John Jacobson Jr., aka the “Yacht Killer” or Skylar Deleon, was sentenced to death row in 2009 for the murder of Thomas and Jackie Hawks to obtain money for a sex-change surgery. Fourteen years later, he finally achieved his goal with a taxpayer-funded sex-change surgery due to policies put in place by Kamala Harris.
In 2005, Jacobson murdered the couple when he lured them onto their boat off the California coast, tied them to its anchor, and then threw them overboard. Speaking to ABC News, he admitted to committing the crime to obtain his surgery.
“I wanted the surgery, and I knew I 100 percent wanted the surgery,” Jacobson said.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, Jacobson underwent his surgery at taxpayers’ expense in 2023 due to “policies and precedents set during Kamala Harris’s time as the state’s attorney general.”
“I did receive gender affirming surgery and breast augmentation on April 5th 2023,” Jacobson, who now goes by Skylar Deleon, wrote in a letter to the outlet.
Jacobson also said he has been awaiting a transfer to a women’s prison from his current home of San Quentin.
“I should transfer fairly quickly but the prison makes us go to committee to determine whether or not [sic] which prison we go to even though I have had both surgeries,” Jacobson told the Free Beacon.
CNN recently reported on a 2019 campaign questionnaire that showed Harris backed taxpayer-funded sex change surgeries for migrants in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention. She also told the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) transgender inmates would receive the care they need.
“It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition,” Harris told the ACLU.
“I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained,” she continued. “Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.”
As to how Kamala helped pave the way for Jacobson’s surgery, in 2015, while serving as California attorney general, she initially blocked a lawsuit brought by convicted murder Jeffrey Bryan Norsworthy, arguing that his desired sex-change surgery was not medically necessary. However, after a district judge ruled against California, Harris did not follow-up on her pledge to appeal to the Ninth Circuit before California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) allowed parole for Norsworthy. Per the Free Beacon:
When another inmate, Rodney Quine, who was serving a life sentence for murder, filed a similar lawsuit amid the state’s battle with Norsworthy, Harris negotiated a settlement in which the state paid for Quine’s sex-change surgery and hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees. Quine made no concessions to force the state’s hand.
When California publicly announced the settlement, it also announced a wholesale policy change: “California has become the first state with a policy of providing sex reassignment surgery for some prison inmates,” the New York Times reported. Going forward, the state would pay for mastectomies and genital reconstruction surgeries.
Harris talked about the Norsworthy and Quine cases during her first presidential bid in 2019, apologizing for her initial opposition to Norsworthy’s lawsuit and telling reporters she took “full responsibility” for the legal briefs her office had originally filed.
The family members of Jacobson’s victims expressed outrage knowing he underwent his desired surgery at the taxpayer’s expense.
“I don’t know what right [Harris] had to decide that he gets surgeries now. I mean, why should they get all these benefits?” Jackie Hawks’ mother told the Free Beacon. “They killed people, right? Took people’s life. He killed my daughter and son-in-law, and now he gets what he wants.”
