He and his second wife Jackie owned a 55-foot yacht, the Well Deserved, which they treated as their permanent home and on which they sailed for two years around the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California.
When the wife of Hawks' older son was expecting their first child, Jackie treated the news as if it would be her natural grandchild.
[7] Deleon was a child actor who appeared in commercials and in the series Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, as an uncredited extra.
[12][11] Police inquired into the couple's disappearance and on November 26, 2004, it was discovered that an attempt was made to access the Hawks' bank account from Mexico.
Skylar Deleon initially maintained innocence, claiming they were not present at the time and speculated that the Hawks were killed over a bad drug deal.
[6][21] Authorities alleged that during a sea trial of the boat in Newport Beach Harbor a few days after meeting the Hawkses, Deleon and accomplices Machain and Kennedy bound and gagged the couple and threw them overboard, tied to the yacht's anchor.
[6][23][24] Deleon's then-wife, Jennifer (née Henderson), was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder on November 17, 2006, after four hours of jury deliberation.
Defense lawyers claimed that Deleon's need for money to finance sex reassignment surgery was the motivation for the Hawks' murders.
[34] On October 20, Deleon was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances for financial gain and multiple victims and on November 6, 2008, the jury rendered a death verdict.
On February 19, 2009, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was found guilty on two counts of first degree murder after fewer than three hours of jury deliberation.
Alonso Machain, after testifying against Deleon, Henderson, and Kennedy, pleaded guilty to two counts each of voluntary manslaughter, kidnapping, and robbery.
[26] In March 2009, after spending four years incarcerated, Myron Gardner pleaded guilty to "accessory after the fact" and the murder charges against him were dropped.