Dateline NBC - The Last Voyage

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

Retired couple Tom and Jackie Hawks were living their dream of buying a boat and setting off on an adventure at sea. Until one afternoon when they went out on the water and never came back. Josh Mankiewicz reports in this Dateline classic. Originally aired on NBC on June 19, 2009.

Generally, I'm nice to everybody and stuff like that. It's just one bad step is enough to really knock everything off. That one bad step is what this is all about. It's why Skyler DeLeon was wearing government orange when we spoke with him. What do you want people to know about you? I'm really not sure what I want them to know about me, except for just wanted to apologize, I guess. Just get it out there, sorry about some of the circumstances. Circumstances? One mistake?

When you hear his story, you can decide if that's the right way to describe how Skyler ended up in jail. Another is that Skyler had started veering off course years before. By the way, that name, Skyler DeLeon, it's made up. And that's kind of fitting, because as you'll hear, Skyler is a big pretender. And although it was easy for us to see that he might not be trustworthy, shackled, and guarded, when Tom and Jackie Hawks met Skyler, they probably did not suspect that the freshly scrubbed family man, who liked boats, surfing, and diving, was anything other than what he seemed. And we're off again after adventures on well-deserved.

And of course, Tom and Jackie were used to meeting all kinds of people in their travels. Ryan Hawks remembers how his dad and stepmom worked for years, earning their dream of a life on the water. Give me some idea of sort of how long in your life they were talking about, we're going to get a boat and we're going to stop working and that's going to be our life. Gosh, since probably as far back as I can remember, I remember in high school and even junior high, there'd be stacks of yachting and SeaWorld and boating magazines on my coffee table. After years of planning, saving, and dreaming,

Tom and Jackie Hawk sold their house, packed up their things, bought a trawler aptly called Well Deserved, and in 2002 set sail for points west and south. What was the lure of that? Just the lifestyle. Just waking up and seeing the curve of the earth is a sense of adventure and maybe some self-accomplishment.

Jim Hawks recalls his brother's love of the sea. He often said, you'll never discover new horizons if you're afraid to leave the shore. There was just some lure that the sea seemed to call him. That yearning for open water took Tom and Jackie to Mexico's Pacific Coast and the Sea of Cortez, where they soaked up the sun and the culture. Jackie wrote from the tiny towns where they set anchor of Tom's great time here with surfing. You'd think he was a teenager all over again. She wrote of the great people they were meeting, of the unpopulated harbors where the water is crystal clear,

and the fishing amazing. It was truly the time of their lives. I'm going to go play some more. Okay. But times changed on August 16, 2004. That's when Jace Hawks was born in Prescott, Arizona, to Tom's younger son, Matt. Say hi, Grandma. Uncle Ryan remembers that his folks were over the moon with their first grandchild. I mean, every other day they're calling him to even talk to that kid, and he can't even talk. He's just a baby. But long-distance calls and the occasional visit... That's Grandpa.

Holding his little grandboy. ...weren't good enough. Tom and Jackie wanted to be there with Jace and watch him grow. That meant saying goodbye to the well-deserved and to life on the ocean. They would get a small house and a smaller boat. At least, that was the plan. We're just now getting readydeserved north to Newport Beach, California and placed an ad to sell it. Soon they got a call from a young man who said that he liked expensive boats and that he had showbiz money to support his habit. His name was Skyler DeLeon, and he told the Hawks that as a kid

he'd been on the mighty Morphin Power Rangers. For a while, the hottest kids show on TV. Now he was grown up and eager to become the new skipper of the well-deserved. To the Hawks, it was almost too good to be true. They were excited that this child actor was very interested in the boat, and they felt pretty strongly that he was a legitimate prospective buyer. No hint of doubt or suspicion in what you heard from them? No, I was somewhat skeptical. He seemed to be young. Jim Hawks sailed out to Catalina and met up with Tom and Jackie to say farewell to Well Deserved. I'm so glad you could join us on our last voyage on Well Deserved.

Jimmy's here and we're all feasting down right now on some good old sushi. It was a celebration of the good times had on board and the exciting times to come on land. After the weekend farewell, the Hawks moored the well-deserved back in Newport Beach Harbor. Their friend Carter Ford remembers how important it was for Tom Hawks to teach their prospective buyer, that former child actor, about Tom's beloved boat. His focus was, I'm going to show them how everything works. I'm going to give of myself. And off they went. On November 15, 2004, around 4 p.m., Carter Ford missed a call from Jackie, who left a message that they were out at sea with the new buyer. And then, nothing. I wanted to believe maybe they'd lived on that boat for so long they may have sold it.

And Tom, who is notoriously frugal, took Jackie to a nice resort to have dinners out. And they're somewhere where their cell phones aren't working. You're looking for an explanation. We really were. I was making stuff up. I was thinking, you know, maybe you're down in Mexico, you know, sipping on margaritas. Jim Hawks had just retired as police chief of Carlsbad, California.

Like a lot of cops, he'd seen a lot of bad things in his career, but he was never concerned about his little brother Tom. Even his children, growing up on a farm, they'd learn to take care of themselves. As teens, they were already comfortable on the water. Tom had served in Vietnam. A lifelong athlete, a firefighter, probation officer, a workout zealot. Tom Hawks was, quite simply, someone who could take care of himself. We just didn't worry about him. So I'm afraid I may have done what I've often criticized other

victims or families or reporting parties of doing, and that's kind of being in denial. Maybe Tom and Jackie were at some hideaway south of the border with no cell phone service. Or maybe they were out at sea. Or maybe not. November 23, 2004. Nine days after they met with a young man who wanted to buy their boat, and still no one had heard from Tom or Jackie Hawks. So Tom's brother Jim, an ex-cop, decided to do some legwork himself,

and he started in the most obvious place. The Hawks were missing, but their boat wasn't. It was back at its mooring in Newport Harbor. Jim Hawks rode out to see the well-deserved, hoping to find something, anything, a clue. We circled the well-deserved and immediately became a little concerned there were things out of place, a towel hanging out of a porthole. That was the kind of sloppiness Tom would never have tolerated. Tom always insisted that the portholes be secured, that canvas covering the instruments in the flybridge be properly secured. And it wasn't. Things were flapping in the breeze.

It just appeared as though something was wrong. But they'd sold the boat. Couldn't this be the new owners? It seemed as though they may have sold the boat, but my sailboard, Tom's custom-made surfboard, their fitted wetsuits were still on the boat, and those weren't things that he would have let go with a sail. All of it was strange, very strange. I did leave a note on the cabin door. Which said what? That I was trying to locate my brother, Tom Hawks, and please call me. And the next day, the phone rang, but it wasn't Tom or Jackie. It was the wife of that former child actor they had talked about. It struck me as a little

odd at first. She said, I'm pregnant and at work, and one of my friends found your note on our boat. Odd perhaps, but Jim was grateful for the call. Maybe this young woman would have some information. I thought the way she opened the conversation was very unusual, and I had asked her for her name when she'd indicated they'd purchased the boat, and she was hesitant in responding, and that didn't seem normal to me. Jim, the ex-cop, wasn't getting a good feeling from this young woman. She was reluctant to say much and quick to get off the phone. Eventually, she did give her name. It was Jennifer DeLeon and her husband's name, Skyler.

Jennifer also gave Jim something that at least sounded like a direction to go in. She said they'd purchased the boat and that my brother and his wife had talked of going to San Carlos, Mexico. And then she said, I'm sorry, I'm busy, I've got to go. We're traveling up the Sea of Cortez along the Baja Coast. San Carlos, on the Sea of Cortez, was one of those places Tom and Jackie loved. It made some sense that they would look to buy a house there. By land, it's only a four-hour drive from the Arizona border

and from their new grandson. By then, Thanksgiving was two days away, and the thinking was they would have to show up. Tom and Jackie do not sound like people who would miss Thanksgiving and not tell their family. No. But Thanksgiving came and went without a word. That brought everything to the surface with all of this and all of us, family and friends.

And I called Ryan and I said, Ryan, you've got to come home. We've got to talk. And I immediately hung up and drove straight forward to sit across from my uncle. Three o'clock in the morning, the day after Thanksgiving, they hear him say, there's a reason to be concerned. This is what we know. And it wasn't much. Once Jim had gotten Skyler's name, he was able to figure out that that was an alias, that Skyler DeLeon was really John Jacobson, and sometimes went by the stage name John Liberty. He also knew it was time to get some on-duty cops involved. So Jim filed a missing persons report. And then the phone rang again. Jennifer calls you back.

She did, and I tried my best to get a little more information. She indicated that they were trying to locate Tom and Jackie as well. They needed information on switching over the fuel tanks. You've been a cop. What do you think? Is this somebody genuinely asking for help or someone trying to cover their tracks? Certainly, I suspected she was lying. I had searched Power Ranger Productions and saw no indication that a Skylar DeLeon was affiliated with it in any way, and I was very, very concerned.

This time, Jim Hawks didn't want to let this woman hang up without getting more out of her. I mentioned that there were personal items left on the boat. She said, oh yeah, we told them they could come back and get them any time. And then I asked about the sale. I said, I don't want to pry into your finances. I tried to be as low-key as I could, but did you go to a bank or provide them with a cashier's check? And then she replied that they had the payment in hand when we left them. Jim Hawks was suspicious of Jennifer DeLeon and

all she had to say. He already knew that no big deposit had gone into Tom and Jackie's bank, but he wasn't a cop anymore. This wasn't his case. So where were the Hawks? What was their involvement in all this? And could anyone find them? Tom and Jackie Hawks were somewhere in the wind when the missing persons report ended up in the hands of Newport Beach detectives Dave Byington and Evan Saylor. At this point, how long have Tom and Jackie Hawks been missing? You're looking at about a good two weeks now. And still no sign of them? No border crossings on their car. We checked with a consulate in Mexico. There weren't any hospitals there. There weren't any traffic accidents in

Mexico. There was no shortwave activity because they were active on the shortwaves with other sailing yachts. And so they basically disappeared. Of course, the investigators wanted to talk to the last people who saw them, the buyers of Well Deserved, Skyler and Jennifer DeLeon. They found the couple and their one-year-old daughter at church in Long Beach, California. What were they doing at the church? They were cleaning. They were volunteering their time to clean the chapel. So we walk in.

That's Skyler, his wife, Jennifer. They had at the time, I think she's about a year old, Haley, their daughter. And she's, gosh, probably about seven, eight months pregnant at the time, obviously pregnant at the time. And here they are cleaning the chapel. That does not sound to me like hardened criminals. No, it was a little awkward, you know. So we went in there, identified ourselves. They were quite friendly. The friendly couple seemed candid and not at all nervous about this visit from two detectives. A very pregnant Jennifer told the detectives that she was a hairdresser and the primary breadwinner in the family.

She said they lived at her parents' house in a converted garage. Skyler told them that he worked sometimes as an electrician, and he freely admitted he was on parole for burglary. And I asked him, well, why would they come up with that much money? And she said that Skyler had some money from acting royalties as a child actor and also some real estate investments that he had in Mexico. As Byington talked to Jennifer, Skyler DeLeon was down the hall telling Detective Saylor a completely different story about how they could afford the well-deserved.

He says that he laundered this money that came up across the border from Mexico. It was drug money. He just volunteers that? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Amazingly, Skyler confessed to Detective Saylor that he had stowed away a huge amount of cash in Mexico that he had earned in a drug deal. He basically said that he was involved in a narcotics transaction and that these were proceeds from that transaction. That he bought the boat with. Yeah, exactly. So he basically admitted to a felony right to us.

Which makes you think, what, this guy's telling the truth because he's just made a declaration against his own interests. Yeah, he appeared to be pretty truthful at the time. Schuyler told the cops that he, his wife, their infant daughter, a notary public, and a friend acting as a witness, had rendezvoused with Tom and Jackie on 15th Street in Newport Beach. The well-deserved would have been moored nearby. But they never got on the boat that day, Schuyler said. According to him, they met, signed paperwork, had it notarized, and then Schuyler DeLeon passed Tom Hawks a briefcase containing $485,000 in cash.

Then, according to Schuyler, Tom and Jackie drove off, and that was the last they saw of the Hawks. Detectives called the two others who'd been present at the sale of the boat, the notary public and the witness. And both backed up Schuyler's story. If anyone was acting strangely that day, Schuyler said, it was Tom Hawks. He was excited but nervous. And did he say anything to that effect?

He was just like, let's just close this up. The day after the church meeting, Skyler willingly came into the police department to talk more with the detectives about buying the well-deserved. Okay, so he didn't count it all, but he said... He's like, it's all there. I was like, I guarantee you, it's here. Skyler showed Detective Byington the keys he said Tom and Jackie gave him. Do the paperwork, he'll give you the keys. Yeah, he's just like, this is the key right here.

This one. By then, the cops had taken possession of the well-deserved. We still have it today. I told your wife that I know you want to take it out this weekend. We're going to try to get done with it by tomorrow and should be able to cut it loose. Police seemed to find Skyler credible, and that was extremely upsetting to Ryan Hawks, who was convinced that his parents had met with foul play and that Skyler was somehow involved. You know, I felt Skyler's word was more believed than ours. He was giving himself up because he was laundering money.

So he's putting himself in jeopardy. Six witnesses are caught in the same story. You know, there's just no witnesses on my parents' side. You were frustrated? Extremely. There's no way my father would take $400,000 of laundered drug money, cross the hood of a car in a dark parking lot. By the first week of December, with no word from Tom or Jackie and nothing to move the case forward,

Newport Beach detectives went public with the story with the help of Ryan Hawks. Dave Bonnington told me he needs some help to get some leads and it's as if he gave me a mission and task and I can help. Thomas Hawks' eldest son suspects foul play. For them not to be in contact for over two weeks, to be completely missing along with personal items and various other stuff, you know, it doesn't make sense. In the meantime, the detectives wanted to talk to Skyler about something they'd learned that didn't make sense.

The Hawks had not only signed over the well-deserved to Skyler and Jennifer, they had each signed a power of attorney, giving Skyler and Jennifer control of had each signed a power of attorney, giving Skylar and Jennifer control of all their finances. Why is it you guys had a power of attorney? Because that's a big question that's coming up. To open up an account for them down there. Skylar explained it all. He'd offered to help Tom and Jackie open a bank account in Mexico, where he said he had connections and citizenship. And having a Mexican bank would make it easier for them to buy a house down there. I told him, like, you know, you have nothing to lose by opening up an account.

And, you know, you can take care of everything from right there. He told the detective how he and his wife had gone out of their way, even making a trip to Tom and Jackie's bank in Arizona to get everything in order for that new account. And indeed, when police looked, there were the DeLeones on bank security photos. Somehow, Skyler made it all make sense. I sat down and interviewed him for about two hours, and he sat across from me. We're about as close as we are.

And for two hours, he told me a story. Weaved a story of dope deals and child acting and purchasing a yacht and being a master diver. And I believed 99% of it. Skyler seemed truthful, but there was something that wasn't right. It is Tom and Jackie's thumbprints and signatures on the document, except for the S in Hawks where Jackie signed. Both times, the letter is written in by someone else. Why would Jackie forget the S on her own name? Was it a mistake or was it a message that she hadn't signed that document willingly?

There was no way to know. And then, in response to all that TV coverage... The couple's silver Honda CR-V with Arizona plates is also missing. A tip that would change the direction of the case. We get a telephone call from an American citizen in Mexico, and this person calls up and says, I'm looking at the vehicle right now. It's parked in a driveway in Ensenada, Mexico. At that point, that was the biggest break you'd got.

Absolutely. December 16, 2004, a month and a day after Tom and Jackie were last seen, Detective Byington headed to Mexico, hoping to find not only their car, but some answers, and maybe them. I'm thinking Tom and Jackie Hawks are hiding out in Mexico. I mean, that was my gut feeling. With the help of the local Mexican police, Byington asked the person at the house where the car was parked, how did it get there? The owner of the house says, well, it was dropped off by one of my son's friends. It's all in Spanish, but I hear Skyler De Leon.

Remember, Skyler had told police the last he'd seen of the Hawks was when they drove off in that car after the sale. Catching Skyler in that lie changed everything. At that moment, I knew that Skyler was good for killing the Hawks. So Byington and Saylor brought Skyler back to the police station by telling him a little lie themselves. They were going to release the well-deserved. We'd just gotten word that we found the Hawks' vehicle down in Mexico.

So we decided, hey, this is it, we're going to jam them. Get him in the interview room, he's got his one-year-old started biting jams him now you're looking at either homicide which you claim you have nothing to do with and that may be very well be true because this is quite a tale you've weaved about this money coming across he does turn a little shade of white on cue the baby spits up this oh baby tissues there no tissue he tells us he's got to go with the baby. They let him go, but now police had a plan of their own. There wasn't the evidence to charge Schuyler with murder, but with the help of Orange County Prosecutor Matt Murphy,

police booked Schuyler on the white-collar crime to which he'd already confessed. Mr. DeLeon has been charged with three counts of money laundering and three counts of possession of financial instruments related to narcotics transactions. And at this point, the investigation is ongoing. Jennifer DeLeon came to court to stand by her man, with an attorney by her side. Mrs. DeLeon stands behind her husband, and she stands behind his innocence. And likewise, as her heart goes out to her husband and her family, there's concern about the Hawks and the hope that everything gets turned up and everything comes back in a positive and healthy fashion.

With Skyler locked up, detectives started learning more about him, how he told co-workers at a mortgage company he briefly worked at that his grandfather owned the place. Not true. How he bragged about his child acting roles, when really he was on just a few Power Rangers shows standing somewhere in the background, and not much more. His lies were prolific and seemed almost reflexive. And then there are Schuyler's marine discharge papers, which tell the story of almost a leatherneck legend. It had showed this guy had done a four year tour of service, but in that four years, he had gone to some of these schools that required

like a 10 to 15 year enlistment time. He also listed kills and action. But those were also lies. Skyler DeLeon had never seen any action. His discharge wasn't honorable. He'd been thrown out after going AWOL. In fact, the unit it says he was assigned to, Yankee White 2FR Recon, is not a real Marine unit. Investigators say the only place you can serve in that unit is on an Xbox game. The deeper they looked, the dirtier Skyler seemed. In the search of the couple's house done the day after Skyler's arrest, detectives found things that once belonged to Tom and Jackie. A computer, their dive bags, clothes, and there was something else.

We find a lone LAPD business card. Nothing on it, just an LAPD business card. Kind of thought that was weird. You call the LAPD and? LAPD says, yeah, we've dealt with this Skylar DeLeon fact. We came up a year ago with this investigator from Ensenada PD where there was a homicide down there. LAPD tells you that Skylar Leone was already somebody that they interviewed

in a separate unrelated homicide? Yes. As they tried to find out what had happened to Tom and Jackie, Newport Beach detectives looking into the background of Skylar DeLeon found an LAPD business card, which led them to a grieving mother and a murder case that was getting cold. When I opened the door, I just looked at Jeff and said, how bad is it? And he said, as bad as it gets. And I knew immediately.

You knew J.P. was gone? I knew he was gone, Helen. When Betty Jarvie got the news that her youngest son, John Jarvie, known as J.P., was found dead, his throat slit near Ensenada, Mexico. It was two days after Christmas 2003. It was a shock, but at the same time, I wasn't surprised. You knew he was on the wrong path?

Yeah. Jeff Jarvie describes his brother as charming yet self-destructive. J.P. was a pilot, but had a drug problem. Jobs came and went. He turned to crime to support his habit and ended up in jail alongside Skyler DeLeon, who was in for burglary. He met Skyler in jail. Skyler convinced him in a way that Skyler DeLeon can do really well with people that somehow there was this gigantic payoff for John Jarvie if he could just come up with $50,000. Matt Murphy says that as soon as J.P. finished serving his time, he took a second mortgage out on his condo, got 50 grand in cash, and then went with Skyler DeLeon to Mexico. To the detectives, the Jarvie case made them more sure they had their man.

And they started pressing harder to figure out what had really happened to the Hawks. We started trying to think who would be a weak link. One was Jennifer. Here's a wife with a one-year-old baby and about to have another baby. Doesn't seem like a hardened criminal. No criminal history, no criminal background that we're aware of. And then we had the notary for this alleged transaction that took place. No criminal history there either. But both women were sticking to their stories until one just couldn't take the pressure anymore. January 4th, 2005, seven weeks after Tom and Jackie disappeared, the notary, Kathleen Harris, walked into Newport Beach PD with a completely different version of events.

There were all these documents laid out on the back. Did you see anything written on the documents at all? They were signed. And what were they signed by? The bomb she dropped was this. Schuyler had paid her $2,000 to backdate and notarize those documents. She admitted she was never on 15th Street in Newport Beach. She never saw the car, the briefcase, or the boat. And she never met Tom or Jackie Hawks.

All of that was a lie she said Schuylar gave her to tell police. It was a huge break. The pieces were falling into place. The cops found records of Skylar purchasing stun guns and of his friend Alonzo buying handcuffs in the weeks before Tom and Jackie disappeared. And they found phone records showing Skylar's cell phone signal bouncing off a tower on Catalina Island, 30 miles out at sea, on the night the purchase was supposedly taking place on dry land. All of it pointed to something terrible, but the picture was still fuzzy until Alonzo Machain, Schuyler's friend who had claimed to have witnessed the sale of the boat, turned himself in, asking for leniency for his role in a story more horrifying than anyone imagined.

For the record, I'm Matt Murphy with the DA's office. I just wanted to tell you a couple things at the outset. Not surprisingly, Schuyler's con began with a lie. He said he had done very well in real estate and his parents were wealthy and he's been an actor for the Power Rangers. But the Hawks weren't completely buying it. Skyler needed to soften his image.

So he decided to use his pregnant wife and young daughter to win over Tom and Jackie. He calls his wife and lets her know that she needs to come out to the boat and so they see her and, you know, to put them at ease. Alonzo wasn't there when Jennifer and her baby visited, but whatever they did worked. When he came back to test drive the boat, Tom was waiting for them. This time, in addition to Alonzo, Skyler brought another guy, John Kennedy, dressed to play the part of his accountant. But John Kennedy was no accountant. He was a sometime gang member with a long criminal

record, and he was there to serve as muscle for the scrawny Schuyler. And then they set out to sea. Jackie made that last phone call to their friend Carter Ford to say we're out with the buyer, and then they cut the motor so Schuyler could the hull. Out at sea, as they'd been so many times before. But this time would be different. Below deck, John Kennedy and Skyler tasered and subdued Tom Hawks. Above, Alonzo grabbed Jackie and cuffed her. What is she saying? She's just, what's going on? What is this?

You know, she's telling, she's screaming to Skylar, we trusted you. Your wife came over. You had your kid over, your little girl over. Why are you doing this? Then Alonzo described how the Hawks were brought to their bed, tied together, back to back. He got the tape and he told me to take their eyes, take their mouth. Skyler went up and programmed their GPS system to go up. Heading farther out to sea now, Jackie Hawks, her eyes and mouth duct taped

and tied up back to back with Tom, started to cry. Tom stroked her hand, trying to calm her. Then, one at a time, Skyler brought each of them up to the galley, loosened their bindings just enough so they could hold a pen and sign away everything they owned. Alonzo described Jackie Hawks as shaking with fear. Skyler had gotten what he needed, the boat, and those signatures. So Tom and Jackie were brought out to the stern.

They were like, well, what's going on? Why are we back at the boat? The Hawks were tied together, blindfolded, and surrounded. But Tom made one last desperate attempt to try to save himself and his wife. Right behind him, the black guy just takes a big swing at the side of his head, and I'm pretty sure he knocked him out. Then Skyler DeLeon tied a line from the boat's anchor to the hawks and then tossed the anchor into the ocean. Tom and Jackie were pulled in after it. It must have been freezing cold. It was pitch dark.

And, of course, they were alive. Our minds, we always think the crime occurred first, and then you dispose of the bodies. But then when Alonzo told us this, I mean, we just were not prepared for that at all. I was, I walked out of that, it was about seven hours that interview. I walked out twice, 30 years of doing this, I was drained. I just could not imagine anything more horrific than what he described. She was crying. She was begging for her life. And the lingering feeling that I've always had is, how do you cry and hold your breath at the same time?

As hard as that was to hear, detectives and the prosecutor knew they had their case. Skyler, Jennifer, and John Kennedy were all tried and convicted of killing Tom and Jackie Hawks. Skyler was also convicted of murdering John Jarvie. Alonzo Machain, who'd given them that hard-to-take confession, made a deal and got 20 years. He was released from prison in 2021. But it was Skyler who was the mastermind. What kind of person could do what he did? You're about to find out. In January of 2009, I sat down to talk to Skyler DeLeon. Small, meek, and soft-spoken.

He didn't seem like a monster. But then Skyler's perverse gift is that he can seem like what he isn't. Tom and Jackie Hawks, and J.P. Jarvie before them learned that the hard way. What do you want people to know about you? I'm really not sure what I want them to know about me except for just wanted to apologize, I guess, just get it out there. I'm sorry about some of the circumstances. Although he professed to be sorry to the Hawks and the Jarveys, even this polished con man couldn't make those apologies seem real. What was clearly real was that he could not summon any remorse or empathy for the people he had killed. What were they like, the Hawks? From what I could tell,

I mean, good people. Nice to you? Yes. Nice to your wife? Yes. Good to each other? Yes. But that didn't make any difference? It's not that it didn't make a difference. It's when the difference came time, it was already too late. To Skyler, Tom and Jackie were nothing more than the means to an end. I wasn't really looking at them trying to go, okay, you know,

are these good people, are these bad people? Because I think, like, I'm the type of person, like, once you get something in my head, it's kind of like it's in my head and that thing is already going. That thing, meaning the double murder. The way you talk about it with me, you say it or the thing, meaning the double murder. The way you talk about it with me, you say it or the thing, and you've kind of like sanded it down and made it some sort of almost like business proposition.

But what we're talking about here is murder. Yeah. You killed a couple of people in a horrible way. You can't even bring yourself to say it, can you? I guess, I don't think you just want to try and say you're sorry, but I mean, there's, it's like you know that it happened, but. It didn't just happen. You did it. Yeah. I mean, you're apologizing for what?

Well, for my part in the whole situation. What's the situation? For their murder. That's what I'm apologizing for. I'm sorry that they're dead. They're not just dead. They're dead because you killed them. Yeah.

Skylar DeLeon had lots to tell me about how his father, a career criminal who has since died, plotted out the whole thing. That seems not to be true. He also told me his wife pushed him into it. And that might be... If you weren't a good provider, if you weren't bringing in money, what, she was going to leave you? It was one of the things I was afraid of.

I mean, I'd do anything to make her happy. Jennifer's attorney said it was she who was the pawn. That she was manipulated by Skyler and knew nothing about killing the Hawks. Even so, she received a life sentence. As I was interviewing Skyler, his attorney repeatedly interrupted from the sidelines. You're a diver. Yes. One of the things that you go through in training is you're underwater and they tell you to take the air out.

Yes. You know what it's like to be underwater without any air. That's not what it is. Okay. His attorney was trying to keep Schuyler from saying anything that would make it easier for a judge to give him the death penalty. In the end, he got it anyway. To this day, he sits on death row at San Quentin. And in 2019, Schuyler petitioned the court to change his gender from male to female. That request was granted. Looking back, it's obvious how much Tom and Jackie loved each other and how passionate they were about seeing the world. They were generous, accepting people. In the end, they died in the same ocean

that had given them so much happiness. They looked in the good in everyone. And I believe the selling point for them with Skylar buying the boat was Jennifer coming on board and, you know, you show family and you talk family to my family and they're going to let down their guard. Tom wasn't naive to criminal behavior or their conduct and lies but he had a

tendency as Ryan said to see the best in anyone. As tragic as this is I wouldn't have wanted him to be any different.