A Southern California jury has convicted a third defendant in the killings of two yacht owners who were tied to an anchor and thrown into the Pacific Ocean as they pleaded for their lives.
Forty-three-year-old John Fitzgerald Kennedy was convicted Thursday of two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances in the 2004 deaths of Tom and Jackie Hawks somewhere off the coast. The couple's son Ryan lives in Carlsbad.
Opening statements in the death penalty phase of the trial will begin next week in Orange County Superior Court.
Skylar Deleon was convicted in November of directing the murders in a plot to steal the Hawkses' yacht. Deleon's ex-wife Jennifer Henderson was convicted in 2006 of two counts of murder.
Two other co-defendants are expected to stand trial next month.
The Hawkses were from Prescott, Ariz.
