennifer Deleon was not aboard the yacht when the couple were thrown overboard, her first-degree murder case was considered the most difficult. Yet jurors deliberated less than four hours before rendering a guilty verdict in November. Skylar Deleon and Kennedy are scheduled for trial this fall in the murders of Jackie Hawks, Tom Hawks and a former cellmate of Skylar's, who was killed in Mexico before the Hawkses vanished. Both face the death penalty if convicted.

"Given the horrifying nature of this murder, we are not entertaining any plea bargain," says Matt Murphy, the Orange County prosecutor.

Machain has admitted his role in the crimes and testified against Jennifer Deleon. He is expected to plead guilty but has not been promised leniency in return for his testimony.

Skylar Deleon has claimed that the Hawkses were killed over a drug deal that went bad and that he was not present. Kennedy could not be reached for comment. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Ryan Hawks, a youthful version of his father, sits through each court hearing, glaring at the defendants.

"It's important so they can see me," he says. "I don't know what gives them the idea or the right to throw my parents' lives away and destroy mine . . . It'll never be over. It'll never heal. I'm a 24/7 reminder of my father. Every time I look in a mirror, I see him."

The Hawks brothers heap praise on police and prosecutors. They understand the justice system. But, in a perfect world, they say, the killers would be dragged out to sea, tied to an anchor, thrown over the side.

Matt Hawks says he is haunted by the image of his parents' final moments: "When you hear that anchor coming around from the bow of the boat to the stern - you hear that anchor chain dragging - you can pretty much anticipate your fate. . . . I owe it to myself and my family to make sure this guy goes where he's supposed to go. We're going to see this all the way through."