Former Power Rangers Star's Shocking Prison Act: What Drove This Desperation?

In a bizarre and gruesome escalation to a high-profile Southern California murder case, jail officials confirmed that a former child actor awaiting trial for a horrific double homicide at sea attempted to self-mutilate while in custody. Skylar Preciosa Deleon (born John Julius Jacobson Jr.), 29, was rushed to an area hospital from the Orange County Men’s Central Jail after using a razor blade to partially sever her own penis. According to sheriff’s department officials, jail guards discovered the heavily bleeding inmate inside a housing unit. Deleon was immediately transferred to an outside medical facility where surgeons successfully reattached the organ. Driven by transition goals In a subsequent interview, Deleon revealed that the extreme act of self-harm was a desperate attempt at gender reaffirmation surgery. "I basically took a sheet and tied it around my lower extremity… I tied it around and I went to cut it off," Deleon stated, explaining the desire to transition from male to female. The incident shed light on what defense attorneys later presented as the core motive behind a string of cold-blooded crimes. During the trial, Deleon’s legal team argued that an overwhelming fixation on securing funds for a gender reassignment operation drove the financial scheme that led to multiple murders. The deadly yacht plot At the time of the 2008 jailhouse incident, Deleon was facing capital murder charges for the 2004 deaths of Thomas and Jackie Hawks, a retired Arizona couple. Skylar Preciosa Deleon post-transition. Credit: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation According to prosecutors, Deleon posed as a wealthy buyer interested in purchasing the couple's 55-foot yacht, the Well Deserved. During a sea trial out of Newport Harbor, Deleon and several accomplices overpowered the couple. After forcing the Hawkses to sign over power of attorney documents, the group bound the couple, handcuffed them to a 66-pound anchor, and threw them overboard alive into the Pacific Ocean. Their bodies were never recovered. Deleon was also tied to the 2003 financial-gain murder of John Peter Jarvi, whose throat was slit in Mexico. Subsequent legal actions and taxpayer funding Following a conviction on three counts of first-degree murder, an Orange County jury recommended the death penalty. Deleon was officially sentenced to death in April 2009. Though the gruesome jailhouse self-mutilation failed, Deleon eventually secured the procedure decades later. While housed on California's death row under an ongoing statewide execution moratorium, Deleon legally changed her name and successfully petitioned the state for gender-affirming medical care. In April 2023, California taxpayers funded Deleon’s official gender-reassignment surgery and breast augmentation under progressive state correctional healthcare mandates. She had a non-speaking role as a child extra in a 1994 episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Featured image credit: Daniel Knighton / Getty