Father of missing California baby Emmanuel pleads guilty to murder in son's death

Nathan Solis, Los Angeles Times on Oct 16, 2025

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RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The father of missing baby Emmanuel Haro has pleaded guilty to murder in Riverside County.

Jake Haro pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of his 7-month-old son, Emmanuel, several weeks after the boy’s parents falsely reported him missing in Riverside County.

Haro appeared in a Riverside courtroom Thursday, where he changed his plea from not guilty to guilty. He also pleaded guilty to filing a false police report and assault of a child under 8, according to the Riverside County district attorney’s office.

He pleaded guilty in court, separate from any plea agreement with the district attorney’s office.

“In a plea to the court, a defendant enters guilty pleas to all charged counts and the judge in the case determines the sentence a defendant will serve,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement.

Haro faces 25 years to life in prison. His defense attorney declined to comment when reached by email.

Rebecca Haro, the boy’s mother, has pleaded not guilty to murder and remains in custody. She is scheduled to appear in court Nov. 3 for her preliminary hearing. Haro is scheduled to be sentenced at the same hearing.

Haro, 32, was arrested with Rebecca Haro, 41, in connection with the boy’s death in August. Initially, the couple claimed he was kidnapped after an assailant attacked the mother.

According to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, Rebecca Haro said she was attacked in a Yucaipa parking lot Aug. 14 outside a Big 5 store while changing Emmanuel’s diaper. But investigators said there were inconsistencies in her initial statement, and when they confronted her about those details, they said she stopped cooperating.

Authorities arrested the parents at their Cabazon home a week after they reported their son missing.

In the first weeks of the investigation, search teams scoured an isolated field in Moreno Valley. They were accompanied by Haro, who wore a jail jumpsuit. Authorities did not find the boy, officials said. The infant’s remains have not been located. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department initially led the investigation, but charges against the parents were filed in Riverside County.

When asked for an update on the search for baby Emmanuel’s remains, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office said the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is leading the investigation. But a spokesperson for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department referred all questions to the Riverside County district attorney’s office.

The Uvalde Foundation for Kids, a nonprofit that offered a cash reward in the early days of the search for Emmanuel, criticized the lack of updates from authorities regarding the case and the search for Emmanuel’s remains.

They said Haro’s guilty plea is a “necessary step toward accountability” but the case is also incomplete.

The foundation’s founder, Daniel Chapin, said in a statement, “justice for Emmanuel is incomplete until his remains are recovered.”

“Our fight now centers on recovering Emmanuel and enacting ‘Emmanuel’s Law’ to protect other children from falling through the cracks of a broken system,” Chapin said.

As the search for Emmanuel was underway, focus shifted from the mother to both parents after it came to light that Haro had a previous conviction for child abuse.

In 2018, Haro and his then-wife were interviewed by Hemet police after their baby was examined at a local hospital, according to a police affidavit seeking an arrest warrant. The unidentified girl had a skull fracture, several healing fractures to her ribs, a brain hemorrhage, swelling in the neck and a healing tibia fracture in her leg.

A doctor who examined the child told police that the girl had “intracranial hemorrhage, brain injury, cervical spine injury and retinal hemorrhages” and other injuries, the affidavit said.

Haro told police that he accidentally dropped the baby into a center divider in their kitchen sink while giving her a bath, but the doctor said the injuries did not fit that narrative.

The couple blamed each other, according to the officer’s affidavit. In 2023, Haro was convicted of felony willful child endangerment and his then-wife was convicted of misdemeanor willful harm to a child, court records show.

When Emmanuel’s parents reported him missing, Riverside County authorities followed up and removed a 2-year-old child from their home.

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