With his hands bound behind his back and eyes covered in tape, Tom Hawks seemed to realize that certain death awaited him and his wife, Jackie, if he didn't act quickly. So he mustered all the force he could and delivered a blow with his foot that sent one of his three attackers reeling into a deck chair.
It would be the last act of heroism for a man who made a living in law enforcement.
Within moments, an anchor was dragging the Arizona couple into the ocean.
"They were basically yanked -- yanked into the ocean," Alonso Machain testified in an Orange County courtroom Wednesday as he vividly reconstructed what happened to the Hawkses in the final frantic moments aboard their 55-foot yacht, Well-Deserved.
Machain, 25, is the government's main witness in the murder trial of Skylar Deleon, who is accused of orchestrating the plot to kill the Hawkses by pretending to be interested in buying their yacht.
Deleon planned to steal the yacht and plunder the Hawkses' bank accounts, prosecutors charge.
The couple spent nearly two years plying the Sea of Cortez and Pacific Ocean, fishing and diving, kayaking and surfing, and cruising from port to port. Eventually, they decided to sell the boat so they could be closer to their first grandchild in Arizona. They were last seen leaving the Newport Harbor on their yacht Nov. 15, 2004.
Deleon's attorney, Gary Pohlson, acknowledged in opening statements that Deleon is guilty in the murders, but maintained that he is no more culpable than others who were also charged in the case, including Machain and Deleon's wife, Jennifer.
Pohlson's goal is to save his client from the death penalty. Jennifer was given consecutive life terms in an earlier trial and Machain has not been tried. Machain, appearing nervous and uncomfortable, explained that he became friends with Skylar Deleon at Seal Beach City Jail, where he was working as a jailer and Deleon was in a work furlough program for a home burglary.
In October 2004, Machain said, Skylar Deleon asked him if he was interested in making about $1 million.
Unemployed by that time, Machain said he asked if what they were going to do was legal and Deleon responded: "It isn't illegal unless you get caught."
Machain said Deleon told him he was routinely solicited to carry out murders. He said he agreed to go along after Deleon persuaded him that the Hawkses were bad people.
