Post by CCADP on Aug 30, 2005 21:30:19 GMT -5
From NBC San Diego
Three People Plead Not Guilty To Yachting Couple's Murder
Couple Allegedly Were Tied To An Anchor, Dumped Into Ocean Alive
POSTED: 2:26 pm PDT August 30, 2005
UPDATED: 5:53 pm PDT August 30, 2005
SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Three people pleaded not guilty Tuesday to capital murder charges stemming from the disappearance of a couple, who allegedly were tied to an anchor from their yacht and dumped alive into the ocean.
Images
Orange County Superior Court Judge Daniel Didier ordered Long Beach residents Skylar Deleon, 26; his wife, Jennifer Henderson Deleon, 24; and John F. Kennedy, 39, to be returned to court Oct. 14 for a pretrial hearing.
Didier also appointed attorney Gary Pohlson to represent Skylar Deleon, whose attorney, T. Edward Welbourn, withdrew from the case.
The three are charged with murdering 57-year-old retired probation officer Thomas Hawks and his 47-year-old wife, Jackie. Their bodies have not been found.
The trio also face special circumstance allegations of murder for financial gain and multiple murder.
Skylar Deleon, who once had a non-speaking part in the television series, "Power Rangers," is due in court on Friday to enter a plea in connection with the unrelated murder of an Anaheim man.
Authorities allege the former child actor approached the victims last November with a bogus offer to buy their 55-foot cabin cruiser. The murders occurred when Hawks and his wife took Skylar Deleon, Kennedy and a third man out for a test run on the boat, prosecutors allege.
Outside court, Jennifer Deleon's attorney, Michael Molfetta, said the young mother of two had no idea of what her husband was planning when he boarded the boat -- named "Well Deserved" -- on Nov. 15 for the test run.
Molfetta said his client is "scared."
"She wants to be with her children," Molfetta said. "She's strong, but at the same time petrified."
Jennifer Deleon faces several obstacles, Molfetta said, such as a prosecutor "who seems to think she is guilty of murder and he seems to think that he has some compelling evidence to satisfy the jury to convict her of that charge."
"The obstacles that are there primarily are: we're in a county right now that has been saturated with media coverage -- all negative," Molfetta said. "We have that obstacle to deal with."
"We have a horrific crime, which is always an obstacle ... and this case is particularly gruesome, given the alleged facts that have occurred on the boat," Molfetta said.
The Hawkses were handcuffed, tied to an anchor and dumped alive into the ocean, according to the preliminary hearing testimony of Newport Beach police Sgt. Evan Sailor.
The defendants allegedly had promised the couple they wouldn't be killed if they signed a power of attorney form allowing Deleon to withdraw money from their bank account, according to testimony.
Sailor testified that the couple's fate was told to authorities by Alonso Machain, 21, of Pico Rivera, an ex-Seal Beach jail worker.
Machain is charged with the same counts, but his case and that of another defendant, Myron Gardner Sr., 42, also of Long Beach, was severed from that of the other three defendants.
Machain and Gardner are next due in court on Oct. 7. The alleged role of Gardner has never been spelled out, and Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy declined to comment outside the courtroom.
Murphy said all the defendants in the Hawks' case are "death penalty eligible," but a decision has not yet been made on whether prosecutors are going to pursue it.
After Skylar Deleon was charged in the second murder case -- of killing Jon Peter Jarvi and stealing $50,000 -- a spokesperson for District Attorney Anthony Rackauckas said that prosecutors may seek the death penalty against him.
Murphy, who is handling both cases, said there is a "definite possibility" that the two cases could be combined.
Jennifer Deleon and her husband's first cousin, Michael William Lewis Jr., 24, of Arizona, are charged as accessories in the unrelated slaying of Jarvi's slaying. According to prosecutors, Skylar Deleon killed Jarvi to steal money that he used, in part, to buy his wife a ring.
According to Machain's testimony, Jennifer Deleon was not present on the yacht when the Hawkses were killed. But there was testimony from a Newport Beach police detective that Jennifer Deleon accompanied her husband to a bank and unsuccessfully tried to withdraw money from the Hawks' account.
Three People Plead Not Guilty To Yachting Couple's Murder
Couple Allegedly Were Tied To An Anchor, Dumped Into Ocean Alive
POSTED: 2:26 pm PDT August 30, 2005
UPDATED: 5:53 pm PDT August 30, 2005
SANTA ANA, Calif. -- Three people pleaded not guilty Tuesday to capital murder charges stemming from the disappearance of a couple, who allegedly were tied to an anchor from their yacht and dumped alive into the ocean.
Images
Orange County Superior Court Judge Daniel Didier ordered Long Beach residents Skylar Deleon, 26; his wife, Jennifer Henderson Deleon, 24; and John F. Kennedy, 39, to be returned to court Oct. 14 for a pretrial hearing.
Didier also appointed attorney Gary Pohlson to represent Skylar Deleon, whose attorney, T. Edward Welbourn, withdrew from the case.
The three are charged with murdering 57-year-old retired probation officer Thomas Hawks and his 47-year-old wife, Jackie. Their bodies have not been found.
The trio also face special circumstance allegations of murder for financial gain and multiple murder.
Skylar Deleon, who once had a non-speaking part in the television series, "Power Rangers," is due in court on Friday to enter a plea in connection with the unrelated murder of an Anaheim man.
Authorities allege the former child actor approached the victims last November with a bogus offer to buy their 55-foot cabin cruiser. The murders occurred when Hawks and his wife took Skylar Deleon, Kennedy and a third man out for a test run on the boat, prosecutors allege.
Outside court, Jennifer Deleon's attorney, Michael Molfetta, said the young mother of two had no idea of what her husband was planning when he boarded the boat -- named "Well Deserved" -- on Nov. 15 for the test run.
Molfetta said his client is "scared."
"She wants to be with her children," Molfetta said. "She's strong, but at the same time petrified."
Jennifer Deleon faces several obstacles, Molfetta said, such as a prosecutor "who seems to think she is guilty of murder and he seems to think that he has some compelling evidence to satisfy the jury to convict her of that charge."
"The obstacles that are there primarily are: we're in a county right now that has been saturated with media coverage -- all negative," Molfetta said. "We have that obstacle to deal with."
"We have a horrific crime, which is always an obstacle ... and this case is particularly gruesome, given the alleged facts that have occurred on the boat," Molfetta said.
The Hawkses were handcuffed, tied to an anchor and dumped alive into the ocean, according to the preliminary hearing testimony of Newport Beach police Sgt. Evan Sailor.
The defendants allegedly had promised the couple they wouldn't be killed if they signed a power of attorney form allowing Deleon to withdraw money from their bank account, according to testimony.
Sailor testified that the couple's fate was told to authorities by Alonso Machain, 21, of Pico Rivera, an ex-Seal Beach jail worker.
Machain is charged with the same counts, but his case and that of another defendant, Myron Gardner Sr., 42, also of Long Beach, was severed from that of the other three defendants.
Machain and Gardner are next due in court on Oct. 7. The alleged role of Gardner has never been spelled out, and Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy declined to comment outside the courtroom.
Murphy said all the defendants in the Hawks' case are "death penalty eligible," but a decision has not yet been made on whether prosecutors are going to pursue it.
After Skylar Deleon was charged in the second murder case -- of killing Jon Peter Jarvi and stealing $50,000 -- a spokesperson for District Attorney Anthony Rackauckas said that prosecutors may seek the death penalty against him.
Murphy, who is handling both cases, said there is a "definite possibility" that the two cases could be combined.
Jennifer Deleon and her husband's first cousin, Michael William Lewis Jr., 24, of Arizona, are charged as accessories in the unrelated slaying of Jarvi's slaying. According to prosecutors, Skylar Deleon killed Jarvi to steal money that he used, in part, to buy his wife a ring.
According to Machain's testimony, Jennifer Deleon was not present on the yacht when the Hawkses were killed. But there was testimony from a Newport Beach police detective that Jennifer Deleon accompanied her husband to a bank and unsuccessfully tried to withdraw money from the Hawks' account.