California dad who faked infant’s kidnapping pleads guilty to boy’s murder
A California man accused of killing his infant son and falsely claiming the boy had been kidnapped pleaded guilty to murder, child endangerment and filing a false police report, officials said Thursday.
Jake Haro, 32, is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 3 in connection with the August death of 7-month-old Emmanuel Haro, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.
The plea was not part of an agreement with the prosecutor’s office, according to the statement. A judge will determine his sentence.
Haro’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
His wife, Rebecca Haro, was charged with two crimes — murder and filing a false report — and is scheduled for a preliminary hearing the day Jake Haro will be sentenced. She pleaded not guilty last month. Her lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Emmanuel’s remains have not been found.
Rebecca Haro claimed Emmanuel was kidnapped on the evening of Aug. 14 after she was attacked while she was changing the child’s diaper in a Big 5 Sporting Goods parking lot in Yucaipa, east of Los Angeles, authorities have said.
“I was going to get the diaper, and somebody said, ‘Hola,'” she told KTLA-TV of Los Angeles at the time. “I don’t remember anything since.”
With a black eye, she told KTLA that she awoke and her son was gone.
Jake Haro told the station: “He’s just a baby. Just give our son back.”
A sheriff’s investigation determined the parents’ account was false.
“The filing in this case reflects our belief that baby Emmanuel was abused,” Riverside County District Attorney Michael Hestrin said in August. “Eventually, because of that abuse, he succumbed to those injuries.”
In 2023, Jake Haro pleaded guilty to charges of willful child cruelty against his child from a previous marriage, the district attorney’s office has said. Among the injuries the child suffered, Hestrin said, were a partial bone fracture of the skull, a brain hemorrhage and injuries to the ribs and legs.
Hestrin said the child is bedridden and has cerebral palsy as a result of the abuse.
Jake Haro was given a suspended sentence in that case and ordered to serve 180 days on a work-release program, the prosecutor’s office said.
