Witnesses called to the stand

A Long Beach man accused of helping kill a Newport Beach couple in 2004 out at sea was rarely mentioned in the first day of the trial’s testimony Tuesday, with prosecutors instead aiming to establish for jurors the basic fact that they were, indeed, killed.

Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Murphy said he must first establish the crime took place for jurors before plugging the defendant, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 43, into the equation.

Kennedy is accused of helping two other men, Skylar Deleon, who was convicted as the mastermind of the plot, and Alonso Machain, who has yet to stand trial, subdue Tom and Jackie Hawks aboard their boat, Well Deserved, and throw them overboard alive tied to an anchor.

Defense attorneys claim Kennedy was not involved in any way.

In a possible indication of where the defense may be looking to take their argument, defense attorney Charles Lindner asked Henderson to elaborate on the description of Myron Gardner, the Long Beach man accused of bringing Kennedy into the plot. Prosecutors claim Deleon contacted Gardner for some “muscle” to help subdue Tom Hawks, and Gardner turned to Kennedy. Gardner has been charged with murder in connection with the case and is expected to testify for the prosecution as part of a plea deal, according to defense attorneys. Both Gardner and Kennedy are large, black men with facial hair, and Machain identified Kennedy in a photo line-up.

Outside of Machain and Gardner putting Kennedy at the scene of the crime, there is no way to put Kennedy on the Well Deserved with the Hawkses when they were killed, defense attorneys said. On top of that, there are no phone records linking Kennedy to Deleon or Machain, only to Gardner, his friend of 20 years, his attorney added.

During cross-examination, Lindner focused on the choices of others involved, highlighting those who took action to foil Deleon’s plot to kill the couple and steal their money and those who did not.

Murphy called in bank employees from Arizona who stopped Deleon’s attempt to empty the couple’s accounts with falsified legal documents and a diving instructor who knew a crime was in the works, but chose not to take action.

Deleon’s then-father-in-law, Steven Henderson, testified Deleon explained he got the Hawkses’ boat after being nearly $20,000 in debt from money he got through people from Mexico who owed him for a drug deal years earlier. Deleon told him that the Hawkses had to flee the country and left their boat, car and various belongings in a rush to finish the boat sale, Henderson testified.

“You weren’t questioning Skylar very closely as far as his acquisitions, were you?” Lindner asked.

“No, I suppose I wasn’t,” replied Henderson.

Adam Rohrig, a Long Beach diving instructor who Deleon tapped to help “make two people disappear” weeks before the killings, testified he felt nothing but shame for not going to police.

“I don’t want to state the obvious, but if I could do things different, I would,” Rohrig testified. “I’m not proud of anything I’ve done.”

A DNA expert is expected to testify for the prosecution this morning.