REGION: Ex-chief, nephew reflect on slaying of family

Man sentenced to death for killing couple at sea

By TERI FIGUEROA - Staff Writer | Friday, November 7, 2008 7:00 PM PST ∞

Retired Carlsbad police Chief Jim Hawks spent a career working in the criminal justice system. That didn't make it easier for him to sit through the trial of the man who killed his brother and sister-in-law.

Hawks was in an Orange County courtroom this week when a jury recommended the death sentence for former child actor Skylar Deleon, who killed Tom and Jackie Hawks of Arizona.

"This has been a horrific tragedy," a weary-sounding Jim Hawks said Friday. "I don't even understand the term 'closure.' We've sought justice ---- and there is some satisfaction in that process, finally ---- but there won't be a day in our lives that we don't think about them and the way they died.

"That is something you have to live with. It doesn't get any easier."

He and his nephew, Ryan Hawks of Encinitas, headed to Santa Ana daily to listen to testimony during the trial, which began Oct. 7.

"This is my first experience of it on the victims' side," Jim Hawks said. "You can imagine the emotion. ... The advantage I had was I understood the system and the investigative process."

Prosecutors say Deleon overpowered the couple on a trip originating from Newport Harbor, tied them to an anchor and tossed them into the Pacific Ocean as they begged for their lives four years ago. Deleon had feigned interest in buying the yacht, and the couple had taken him out for a test run.

After the killings, prosecutors said, Deleon and his then-wife Jennifer Henderson scrubbed the 55-foot boat clean with bleach wipes in Newport Harbor.

The Hawkses' bodies were never found.

Like his uncle, 32-year-old Ryan Hawks also was in the courtroom to hear the jury's recommendation of death for the man who killed his father and stepmother.

"I just kind of sighed in relief," Ryan Hawks said in a telephone call Friday. "I'd been waiting for this for four years."

Orange County Superior Court Judge Frank Fasel will consider the jury's recommendation when he sentences Deleon on Jan. 16.

It was Jim Hawks who filed the missing persons report about the couple on Nov. 26, 2004, the day after Thanksgiving, with the Carlsbad Police Department. Hawks had retired from the department a year earlier.

Hawks declined to speak of details in the case, but said he had spent time with the couple the weekend before they disappeared, and filed the report after concerned family members contacted him.

"I've gone over the case a thousand times in my mind, and wonder if there was something I could have done to prevent it," Hawks said in a telephone call Friday. "I knew he had plans of meeting with a prospective buyer, and he was so excited about that. And, as any cop would be, I was kind of skeptical."

The case landed with Newport police, and the ensuing investigation led authorities to "look close to home" at the family ---- a routine police procedure, the former chief said.

"As relatives, that was a difficult time for all of us," he said. "Family and friends turned to me for answers, and all I could do was explain and reassure them that these steps were necessary.

"The advantage I had in the system was encouraging everyone to provide investigators with accurate and timely information."

The trail eventually led police to Deleon, now 29, who appeared in the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" television show.

The case captured a slew of media attention, including national interest.

Deleon's former wife, Henderson, was convicted in 2006 of murder and murder for financial gain in the Hawkses' deaths and was sentenced to two terms of life in prison without parole.

Three other men also are charged with the Hawkses' murders, including two who allegedly were on the $440,000 yacht at the time. They have pleaded not guilty.

Hawks testified in the case against Deleon, and also took the stand in the earlier case against Deleon's ex-wife. Aside from that, the former chief has said little in public about the ordeal.

He said he expects to take the stand in the upcoming trials.

The slain Tom Hawks was 15 months younger than his brother. The two were close, and both ended up in law enforcement. Tom Hawks was a probation officer in Arizona, a job from which he had retired. Tom Hawks graduated from San Dieguito High School in Encinitas. In the 1970s, he spent seven years as a firefighter in Carlsbad.

Jim Hawks said that, more than three decades ago, it was his little brother who first encouraged him to become a police officer in the coastal city.

Even with a career-long familiarity with the criminal justice system, Jim Hawks said he was frustrated the trial process took four years. He blamed a backlog in an overloaded criminal court system.

The retired cop said he was surprised by the financial costs borne by families of slaying victims. In his case, the family spent a lot to hire attorneys to protect his brother's assets from Deleon.

"As someone who always had a lot of concern for the impact on families, I had never given a thought to the financial impact," the 64-year-old said.

Ryan Hawks said his parents sold their home to buy the yacht ---- which they named "Well Deserved" ---- and spent two years cruising in Mexico's Sea of Cortez.

"Most people who have a yacht have it for recreation, but that was their home," Ryan Hawks said in a telephone conversation Friday. "That was their dream."

He said he had put his life on hold to attend the trial of the man who killed his parents, who were selling the boat to buy a smaller one as well as a home in Arizona to be near their baby grandson. Tom Hawks was 57 when he died; Jackie Hawks was 47.

"I feel very relieved he got the maximum penalty for his actions, but 'winning' or 'congratulations' aren't appropriate words. He (Deleon) still won the case, because he will be breathing for the next 40 years. How many people really get the needle?

"We are really the ones who lost a family," Ryan Hawks said. "There was no true winner here."

To view the Web site put up by Ryan Hawks, go to www.tomandjackiehawks.com.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact staff writer Teri Figueroa at (760) 740-5442 or tfigueroa@nctimes.com.