Author Writes Book About Murder of Mentor Woman and Her Husband

A true-crime author has written a book about the murder of Mentor native Jackie Hawks and her husband, Tom Hawks.

Caitlin Rother spent five years researching the Hawkses' deaths and Skylar Deleon, the mastermind behind their murder, before she wrote Dead Reckoning.

The Hawkses lived in California on their 55-foot trawler, Well Deserved, until they decided to sell their boat so they could live closer to Tom's son and new grandchild in Arizona.

Deleon, a failed child actor turned conman, told the Hawkses that he wanted their boat. Instead, he wanted to steal it and drain their bank accounts. He assembled a cadre of accomplices – his wife, Jennifer Henderson Deleon, a former corrections officer, Alonso Machain, and Crips gang member, John F. Kennedy – to help him.

He used his wife and their child to gain the trust of the Hawkses, prosecutors argued. Then Deleon, Kennedy, Machain and the Hawkses took Well Deserved for a test drive in the Pacific Ocean on Nov. 15, 2004. Once at sea, the trio tied the Hawkses to an anchor and forced them to sign over power of attorney.

Then the criminals threw the anchor into the sea and the Hawkses drowned. Their bodies were never found.

Machain, Kennedy and both Deleons were ultimately arrested and convicted of murder. Kennedy and Skylar Deleon are on death row. Jennifer Deleon will spend the rest of her life in prison. Machain cooperated with prosecutors and testified against his co-defendants. He was 20 when he helped commit the murder and will be 45 when he's released from prison.

Rother followed the police investigation and the trials of each suspect. She combed through thousands of pages of evidence and repeatedly interviewed the police and prosecutors involved. She talked with the families of Tom and Jackie Hawks, including Jackie's parents, Jack and Gayle O'Neill, who still live in Concord Township.

She used her exhaustive research to write Dead Reckoning.

"I like to get behind the scenes of the investigation and into the dynamics and motivation behind the killers," said Rother, who has also written three other books about murderers.

Rother interviewed Skylar Deleon three times for her book. She said that he claimed to be a hermaphrodite with gender confusion issues. He scheduled a sex-change operation for two weeks after the murder. While in Santa Ana jail, he put a hit out on his father and cousin and tried to sever his penis with a razor.

Rother said it was not just the horrific nature of the murder that attracted her to the case. She also thought it was a "textbook example" of how to conduct a murder investigation.

"It was such an incredible and thorough investigation," she said. "I was amazed how many people they had working on this case. It took them into Mexico and into the Pacific Ocean with the same Navy search crew that looked for the Titanic."

Rother is an experienced crime writer. Before becoming an author, she wrote for the San Diego Union-Tribune. However, she admits that there was one moment during her research that the tragedy of the Hawkses' deaths got to her.

During the closing moments of Kennedy's trial, the prosecutor took the jury through what Tom and Jackie Hawks suffered in graphic detail. Naturally, Rother was there.

"I cried in the courtroom," Rother said. "But the jury needed to hear it. We all needed to hear it."

"Dead Reckoning" was released Feb. 1 and is available at area book stores and online.