Trial of woman suspected in yacht killing begins

The wife of one of the men accused of killing a Newport Beach couple and stealing their yacht was either a knowing accomplice or an intimidated tool of her husband, attorneys said in opening arguments in her trial Monday.

Jennifer Henderson Deleon, 24, is the first defendant to go to trial for the slaying of Tom and Jackie Hawks, who disappeared and were presumed dead after giving Deleon’s husband a tour of their boat in November 2004. She is charged with two counts of murder as well as murder for financial gain and, if convicted, could face life in prison without parole.

On Monday, at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana, Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Murphy told the six-man, six-woman jury that Deleon had worked closely with her husband, Skylar Deleon, in arranging and abetting the Hawkses’ slaying. Throughout his statements, he repeatedly noted Deleon’s whereabouts during key moments in the case, at one point citing a series of cellphone conversations between the Deleons on the day of the alleged killing.

“Two years ago, when they went on that boat, Jennifer Deleon knew her husband was a murderer and knew he was a liar,” Murphy said.

Defense attorney Michael Molfetta argued that Jennifer Deleon had been repeatedly duped by her husband and did not learn about the plan to kill the Hawkses until after it had been carried out. From that point on, he said, the defendant stuck by her husband because she was afraid to disobey him.

During his opening argument, Molfetta painted Skylar Deleon as an evil but extremely charismatic man who had the power to charm others into helping with his schemes. To open his remarks, he displayed a pair of wedding pictures — one of the Hawkses and one of the Deleons — and challenged the jury to determine which of the smiling men in the photos looked more trustworthy than the other.

“She had one dream and one dream only — to have kids and raise them,” Molfetta said about Jennifer Deleon, while referring to her husband by the pronoun “it” and at one point calling him more sadistic than Charles Manson.

Both sides presented the Deleons as a couple who, prior to the slaying, had struggled to make ends meet. After they married in 2001, the Deleons amassed thousands of dollars in credit card debt and frequently asked the bride’s father to help them repay it. In late 2002, Skylar Deleon was arrested for armed robbery and sentenced to a year in prison and probation.

In addition, Skylar Deleon is charged with the December 2003 murder of John Jarvi, a 45-year-old Anaheim man he met in a work-release program at the Seal Beach Jail. Deleon is accused of slaying Jarvi in Mexico for financial gain and using the money to pay off debts and purchase an expensive wedding band.

At the end of Monday’s court session, the prosecution called five witnesses to the stand, including Ronald Jackson, the manager of the Robbins Bros. store in Fullerton, where the Deleons purchased the wedding band. Jackson, when questioned whether he knew Skylar Deleon’s occupation, said Deleon had been vague about how he made a living, but that he had appeared to be a “bounty hunter” or military specialist of some kind.

The trial is set to resume this morning.