Jury: Death for Deleon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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