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Third Hawks Murder Trial Winding Down

The trial of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 43, the third person to face a jury for the 2004 murders of Mexico cruisers Tom and Jackie Hawks, is expected to conclude this week, after three weeks of testimony.

On November 15, 2004, Tom and Jackie Hawks left Newport Beach on a test sail aboard their 55-ft trawler Well Deserved. They were never seen again. It didn’t take long for investigators to follow the sloppy trail left by Skylar and Jennifer Deleon but it wasn’t until Alonso Machain confessed the details of that day that authorities understood the extent of the crime. "I don’t think anybody realized how horrible it was until we talked to Alonso," prosecutor Matt Murphy noted in an interview with ABC’s 20/20 that aired last Friday.

In his confession, Machain laid out the details of Skylar Deleon’s plan: Have the Hawkses take them out on a test sail, overpower them, force them to sign over their finances and throw them overboard. Machain also fingered John Fitzgerald Kennedy as the "muscle" Deleon brought along to subdue fitness buff Tom Hawks. Machain testified for the third time — the first two times during Jennifer and Skylar Deleon’s separate trials, in which they were both found guilty of murder — that Kennedy restrained Tom Hawks and later, after Deleon had tied the couple to an anchor, punched Hawks so hard in the side of the head that he was knocked unconscious, then shoved them overboard. On the way back to Newport, Machain described Kennedy as popping open a beer and throwing out a fishing line.

But defense attorneys have portrayed Kennedy as a reformed member of the Insane Crips gang, working with the youth of his community and active in his church. As for his whereabouts on the day the Hawkses went missing, he simply can’t recall. “No disrespect to no one, but it was no significant date to me,” he said when he took the stand in his own defense. He also professed to have no idea why Machain, as well as his lifelong friend Myron Gardner — who allegedly connected Deleon with Kennedy — would tell such terrible lies about him.

Kennedy’s defense team rested its case yesterday and closing statements are expected to begin as early as today.

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The late George Carlin did a great bit about ‘stuff’. The reason people need homes, he said, was “to store all your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.”
Dave Perry, who has literally written the book on Understanding the Racing Rules of Sailing, will be visiting Northern California the weekend of March 13-15 for a series of seminars on the changes in the 2009 rules.