A Santa Ana jury Thursday voted for the death penalty for a 29-year-old man convicted of three murders, including those of a Newport Beach couple who were lashed to the anchor of their yacht and thrown into the ocean.
Skylar Deleon was convicted Oct. 21 in the 2004 slayings of Tom and Jackie Hawks, who had spent nearly two years plying the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean before deciding to sell the boat to move closer to family in Arizona. Deleon was also found guilty of the 2003 killing of John Peter Jarvi, an Anaheim man found dead in Mexico after Deleon stole $50,000 from him.
Deleon's attorney, Gary Pohlson, had conceded his client's guilt but told jurors that Deleon deserved to be spared the death penalty because he had been abused as a child and was not the manipulative genius that prosecutors made him out to be. Family members testified that Deleon had an extremely troubled childhood and that he was emotionally and physically abused by his father.
But the five-man, seven-woman jury was swayed by the prosecutors' arguments that Deleon had committed the murders out of greed and plotted with accomplices to steal the Hawkses' yacht and plunder their back accounts. Lead prosecutor Matt Murphy also called on an expert witness who testified that being abused does not lead to murder.
Jurors deliberated a day and a half before deciding that Deleon should die by lethal injection rather than spending the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.
As the verdict was read, Deleon remained expressionless. "I told him to expect it," Pohlson told reporters outside court. "He was hopeful. We were all hopeful."
Ryan Hawks, 32, Tom Hawks' son from a previous marriage, hugged jurors outside the courtroom and thanked them. He smiled despite his tears. He sat in court every day of the trial and testified during the penalty phase.
"It's just a sigh of relief," Ryan Hawks said. "We've waited four years for this. It was difficult for the jury to make a decision on somebody's life, but I absolutely agreed with their decision."
Jarvi's family was also at the courthouse. "This is a victory for me and my family," said Jeff Jarvi, 51, John Jarvi's older brother.
The jurors were visibly shaken and many had tears in their eyes as the victims' families and friends thanked them. "This was a difficult decision for all of us," said one juror who declined to state her name. Another juror told Pohlson that he tried to persuade fellow jurors not to call for the death penalty.
