'He did it. I know he did it,' man says of son

Farther down the line, in a jail cell in Orange County, was his elder boy -- the one the father was certain had committed a crime so evil that he deserved to spend life in prison.

"I wanted him to be so different from me," Jacobson said, indifferent to the passing scenery enrapturing the other passengers in the train's glass-covered lounge car. "I did everything I could to bring him up right."

He paused, clearing his throat, perhaps swallowing some pride.

"And he turned out worse than me."

For 20 hours, between doses of medication for illnesses he prefers to keep private, the 51-year-old bumper sticker salesman talked about "Johnny" -- the son he named after himself but who now calls himself Skylar Deleon -- and the barbaric crime he allegedly orchestrated on an autumn day in 2004.

If the cops have it right -- and Jacobson believes they do -- Deleon talked a Newport Beach couple into taking him and two accomplices on a test sail on their 55-foot yacht, convincing them he wanted to buy the handsome vessel. At sea, investigators say, Tom and Jackie Hawks were overpowered, lashed to an anchor and tossed overboard, alive.

"He did it. I know he did it," Jacobson said. "And I want him to step up and confess."

Always a handful

As a kid, Johnny Jacobson was a bundle of energy while growing up in Huntington Beach. He surfed, studied martial arts and took acting classes.

But he was always a handful, doctoring report cards and barely squeaking through high school before joining the military. He went AWOL and eventually was dishonorably discharged. Then he got married, had a baby, moved into a garage with his small family and dodged bills.

To make ends meet, he landed a job at a mortgage firm but then was promptly arrested in a burglary. He was carrying a gun and plastic handcuffs, cops said. He got a year in jail.

Always something of a charmer, Deleon told people he'd been a child actor and pretended to have had a role in the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" television show in the early 1990s. He was a convincing guy. And police say that's probably what won over Tom and Jackie Hawks.

Tom Hawks, 57, was a retired probation officer and bodybuilder, and his wife, 10 years younger, was a homemaker who had helped raise Tom's two boys from an earlier marriage. It was the second marriage for both, and friends said they shared a love of adventure after they were married in 1989. The couple spent nearly two years aboard their yacht, Well Deserved, plying the Sea of Cortez and Pacific Ocean, fishing and diving, kayaking and surfing, and cruising from port to port.

Eventually they decided to return to Newport Harbor, their home port, and sell the boat so they could be closer to their first grandchild, in Arizona.

That's when they met Deleon.

Thinking he was a serious buyer, authorities say, the couple agreed to take him and two pals, John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Alonso Machain, out for a sail. They headed out of the harbor the morning of Nov. 15, 2004. Though the boat later returned, Tom and Jackie Hawks did not.

According to Machain, a rail-thin former jail guard who is now cooperating with prosecutors, the Hawkses were overpowered with stun guns, forced to sign power of attorney and title transfer documents, then tied and handcuffed together to an anchor and thrown overboard somewhere between Newport Beach and Santa Catalina Island.

Deleon's wife, Jennifer, was later convicted as an accomplice in the crime and awaits sentencing. Skylar Deleon and Kennedy are scheduled to go on trial this summer. Deleon also is accused of trying to hire someone to kill his father to eliminate him as a potential witness.