Latest / True Crime California / TCC #11 The Murder of Tom and Jackie Hawks

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TCC #11 The Murder of Tom and Jackie Hawks · True Crime California

0:01
Speaker 1: On Wiki Travel. The Pacific Northwest is best known for
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its beautiful coastline, green interior, rainy weather, and spectacular mountains.
0:12
But because of all this, it's also the perfect place
0:15
to go missing. My name's Carmita and I grew up
0:18
in the Pacific Northwest and Portland, Oregon. I host a
0:21
podcast called Missing in the PNW.
0:25
Speaker 2: My podcast is different from others you may have heard
0:27
because I focus specifically on two things. The first is
0:31
that all of the missing person cases that I cover
0:33
are strictly from the Pacific Northwest and Oregon and Washington.
0:38
I know the title of my podcast should.
0:40
Speaker 1: Have given that one away.
0:42
Speaker 2: The second thing is that my podcast focuses strictly on
0:45
missing persons from marginalized communities such as the black, Hispanic,
0:50
Native American Indigenous people and the LGBTQ plus communities. You know,
0:56
the ones that get absolutely no media attention. Now, I
1:00
am not an investigative journalist or a reporter. I'm actually
1:04
a widowed mom of three who loves true crime and
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has a passion for social justice. So join me in
1:10
helping to spread the word on these missing person cases
1:13
and help you the voice for the ones that are
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now voiceless. You can find Missing in the PNW on
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all of the major streaming apps, as well as on
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socials at Missing in the PNW podcast.
1:25
Speaker 1: If you have a case you.
1:26
Speaker 2: Want me to cover, please email me at Missing in
1:29
THEPNW at gmail dot com or send me a message
1:34
through Facebook Messenger. I hope to talk to you soon,
1:37
and remember, have fun, but be safe.
1:45
Speaker 3: Dark Cast Network, Out of the shadows come the best
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indie podcasts. Hey everyone, welcome to True Crime California. I'm
1:59
your host Cindy, and I'm glad you're here. Hey, everybody,
2:15
welcome back to True Crime California. We're back for another episode.
2:20
Last week we covered a doozy of a case, Dorothea Plente.
2:24
It's a case near and dear to my heart because
2:26
I grew up near there, and when I was a
2:29
little kid, I got to see the murder House because
2:32
I lived near Sacramento. It was a big, big, big case.
2:37
And so this week I'm doing something a little more smaller,
2:42
a little more smaller, proper English for you there. You know,
2:46
I think it's fun to have these big cases that
2:49
everyone knows and I get to kind of do my
2:51
research and have my say on the subject, but I
2:54
also want to make sure that I'm peppering in lesser
2:56
known tales that are interesting and are something new for
3:01
people to listen to. So hopefully you guys like the
3:03
tale today, please continue to like, rate review. Please feel
3:06
free to email me Case Suggestions True Crime, californiapod at
3:10
gmail dot com. I want to hear anything that you
3:13
want to hear, and I want to cover cases that
3:15
I don't know about. It's you know, I enjoy the
3:18
research part of this more than anything, like being able
3:21
to kind of put a case together, finding little bits
3:24
of information. So if I have a case that I've
3:26
never heard of, that's going to be super fun for
3:29
me because it's all new stuff. You know, it's not
3:32
a rehashing, it's not a retelling, it's a whole new adventure.
3:35
So feel free to send those ideas. I want to
3:38
hear them and I want to cover them. For now,
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let's go ahead and get into this week's case. I'm
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going to be covering the murder of Thomas and Jackie Hawkes.
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This murder takes place in Orange County, California, in two
3:49
thousand and four, specifically in Newport Beach. One of the
3:53
most affluent cities in California. It also at one point
3:57
had the most KKKY members per capita of any city
4:00
west of the Mississippi. So not like the best distinction,
4:05
but I thought people might find that interesting to know,
4:07
so I wanted to share it. I'm going to start
4:09
out by talking about Jackie Hawks, who was born Jackie
4:13
O'Neill in nineteen fifty seven. She was actually born and
4:16
raised in Ohio, so quite a ways from California. She
4:20
was a really fun, loving, adventurous person who longed for
4:24
better weather, which totally fair, and a more exciting life,
4:27
which also totally fair. When she turned eighteen, she and
4:31
her then husband Lester Newell, who went by less, moved
4:35
first to Texas, then to Arizona, going more and more
4:39
into warm climates. And if you ask me, going a
4:41
little too far, Arizona is hot as balls. It gets
4:45
up to like the one twenties regularly. I have been
4:48
there in the summer and it feels like you're getting
4:49
slapped in the face with like a fire log. It's insane.
4:53
But anyway, she found the warmer weather. I guess now
4:56
to clarify, she was married, I believe at age sixteen
5:00
or maybe seventeen, which I guess wasn't that weird in
5:02
the Midwest in the seventies. The marriage was a very
5:06
happy one, but very unfortunately. It came to an end
5:09
just a few days before Christmas in nineteen eighty five,
5:12
when Lez and Jackie were out riding their motorcycle, just
5:15
going like on a quick run to kmart. Out of nowhere,
5:19
a drunk driver in a large pickup truck came barreling
5:22
at them head on. Less threw their bike down and
5:25
put himself between the truck and Jackie and as a
5:28
result was crushed, suffering major trauma to his head and chest.
5:33
Now unfortunately, he died instantly. Jackie survived, but suffered a
5:37
broken pelvis and also lost her ability to have children,
5:41
which was something she had always wanted and was planning
5:44
for with Less before the accident. So this is very tragic,
5:48
of course, and for a while Jackie even had to
5:52
move back in with her parents so that they could
5:53
help her get around and take care of herself while
5:56
she was healing because she could not walk, I mean,
5:59
her pelvis was crushed like that's a tough thing to
6:04
recover from. After about four months, she was finally well
6:08
enough to be on her own, and despite still being
6:11
in a wheelchair at this point, she did decide to
6:13
go back to Arizona and kind of did her best
6:16
to resume her life. Shortly after returning to Arizona, she
6:22
met Thomas tom Hawks at a mutual friend's cookout. Tom
6:27
Hawks was ten years Jackie's senior, just as her first
6:31
husband was, and was a very good looking, very fit man.
6:37
He was recently divorced and worked as a probation officer
6:40
and was also a bodybuilder, so very very fit. He
6:45
had two young sons, Matt and Ryan, and was all
6:48
around just like a really good guy, very silly sense
6:52
of humor, always playing jokes, life of the party, but
6:56
also like a responsible adult man. Now I'm going to
7:01
talk about Tom Hawks here a little bit besides what
7:04
I just said about him. He was born on Christmas
7:07
Eve of nineteen forty six in Pasadena, California. Now I
7:10
don't actually know how he ended up in Arizona, but
7:13
he was there in nineteen eighty six when he met Jackie. Now,
7:16
at first, Jackie was not interested in dating because she
7:19
was still mourning the loss of her first husband and
7:22
also trying to heal her body. But even so, there
7:26
was no denying the chemistry between Tom and Jackie, and
7:30
although Jackie said she wasn't ready, she did allow Tom
7:34
to keep in touch with her, and the two began
7:37
talking fairly regularly. Now Tom had even come by her
7:40
house randomly, like not even telling her he was gonna
7:44
come by, and he would bring her pints of Hoggindaw's
7:47
ice cream sometimes if Jackie wasn't home, because again Tom
7:50
has just coming by whenever. So when this happened, he
7:53
would eat the pint and leave the empty carton on
7:56
her doorstep to let her know what she had missed, like, oh,
7:59
you missed me, you missed some amazing ice cream. Now,
8:02
apparently this was his style of humor, very playful, very silly,
8:06
and Jackie loved it as she was also a very
8:08
playful person. So they really just they sinked like they
8:12
were perfect. They just like they vibed. So, as you
8:15
can imagine, pretty quickly they did start dating despite what
8:19
she said, and soon after that they were engaged. Now,
8:23
in nineteen eighty nine, the two were married in a
8:25
Hawaiian themed wedding in their backyard in Arizona, and from
8:29
the start, even when they were still just dating, Jackie
8:32
loved Tom's sons as if they were her own. I
8:36
think it would be more than fair to call it
8:38
fate that she met and fell in love with a
8:40
man with children, since she couldn't have her own and
8:43
really wanted her own. And in fact, many years later,
8:46
when one of Tom's sons I believe it was Matt,
8:50
was about to become a father, Jackie could not contain
8:53
her excitement over having her first grand baby. And for her,
8:56
there wasn't any delineation or a difference. It's it's not
9:00
her step grandbaby, that's her grandbaby. That's her child, Like
9:02
that's her you know, child's child. So you know, everybody
9:07
in the family felt the same way. That's just how
9:08
it was. She was the mom, she was the grandma. Now,
9:14
I mentioned that they had a Hawaiian themed wedding at
9:17
their home, so they didn't go to Hawaii, they just
9:19
had a Hawaiian themed wedding. This is very much aligned
9:22
with the way that Tom and Jackie lived. They were
9:24
super super frugal, choosing to save their money to invest
9:28
in real estate, which they did, and they were able
9:30
to buy like a few different properties, and they saved
9:33
the money they made from that so that they could
9:35
retire early and enjoy their lives together. During this time
9:39
when they had these you know, real estate investments, Tom
9:43
continued to work as a parole officer and Jackie actually
9:46
became the manager of the properties, thereby saving the money
9:50
on hiring a management company. The plan worked perfectly, and
9:54
when Tom was fifty five and Jackie only forty five,
9:58
they were able to not only retire, but to buy
10:00
a yacht to live on so that they could travel
10:03
the world. And this is exactly what they did. Over
10:06
the following two years, the couple went on countless adventures,
10:10
always together, always smiling and laughing, just completely totally in love.
10:16
There are some home videos and photos from this time
10:18
and they're just enjoying every moment. And Tom is an
10:21
absolute like joker, like everything he's doing is just like
10:24
goofy and silly. They just seem like they're always having
10:28
a good time now. Before they embarked on their around
10:31
the world adventure, they first moved to Newport Beach, which
10:36
is California, so they would have a place to dock
10:39
their yacht, and because it's like a beautiful area and
10:42
a great place for this type of lifestyle, and it
10:44
was probably like the closest place to Arizona where they
10:46
could actually find a place to dock their yacht. So
10:50
it just made sense. So they kept in touch with
10:52
friends and family constantly while they were on these trips,
10:54
calling them weekly, sometimes even more often. So when they
10:59
suddenly they stopped all communication on November fifteenth, two thousand
11:03
and four, everyone got worried. As I mentioned previously, their
11:09
son was expecting his first child, and because of this,
11:12
Jackie and Tom decided it was time to hang up
11:15
their sales. That's not a saying. I don't know what
11:17
that means, but anyway, they were going to come back
11:19
to shore and to normal life. I wrote that they're
11:21
gonna hang up their sales. You don't hang out, What
11:24
are you talking about? I was tired. I told you
11:26
I had the flu when I was doing this or
11:27
the research. Anyway, So anyway, they wanted to be closer
11:30
to the family so they could spend time with the
11:32
first grandchild. So they decided, you know what, We're gonna
11:35
sell the yacht. We're going to buy a house. We're gonna,
11:38
you know, come back to Arizona. We're gonna be like,
11:41
we're gonna settle back down into our golden years with
11:44
our family. So they decided to sell the yacht, which
11:47
by the way, was named the Well Deserved because of
11:50
how hard they had worked to buy it, which I
11:53
thought was pretty cute and again sounds aligned with their
11:56
sense of humor. So the couple put The Well Deserved
11:59
up for sale in the local papers, because that's how
12:01
you did it back then, and pretty soon they were
12:04
telling friends and family that they had a buyer and
12:06
that it would just be a few more days before
12:08
the deal was done. And then they went radio silent
12:13
and disappeared off the face of the earth. Because Tom
12:18
and Jackie would leave to go on trips to various
12:20
islands and sort of take off for like, you know,
12:23
a week or two at a time, it took ten
12:25
days for their friends and family to finally call the
12:27
police and report them missing. Luckily, the police agreed to
12:31
investigate pretty much right away. Tom and Jackie's boat was
12:36
actually parked in the Newport Harbor, docked, i should say,
12:39
in the Newport Harbor, so police were like, oh, well,
12:43
the boat's here, let's check it out. So they bored
12:46
the boat. They don't go inside the cabin at this point,
12:49
but they're at the outside kind of looking around, and
12:53
there's signs that people live there, but nobody's there now.
12:57
Police did find a red fingerprint on the railing. This
13:01
concerned them because they thought it might be blood, but
13:04
this also gave them probable cause to go inside the
13:06
cabin of the yacht. Now, inside the cabin was an
13:10
absolute mess, which is very much not like Tom and
13:13
Jackie and was another big red flag for the police.
13:17
Police also knew that the couple were looking to sell
13:20
their boat, so on the one hand, they were like, well,
13:22
maybe they did sell it and the new buyers are
13:25
just very messy people. But that theory sort of fell
13:28
apart when they got inside the actual cabin and found
13:32
all of Tom and Jackie's photos and other personal items
13:35
still in the boat and not even packed up. They
13:39
were just out as if they still lived there. Now,
13:42
even with all of this, there was nothing to explicitly
13:45
suggest foul play, but police were very concerned and they
13:49
put out a reward for one thousand dollars for any
13:52
information that would lead to finding the couple. Luckily, Tom
13:57
and Jackie's family had the contact information for the people
14:01
that were looking to buy the boat, so police were
14:04
able to reach out to this couple to see if
14:07
they knew anything about what was going on. Now. The
14:10
couple's names were Jennifer and Skuyler Delion, a young married
14:14
couple living in Long Beach. One important thing about this
14:18
is that they were living in Long Beach with Jennifer's parents,
14:22
and they weren't even in the main house. They were
14:24
living in her parents converted garage, which, like, how are
14:29
you buying a yacht if that's your living situation, right?
14:34
That just seems weird. Maybe they were also frugal like
14:38
the Hawks, but like, probably not. Anyway. Police found the
14:43
couple and interviewed them, and their story only led to
14:46
more confusion. Now, Skyler and Jennifer both said they were
14:51
very worried about Jackie and Tom and that they had
14:53
also been looking for them for some days as well.
14:57
They were looking for them because they had in fact
14:59
bought the yacht and needed them to come back and
15:02
remove their personal items so that Skyler and Jennifer could
15:05
move in. When this couple arrived at the police station
15:09
to talk with police, they brought their young child with
15:12
them and it was also clear that Jennifer was like
15:14
very very pregnant with their second child. So they said,
15:17
you know, we bought this yacht because we needed more
15:20
space for our family and also we wanted to live
15:22
on the water. Police are like, okay, that's all well
15:25
and good, but where did you get four hundred and
15:27
sixty five thousand dollars in cash to buy a yacht
15:31
because they said it was in cash because there was
15:33
no loan. So they're like, if there's no loan, if
15:36
you can't show us a loan, you bought it in cash.
15:38
So Skyler pretty much just straight up admitted that they
15:42
got this money through drug dealing. Now this was a
15:45
big deal because this wasn't just admitting to drug dealing
15:49
but also money laundering, because buying a yacht with cash
15:53
is a great way to hide your legal earnings. So
15:57
police are already starting to sort of unravel this really
16:00
weird story, and they don't really know what to think,
16:03
and they don't trust this couple, but they don't really
16:06
have much to hold them for or to use against
16:09
them at this point, so they have to keep digging.
16:15
Right now, though, let's take a moment to talk about
16:19
Skyler de Leone. Skyler de Leone was born John Jacobson
16:25
in nineteen seventy nine in sun Valley, California, which is
16:29
just about five miles from where I am sitting right
16:32
this moment. Her father, and I say her because Skyler
16:37
has transitioned and is now living as a woman. So anyway,
16:41
her father was an abusive drug dealer who abused Skyler
16:45
as a child and at one point when he found
16:47
her wearing makeup and putting on dresses with girls in
16:50
the neighborhood, beat her severely. Now beyond being abusive, he
16:55
also forced Skyler into child acting. Skyler had a nice,
17:00
fairly gender neutral face, which is great for child acting roles,
17:04
and was actually moderately successful, booking quite a few commercials
17:08
and even a non speaking role on The Mighty Morphine
17:11
Power Rangers, which, if you're my age or a little
17:16
bit younger, might have been your thing. Wasn't mine, but
17:19
it was definitely around at my time. In fact, one
17:21
of my friends dated the Yellow Power Ranger, which every
17:24
time I tell people that they lose their minds, I
17:27
guess she was like a thing. But anyway, Skyler was
17:31
also on that show in a non speaking role, but somewhat,
17:35
you know, a little bit successful, I guess. After a while,
17:41
the acting gigs dried up, as did Skyler's relationship with
17:45
her parents, and in truth, I couldn't even find anything
17:47
about her mom, only her dad. So anyway, she moved
17:51
to Long Beach and met Jennifer Henderson, who fell so
17:54
in love with her that Skyler even trusted her enough
17:57
to share with her that she wanted to trans and
18:00
become a woman. Jennifer wanted this for Skyler because Jennifer
18:05
loved Skyler. But the two had very little money, no skills,
18:10
and had to hide their true selves from everyone, most
18:14
of all Jennifer's evangelical Christian parents, with whom they lived.
18:19
Skyler and Jennifer were married, but not before Skyler legally
18:23
changed her name from John Jacobson to Skyler de Leone. Jennifer,
18:28
of course, took her last name when the two were
18:31
married in two thousand and one, and pretty much as
18:34
soon as they got married, they started to run into
18:36
financial trouble. First, Skyler bought Jennifer a ten thousand dollars
18:42
engagement ring while she was unemployed and Jennifer was only
18:46
working part time. The two bought new cars, new clothes.
18:51
They just spent and spent and spent. Their credit card
18:54
debt ended up being over seventeen thousand dollars at one point,
18:58
and there were no signs of them slowing down. So
19:01
eventually they got desperate for money. They couldn't get any
19:04
more money on their credit cards, they couldn't pay their
19:06
credit cards, they didn't have jobs, they didn't have money.
19:08
So Skyler does the only thing that makes sense to her.
19:11
She goes down. She commits a robbery for which she
19:14
was caught and for which she went to jail. Now,
19:17
Jennifer's parents, for whatever reason, agreed to pay the twenty
19:21
one hundred dollars per month for Skyler to be put
19:23
on a work for Low program where she had to
19:26
work during the day but was also allowed out of
19:28
the jail at that time that had to come back
19:30
your curfew and sleep there every night, I think, starting
19:33
at like five pm. This little bit of information comes
19:36
into play later, So just remember that she's on this
19:39
Work for a Low program. I'm not exactly sure what
19:42
the two were doing for money during this time, but
19:45
I know that once the Work for a Low program
19:47
was done, Skyler and Jennifer were again desperate for money.
19:52
Skyler wanted to transition but needed money for hormone treatment
19:55
and surgeries, and the couple was also about to have
19:58
their second child, having already had one in two thousand
20:02
and three. So now we're in two thousand and four,
20:05
and they had this horrible plan to steal this yacht
20:08
from Tom and Jackie. And we'll get to that, but
20:11
right now they are talking with police, and Skyler just
20:14
admitted to money laundering, So I'm just bringing us kind
20:16
of back to where we were. This admission actually threw
20:20
police off the scent because why would you openly admit
20:23
to a felony when you don't have to and when
20:26
you have a record. So they're thinking, like, Okay, maybe
20:29
this person is actually just a drug dealer and bought
20:33
this yacht with cash. Maybe they're not actually involved in
20:37
anything more nefarious. But if that's the case, where where
20:42
Tom and Jackie. Also this kind of made the police go, well,
20:47
if this is true, that means the Hawks had nearly
20:50
five hundred thousand dollars in cash on them when they
20:54
went missing, which could be a very good reason for
20:57
their disappearance, not related to Jennifer and Skyler. So police
21:03
go ahead and they do their due diligence. They interview
21:05
all the people on the paperwork given to them by
21:07
the Daily Ownes, because the Daily Zones produced the bill
21:10
of sale and they said, we signed it. They signed it,
21:13
our witness signed it, and we had it notarized. So
21:16
they go and they talk to Alonzo Machine who acted
21:19
as the witness for the sale, and they also talked
21:21
to Kathleen Harris, who was the notary who notarized the sale.
21:26
Both of these people say the same thing. It was legit.
21:29
They were there when it happened. Everybody had the same
21:31
story and like, why would a random ass notary be
21:34
lying about this? So cops are at least for the moment,
21:37
kind of satisfied or not even satisfied, but they just
21:41
can't really argue the point because everything aligns and it
21:45
doesn't seem like anybody's lying. And I should also mention
21:48
that Alonzo was a guard at the work release where
21:51
Skyler had done her time, so Alonzo had a decent reputation.
21:55
But police did find it weird that he was hanging
21:57
out with a former inmate, but I mean, everything lined up,
22:01
so they were like, all right, that being said, so
22:03
they're like, Okay, we don't necessarily think that you guys
22:06
had anything to do with it, but the boat now
22:08
belongs to you, and we want to search it to
22:10
try and figure out if we can get any evidence
22:13
for whoever was involved. So they say, you know, do
22:16
you guys mind if we search the boat, and the
22:17
couple said absolutely, please feel free. You know, we don't
22:21
have anything to hide, like whatever you need. Police searched
22:25
the boat and they don't find anything. There's no evidence,
22:29
and in fact, that bloody fingerprint ended up just being
22:32
like rust, so they've got nothing. Everything seems on the
22:36
up and up. The couple bought the boat outright, they
22:39
have their you know, their witness, they have their notary,
22:43
and there's no evidence to the contrary. Now, one thing
22:47
I wanted to say that the police did still have
22:49
kind of outstanding that they were looking for was the
22:52
Hawks car, which had been missing the entire time the
22:56
couple had been missing, and supposedly the last time that
22:59
Tom or Tom Sorry and Jackie Hawks were seen, they
23:03
were driving away in their car with the money from
23:07
the yacht sale, and of course the last people to
23:09
see them were Skuyler and Jennifer So now it's been
23:14
three weeks since Jackie and Tom disappeared, and finally police
23:18
get a break in the case. The couple's bank actually
23:21
called the police, as their bank in Arizona and calls
23:24
police and they say someone came into the branch today
23:27
and attempted to access the Hawks' bank accounts. This couple
23:31
that came in had with them a power of attorney
23:34
document signed by the Hawks and stating that this couple
23:37
had total control of all of their bank accounts. So
23:41
they come in they asked for access to the accounts.
23:44
They show this documentation. Very luckily, the bank teller at
23:48
the time had the presence of mind to say, no,
23:50
I'm sorry, I can't do this for you. I need
23:52
to check this out with their bank at home in California.
23:55
I need to verify their signatures before we can move forward.
23:59
Come back tomorrow. So this bank teller sends them away
24:03
and immediately calls the police because something is fishy. The
24:08
police are given access to the video cameras in the
24:13
the security cameras from the bank, and they look on
24:16
the footage from that day and wouldn't you know the
24:20
couple on the film is Skyler and Jennifer. So they're
24:25
in Arizona at the Hawk's bank with power of attorney documents,
24:31
attempting to access their bank accounts. So the police are like, Okay,
24:37
something's going on here. They call Skyler and Jennifer back
24:41
in for another interview, and they say, how on earth
24:44
did you get the durable power of attorney over the
24:47
Hawk's accounts. Skyler says, oh, I can explain. Tom and
24:52
Jackie wanted to buy a house in Mexico. I said, hey,
24:56
I can help you do that, but you've got to
24:59
give me power attorney so that I can access all
25:02
of your accounts and help you buy the house in
25:04
Mexico because I have friends in Mexico that will sell
25:07
you a house. Now, if this sounds like it doesn't
25:11
make sense, that's because it doesn't. Why the Hawks wouldn't
25:15
just do it themselves makes zero sense. But they're gonna
25:18
give this absolute fucking stranger access to every single personal document.
25:25
You know, power of attorney is more than just for money,
25:28
it's everything in your life. So they're gonna sign this
25:31
over These super money conscious like careful people are gonna
25:35
sign over their power of attorney to a stranger, some
25:40
person in their twenties that they don't know. This story
25:44
was so stupid it was a waste of breath, but
25:46
Skyler did her best to sell it, and surprisingly they
25:50
had the documents to back it up. Now, what's really
25:54
interesting about this power of attorney document is that it
25:57
too was notarized, and the signatures were also verified as real.
26:04
So how does this happen? Because the story checks out,
26:08
at least on paper. Literally. At first, police were stumped,
26:15
but then they checked the documents a little more closely
26:19
and they noticed something a little weird. Jackie Hawk's signature,
26:24
while verified as being hers, wasn't quite right. It looked
26:30
as though the S had been added to her last
26:34
name later on, meaning that whoever signed her name left
26:39
the S off on the first time. And I'll jump
26:43
ahead and tell you later on that police determined it
26:47
was in fact Jackie who signed her name and did
26:49
this on purpose as a way of communicating that the
26:53
documents were signed under duress, which is super fucking smart.
26:58
So now police are going hard in interviewing Skyler over
27:01
and over. As a reminder, the hawks car is still
27:03
missing and police are very hopeful that they're going to
27:06
find it, and in anticipation of finding it, they set
27:10
a trap for Skyler. Now they ask Schuyler, you know fine,
27:15
you were given power of attorney, you bought the boat
27:17
with cash. We're going to take all of these things
27:19
on face value. Can you tell us can you confirm
27:23
that you've never been in the Hawks car before? And
27:26
Skyler said no, I've never been in their car. Police
27:29
said great, Can we then get some DNA from you
27:33
to exclude you from any DNA that we find on
27:35
the boat And she said, yeah, no problem. Now this
27:38
is another smart mood because now they have her DNA
27:41
on file. If they ever do find the car and
27:44
they find her DNA in the car, now they've caught
27:46
her in a lie. So she's like, yeah, whatever helps.
27:51
She doesn't realize she's being set up. So from here
27:54
police do a media blast about this car and also
27:57
enter it into a national database. Finally, after a couple
28:02
of weeks, they get a break when the car is
28:04
found in Mexico. Now, often the police don't love the media,
28:08
but they certainly do when they can use them to
28:10
get leads, and in this case it worked because there
28:12
was a woman from Baja Mexico who saw this on
28:15
the news and called police and said, hey, guess what,
28:19
I'm looking at this car right now. It's parked across
28:22
the street from me. So police go down, hoping they're
28:25
gonna find the car and with it they're gonna find
28:28
the Hawks, because this is still possible, right, I mean maybe.
28:33
Unfortunately this was not the case. That being said, When
28:37
police went to get the car, they got another big break.
28:41
The man who was in possession of the car, because
28:44
it wasn't just dumped, it was at somebody's house, said oh, yeah,
28:48
this car was given to my son as a gift
28:51
from a friend. That friend's name was Skuyler de Leone.
28:57
He and Jennifer had both been in Mexico and had
29:00
gifted this car to this person. So now police know
29:05
everyone is lying, and this includes the notary who seemingly
29:10
had no connection to any of these people but is
29:13
clearly doing something shady. The Hawks never drove that car
29:17
anywhere Skyler did, and police know this now, so they
29:22
process the car for DNA. Of course, they did in
29:28
fact find Skyler's DNA inside the car. Now they're still
29:32
holding off unarresting her because they're trying to get some
29:35
more pieces of the puzzle together. But next pretty soon
29:39
after this is going on, Skyler's parole officer calls the
29:43
police and says, hey, Skyler's asking to leave the country
29:46
to go work in Bermuda, which sounds like bullshit but
29:50
also forces the cops' hands so they can't wait to
29:54
arrest the daily oones anymore. They have to do it. Now,
29:57
you know, Skyler's trying to bail out to Mexico or
30:00
or whatever, So the cops act quickly and arrest her
30:03
for the money laundering charge, which they hadn't done yet
30:06
and to which she you know, admitted at the outset
30:08
of the investigation. Now Jennifer is there demanding to know
30:12
why Skyler's being arrested, and police say money laundering, and
30:15
when they do, both Skyler and Jennifer's faces changed from
30:20
fear to relief, which is like, have a fucking poker face.
30:24
It's also ridiculous because obviously that's where this is going.
30:27
If they were gonna arrest Skyler for that, they probably
30:30
would have done it before. It's obviously just a way
30:32
of like getting her under like keeping her in the
30:35
country essentially. So now police with the arrest, they get
30:39
a warrant to search the garage where the couple lives,
30:42
and they find just a jackpot, a ton of items
30:46
belonging to the Hawks, including their IDs, their laptop, a
30:51
video recorder with a tape in it. And the worst
30:54
part is that, I mean, this isn't the worst part,
30:55
but it's just another really insulting part is that the
30:59
de Leons had just taped over whatever the Hawks had
31:03
recorded with their own home videos. So it's just like callous.
31:08
So at this point, very unfortunately, police are like, this
31:11
is absolutely a murder investigation. There's no way that the
31:14
Hawks are still alive with the evidence as it is,
31:18
their car in Mexico, their ideas at the de Leone's garage, apartment, whatever.
31:23
So they're just like, all right, this is a murder investigation.
31:26
We need to take this seriously. Now. I don't know
31:29
for sure if they had the DNA from the car
31:31
when they arrested Skyler. I think that was actually more
31:34
just to keep her in the country. But basically at
31:36
the exact same time they do get the DNA back
31:38
from the car, they match it to Skyler's. They know
31:40
they're on the right track. So the next thing they
31:43
do is they bring in Kathleen the notary. They want
31:47
her for another interview, and in this interview they lean
31:49
on her hard. Now, Kathleen during this interview does not crack,
31:55
but later that night police get a call from her
31:57
lawyer saying she's ready to talk in return for immunity
32:02
in the case. Police agree because they don't really think
32:06
she had that much to do with it, and they're
32:07
just gonna take the chance. And finally, she admits to
32:11
backdating the documents and tells police that she never in
32:15
fact met the Hawks. When those documents were taken to her,
32:19
they were already signed, the thumb prints were already on them,
32:23
and she just backdated them to make it look legit. Now,
32:27
she was given two thousand dollars for doing this and
32:29
promised more money later on, probably after the Deleones thought
32:34
they were going to get access to those bank accounts
32:36
and have all of the money that the Hawks had,
32:39
which was probably a pretty substantial amount. Police also, of course,
32:44
want to talk to Alonzo Machhane, the witness to the
32:47
documents being quote unquote signed, which is probably more likely
32:51
that he was a witness to the murders and whose
32:53
friends with Skyler and the former guard at the work release.
32:57
Now Alonzo catches wind of what's going on. I don't
33:01
want to talk to the cops, so he flees the
33:03
country and goes to Mexico to live with his relatives.
33:07
Now police are like, we're gonna extradite this guy. He
33:10
had something to do with this, and Mexico says, you're
33:12
not doing shit unless you take the death penalty off
33:15
the table, because they're basically thinking, you know, he's gonna
33:18
get arrested for murder. If you're gonna fucking try to
33:21
kill him, you can't have him because Mexico doesn't go
33:24
for that barbaric shit. They don't kill people in prisons,
33:27
like at least the government doesn't. So Alonzo gets spooked
33:32
because he sees that the extradition is about to happen,
33:35
so he jumps on a chance for a deal. He
33:38
says to the American police, I will give you the
33:41
full story in exchange. I want a very reduced sentence
33:44
and no possibility of the death penalty. They say, you
33:48
got it. Come back to America, tell us what happened.
33:52
You will not go to prison for the rest of
33:54
your life, and we won't try you for the death penalty,
33:56
So he does just that, and now the full story
34:00
sort of comes out after Alonzo gives the police the
34:02
details he knows, but I'm gonna just kind of use
34:05
this as the time to fill in all of the blanks.
34:08
So Alonzo doesn't tell them all of this, but this
34:10
all came out kind of after and it's just a
34:12
good timing to do it. So Skyler and Jennifer, obviously
34:16
very hard up for money and desperate, and with Skyler
34:19
wanting money in order to transition, decided that they would
34:23
hatch a scheme to rob the Hawks of their yacht,
34:25
which they found for sale in the local paper. Skyler
34:29
at first went to meet the couple with Alonso, only
34:32
not with Jennifer, and the Hawks were a little suspicious,
34:35
which I think is totally fair. Tom later said to
34:38
his family, how does a young guy like this have
34:41
enough money to buy this boat? And in cash? No Less,
34:45
Skyler realized this was going to be a tough sell
34:48
to kind of get the Hawks on board and to
34:50
trust them, so she decided to bring Jennifer, who was
34:54
very pregnant, as well as their young child to the
34:59
boat to me the Hawks. This, of course put the
35:02
couple at ease because nobody would ever suspect a pregnant
35:05
mother to be a con artist and accessory to murder.
35:08
Speaker 2: Right.
35:09
Speaker 3: So after that things went much more smoothly, and the
35:11
Hawks agreed to the sale as long as Skyler and
35:14
Jennifer want to buy it. Of course, Skyler and Jennifer
35:17
said Skyler would come back to test out the boat
35:19
on her own because Jennifer was too pregnant to come
35:22
back again, so instead Skyler would bring along her accountant
35:26
and Alonzo, who would act as the witness to the sale. Now,
35:31
during this time, Skyler and Jennifer, as well as Alonzo
35:34
and another man, a local gang member, were in contact
35:37
constantly discussing the plan, and their cell phone records to
35:41
show all of this. Now, it's not clear if Alonzo
35:44
always knew that they were going to kill the couple,
35:46
but I believe that he was in the dark at first,
35:49
but by the time he knew what was going to happen,
35:52
like he was kind of too deep. He was in
35:55
too deep, so he just kind of agreed to it.
35:57
The gang member they'd been in touch with, who was
35:59
a friend of Skyler's, didn't want or couldn't get involved
36:03
in the con. So their original gang member friend connected
36:06
Skyler with another man named, and I'm not joking, John
36:11
Fitzgerald Kennedy. So he went by JFK. And he was
36:16
another gang member and was ready to do whatever they
36:18
wanted him to for some money. His poor mother giving
36:22
him a name like that, and this is how he
36:24
turns out right like big yikes. So anyway, on November fifteenth,
36:28
two thousand and four, Skyler, Alonso, and JFK bored the
36:33
Well Deserved via dinghy picked up by Tom. They take
36:38
the yacht for a spin and Skyler even puts on
36:41
a wetsuit to quote unquote inspect the whole fully selling
36:45
the buyer thing. I don't know for what reason. As
36:48
a note, during this time, Skyler and Jennifer were again
36:51
in constant phone contact using a cell phone, so while
36:56
she wasn't there, Jennifer was very much involved in what
36:59
was going on and even had like play by plays.
37:03
She had also provided Skyler with the durable power of
37:06
attorney paperwork later found by the police. Jennifer had downloaded
37:12
and pre filled out the forms, so all they needed
37:14
with the thumbprints and signatures of the Hawks. So after
37:19
Skyler's done inspecting the hole or whatever, she goes back
37:22
up to the boat and changes back into normal clothing.
37:25
At this time, Alonzo is in the galley with Jackie,
37:28
and JFK and Skyler are in the bedroom with Tom. Suddenly,
37:35
JFK puts Tom in a headlock, and Jackie yells, Skyler,
37:39
why are you doing this? We trusted you. You brought
37:43
your wife and your kids, you had them here. How
37:46
can you do this to us? We trusted you. She
37:49
and Alonzo are struggling as she's yelling this, and he's
37:52
trying to subdue her, but she's fighting hard. Unfortunately, finally
37:57
he is able to subdue her, and it takes the
38:00
other two everything. They've got to hold Tom down because again,
38:04
you know, bodybuilder former, you know, kind of cop, very fit.
38:08
They knew to bring extra people. So once they have
38:11
the couple kind of under control, they handcuff them and
38:15
put duct tape over their eyes and mouths. They then
38:18
prepare the paperwork for signing and take first Jackie then
38:22
Tom up to the deck to sign the paperwork. Now
38:25
this time, Jackie says she does not want to die
38:28
and just wants to go be with her grand baby,
38:31
which is absolutely fucking heartbreaking, because you know that she
38:35
felt that so deeply in her soul at that moment
38:38
and almost certainly knew what was going to happen. And
38:40
it's just so sad, it's so like gut wrenching, like
38:45
it's just fucking awful. It's also at this time that
38:49
she missigned her name, because even in her grief, fear
38:54
and anguish, she was still a very smart, badass woman
38:57
and she was not going to let these people get
39:00
away with what they did. They then bring Tom up
39:03
to do the same. They retie them both, put the
39:06
duct tape back on, and then and this is the worst,
39:10
they go get the giant anchor used to hold down
39:14
the yacht, drag it slowly to where the couple is.
39:19
They're sitting bound to each other. They then tie them
39:22
to the anchor and throw it overboard, with Jackie and
39:26
Tom fully awake and fully alive. It's said that Jackie
39:31
hit the side of the boat on the way down,
39:33
and I truly hope that it knocked her out, but
39:36
will never know. They then brought the yacht back, docked
39:41
it off the main area, and started enacting the rest
39:44
of their plan to essentially steal the Hawks' lives or
39:47
at least all of their money. To add horrible insult
39:51
to all of this, Jackie and Tom's bodies have never
39:55
been found. After Alonzo gives the version of events, Skuyler
40:02
is now arrested and charged with two counts of murder.
40:06
JFK is also arrested and charged, and Alonzo is already
40:11
under arrest and is also charged, though we know he
40:14
gets a deal out of it and he actually becomes
40:16
the star witness for this case. At this time, Jennifer
40:20
is not under arrest because she wasn't on the boat,
40:23
so police can't prove at least yet that she was involved,
40:27
but they were working on it. They know. She was like,
40:29
it's just a matter of time. Now here comes a
40:33
little curveball for you. I said, this is just going
40:35
to be one murder allied. Before she was arrested, Jennifer
40:39
Henderson was interviewed on February twenty second, two thousand and five.
40:44
While being interviewed, she denied having any knowledge of what
40:46
happened to the Hawks, said she wasn't on the boat
40:49
that day and had never been in their car, and
40:51
basically just had nothing to do with their disappearance. She
40:55
did admit to handling her family's financial affairs into all
40:59
of the paper work fraud, although at that time she
41:02
wasn't saying it was fraudulent to her knowledge. So she's like, yes,
41:05
I filled all these forms out, everything's legit. So basically
41:09
she said she thought everything was on the up and
41:11
up when she put together the power of attorney paperwork,
41:14
sort of like blaming Skyler, but also not giving cops
41:17
anything concrete to pin on Skyler either, so it was
41:20
pretty smart. Now, during this interview, police also asked Jennifer
41:24
if Skyler ever drove a van. Now, why would you
41:28
ask about a van? It's an interesting curveball, right, Like
41:32
I said, Well, the reason they asked is because prior
41:35
to these murders, Skyler de Leone was a suspect in
41:38
another murder. Now, this murder took place in December two
41:42
thousand and three, and the story behind it is pretty crazy,
41:46
which is aligned with this entire tale. I had mentioned
41:49
that work release program previously, and this is what Skyler
41:53
was doing at the time that this murder takes place.
41:55
So she's there, she meets that Alonzoma Shane person, and
41:59
she also meets a man named John Jarvey. John Jarvey
42:04
is a very interesting character. He's a man of conflicts
42:08
within himself, I believe. On the one hand, he had
42:11
his pilot's license, he worked hard, he invested his money
42:16
in real estate with his mother, He was close with
42:19
his mother. I mean, these are all really good things.
42:22
On the other hand, John had struggled with addiction from
42:25
the time he was a teen and had quite a
42:28
few relapses over the years, including when he was injured
42:31
and given pain pills, to which he became very addicted. Now, this,
42:35
of course, does not make John a bad person, but
42:39
it does mean that he made a lot of bad
42:41
choices and as a result, ended up in the work
42:45
furlough program where he met Skyler. Now, John, or JP
42:50
as he was known, was released earlier than Skyler, but
42:53
the two stayed in touch because Skyler had a quote
42:55
no lose business opportunity for JP down in Mexico. JP
43:00
was super excited for this opportunity, and he was also
43:03
excited to learn that Skyler was just going to go
43:05
ahead and broker the deals during one of her release
43:08
days where she was allowed to be away from the
43:10
prison between nine and five, so she was going to
43:12
sneak down to Mexico and help JP get in on
43:16
this deal and make all this money. So in preparation
43:19
for this trip, JP convinced his mother to co sign
43:22
on a loan on his condo, like a home equity loan,
43:26
and the day before they left for Mexico, JP cashes
43:29
this equity check and has fifty thousand dollars in cash
43:33
on him before he goes down to Mexico with Skyler. Now,
43:37
the next day, JP parks his van at Skyler and
43:40
Jennifer's house and jumps in Skyler's suv and has Skyler's
43:44
cousin following behind them in another vehicle. Skyler invited her
43:49
cousin to go on a surfing trip, but I think
43:52
it was mostly that she needed a cover. So anyway,
43:56
they go down to Mexico. They're driving around looking for
44:00
a place, and so the cousin says, you know, it's weird.
44:05
We went down this light. And this is later, obviously,
44:07
when the cousin gets interviewed, he says, you know, we
44:09
went down this weird road, this like dirt road, and
44:14
I didn't really see what happened. I just drove away
44:16
because it seemed like something weird was going on, which
44:19
sounds like bullshit. I have a feeling that the cousin
44:22
saw everything, but they basically said, like, I don't know,
44:24
it looked weird. So I left and just met Skyler
44:26
at the surf spot. So later on Skyler comes and
44:29
meets at the surf spot and everything's cool. So though
44:32
I dropped JP off, you know, he's down there with somebody.
44:36
But later on she admitted and didn't say I did it,
44:40
but she admitted that while she was there, someone slit
44:43
his throat and killed him. That someone was, of course, Skyler,
44:47
who also robbed JP of the fifty thousand dollars in cash. Now,
44:52
if you're wondering how the police ever caught onto Skyler's
44:54
potential involvement, the van that JP drove had a tracker
44:58
placed on it by his loane Comeany in case he
45:00
defaulted because he had pretty bad credit. So when he
45:04
went missing, this tracker was checked and it was found
45:06
that his car was left outside of Skyler and Jennifer's
45:09
house for a few days before being moved to a
45:11
random place in Long Beach. So Skyler and Jennifer dumped
45:16
his car after murdering and robbing him. Now, after that,
45:20
Jennifer called Skyler's cousin to give him a story to
45:24
tell police if they came knocking, which ties her to
45:28
this murder. She knew what happened, she was helping to
45:31
cover it up. She wasn't there, but she's sort of
45:34
facilitating it. And that's exactly what she did with the
45:37
murder of the Hawks. And now Skyler's being charged for
45:40
these other two murders. So police decide to reopen this
45:43
case because they didn't really have enough, you know, evidence
45:48
against her, So they bring the cousin back in and
45:51
this is when the cousin cracks and tells the story
45:53
that I just kind of relayed and in return escaped
45:56
any prosecution. So now we have two people kind of
45:59
giving the story and not being in you know, not
46:02
being arrested, not or not. I mean, Alonzo was arrested,
46:05
but definitely not getting like a full sentence. And this
46:09
cousin is like, dude, Skyler is already you know, going
46:13
to prison for two murders. I'm not gonna risk my
46:16
own ass. So he turns on Skyler and tells the
46:19
whole story, which is smart. Now I'm not one hundred
46:22
percent how they did it. But finally, like Skyler's been
46:25
in prison and in April two thousand and five, police
46:28
do arrest and charge Jennifer DeLeon for the Hawks murders.
46:33
So to recap the people standing trial were jfk who
46:38
not only was found guilty but given the death penalty,
46:41
Skyler de Leone who was also found guilty and given
46:45
the death penalty, Alonzo Mashane who was given twenty years
46:49
for his cooperation, and Jennifer de Leone who once again
46:53
is now Jennifer Henderson who was found guilty and given
46:56
two life sentences without parole. And I will remind you
47:00
that she had two children that she just left without parents. Now.
47:05
After her incarceration, Skuyler had a lot of issues, including
47:08
one incident where she attempted to cut off her own
47:11
penis using a razor blade she somehow got her hands on.
47:16
More recently, she was given the ability to transition while
47:19
in prison and according to a prison officials, is now
47:22
doing much better mentally. There are a few reporters who
47:26
have interviewed her over the years and find you know,
47:29
she's without any sort of remorse, only concerned with her
47:32
own well being and therefore completely unable to be rehabilitated,
47:37
which I think isn't really the plan considering she was
47:40
given the death penalty, but again in California, that's more
47:43
for show, since there's a moratorium on that which will
47:45
likely last a very long time. So anyway, that's the story.
47:50
They finally get two people to turn, and everybody else
47:53
goes to prison forever or potentially gets put to death.
47:58
Not a very satisfying end. I mean, glad everybody got,
48:02
you know, caught, but like, what a horrible thing to
48:06
do to somebody, Like what a horrible like it? I
48:09
don't know, just't throwing them overboard. And the police said
48:13
that when Alonso told this story of their murder that
48:17
he started crying, so they're like, at least this guy
48:19
has like something of a heart. But at no point
48:22
has Skuyler ever shown an ounce of remorse, which is
48:26
fucking terrifying above all else. It's just really scary that
48:30
somebody can do something like that and then just like
48:33
go have a sandwich. Never mentioned it again, and when
48:36
it's mentioned, just not fucking care. People like that terrify
48:40
me on such a deep, deep level. Anyway, guys, that's
48:44
the story. For this week. Thank you for listening in.
48:48
You know, I have to tell you, guys, I use
48:49
the exact same mic in the exact same recording program
48:53
the whole time, but every time I have to stop
48:56
and restart the recording, it goes on a new track,
48:59
and I feel like every track has a different recording level,
49:02
like despite me changing nothing. So if there's a little
49:05
bit of like audio difference between certain parts of the story,
49:10
I apologize for that. That's why I'm working on sort
49:13
of editing and normalizing it after the fact, but I
49:16
have very limited knowledge on how to do that, so
49:19
hopefully it's not too much of a distraction to anybody.
49:22
If you never noticed it, pretend I didn't say anything.
49:25
But anyway, guys, thanks again for listening. I hope you
49:29
come back next week for another story, another horrible tale,
49:34
and I hope you enjoyed this one, even though it
49:36
was a little more off the beaten path. I think
49:38
these stories are very important to tell, so these victims'
49:42
names can be known and their stories can be shared.
49:46
You know, all the love to the family. This is
49:49
a terrible case, so thanks again for listening. Please like, rate, review,
49:54
share with your friends and family. Tell everybody you've ever
49:57
met about the podcast. Thank you very much, and until
50:00
next week, stay safe.