The Gruesome Yacht Murder Case of Thomas and Jackie Hawks

Two More Murder Plots

Deleon was trying to figure out a way to tie up any loose ends that could implicate him in the Hawks' deaths and one thing stood out in his mind, prosecutors say. Deleon had told his father what he had done and now feared the older man might talk. There was only one solution: he had to be killed.

So Deleon asked another inmate to murder his father when the inmate got out of jail, or, if the inmate wasn't released soon enough, to find someone on the outside to do it, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office.

The plot was uncovered some time later when sheriff deputies happened to be searching the inmate's cell and found newspaper clippings and handwritten notes on the yacht murders, according to a law enforcement official.

"They asked the inmate why he had these documents, and he tried to provide a false alibi for Skylar at the time of the murders," the official said. "When deputies pressed him, he finally confessed and said Skylar had hired him to kill his dad."

And it didn't end there. Skylar viewed his cousin, Mike Lewis, who had been charged with helping conceal the Jarvi murder, as liability because he could become a snitch. So he solicited yet another inmate to kill Lewis on July 26, 2006. That plot was uncovered because it was overheard and a map of Lewis' home was seen being passed to the inmate, according to a law enforcement official.

Prosecutors found out about the death threats and charged Skylar with two counts of solicitation of murder.