An attractive married couple with retirement plans in San Carlos, Mexico; a tortured 25-year-old con man with illusions of grandeur and hopes of a sex change; his shallow, malcontent wife; ex-convicts hoping to make a score; and a 55-foot trawler named the Well Deserved. These are the elements of "Dead Reckoning," an intense and taut true-crime story with strong roots in Southern California and San Diego.
The author of "Dead Reckoning," Caitlin Rother, is a San Diego-based true-crime writer with more than 20 years of writing experience. She has written for local newspapers, national magazines, appeared on television as a crime expert, and teaches writing classes at UC San Diego Extension. This is a woman who knows her way around jail cells, morgues and detectives.
Her story concerns Tom Hawks, who graduated from San Dieguito High School in 1965 and was voted best-looking in his class. His wife of 15 years, Jackie, was a vivacious fellow sailor and adventurer. Skylar Deleon, born John Jacobson, had a troubled youth but as a child actor acting under the name Jon Libert, he had bit parts in the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" series.
When the two men met in 2004, Hawks and his wife had just finished two years of sailing the coasts of Mexico and Baja California and were looking to sell their boat. Deleon was looking for a big score so he could finally achieve some level of wealth and status for himself and his pregnant wife, Jennifer.
The outcome of their meeting would be the terrifying death of Tom and Jackie Hawks.
The story of the murder of the Hawks and the theft of their boat is truly a web of self-delusion, deceit, murder and mayhem. Rother fleshes out the two victims with a deft hand and makes the reader want them to somehow escape the fate that we know from the start they must meet. By contrast, her descriptions and analyses of the Deleons and the co-conspirators leaves little room for compassion or caring.
Skylar Deleon convinced the Hawks that he wanted to purchase the Well Deserved, boarded the boat with his accomplices, and then brutalized the couple. With clear premeditation, the Hawks were forced to sign a bill of sale for the boat and then killed. Through investigative reports and court testimony, the details of the horror on the boat comes to life. Skylar Deleon reportedly showed no signs of emotion as the bound couple were fastened to an anchor and thrown overboard alive.
The detectives on the case built a tight case against the murderers using cell phone records, forensic evidence, and informants. Arrested and put on trial, Skylar Deleon believed he was a female trapped in a male's body and hoped to have a sex-change operation. Failing to win approval for such an operation while he was incarcerated, Deleon attempted to remove his penis with a not-too-sharp razor blade. Ultimately he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death along with co-conspirator John Kennedy. Jennifer Deleon was also convicted, but spared the death penalty.
Rother is at her best in this gruesome story of a voyage gone terribly wrong. The book is fast-paced and will grip any lover of the true crime genre. Unlike some crime writers, Rother does not try to answer or even address the issue of what makes killers kill. Her well-executed goal is to tell the story and let others contemplate the nature vs. nurture explanations for criminal action.
As with most well-written crime stories, it make the reader wonder more than a little about the human condition. Who are the killers among us? What seemingly innocent trip to the store or vacation voyage will turn tragic? The beauty of good nonfiction is that it often surpasses the imaginary world ---- the ugliness is that it often reflects all too well our real world.
Richard L. Carrico of Ramona teaches in the Department of American Indian Studies at San Diego State University and is author of "Strangers in a Stolen Land: Indians of San Diego County From Prehistory to the New Deal."
“Dead Reckoning”
True crime
Author: Caitlin Rother
Publisher: Pinnacle True Crime
Binding: Paperback and e-books
Pages: 474; with 16 pages of photographs
Price: $6.99 paperback; e-books vary
http://www.nctimes.com/entertainment...1efcacfee.html
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