Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin announced Wednesday, Aug. 27, that a 7-month-old infant whose parents have been charged with his death is believed to have suffered prolonged physical abuse before he died.
“The filing in this case reflects our belief that Baby Emmanuel was the victim of child abuse over time, and that, eventually, because of that abuse, he succumbed to those injuries,” Hestrin said during a news conference at the District Attorney’s Office in Riverside.
Emmanuel’s mother, Rebecca Haro, reported him abducted from a Big 5 Sporting Goods store in Yucaipa on Aug. 14. Investigators now believe the boy is dead, but his remains have not been located.
Hestrin also told a throng of reporters during the conference that investigators have some ideas of where Emmanuel’s remains are, but he declined to reveal specifics.
“We have a pretty strong indication of where the remains of Baby Emmanuel are, so that investigation is ongoing at this time,” said Hestrin, who also declined to elaborate on why investigators believe the boy had suffered prolonged physical abuse.
Rebecca Haro, 41, and Emmanuel’s father, Jake Haro, 32, both of Cabazon, were each charged on Tuesday, Aug. 26, with murder and a misdemeanor count of filing a false police report. They both appeared in court Tuesday at the Riverside County Hall of Justice for an arraignment, but did not enter pleas. They will next appear in court on Sept. 4.
Rebecca Haro told San Bernardino County sheriff’s investigators on Aug. 14 that she was changing her son’s diaper outside the Big 5 store when she was assaulted and knocked unconscious by an unknown man. When she awoke, she told investigators, her child was gone.
But within 24 hours, according to San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus, detectives found inconsistencies in Haro’s statements, prompting a massive joint investigation involving his department, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office’s High Tech Crimes Unit. Investigators have collectively spent hundreds of hours over the last two weeks gathering evidence, interviewing witnesses and following up on leads.
Rebecca Haro ultimately stopped cooperating with investigators and declined to answer further questions. San Bernardino County sheriff’s investigators later said her account was a lie — and the couple were arrested on Aug. 22.
During a jailhouse interview with the Southern California News Group on Sunday, Aug. 24, Rebecca Haro maintained that her son had been kidnapped.
The day before the Haros were arrested, Riverside County sheriff’s deputies were sent to the 23000 block of Cottonwood Avenue in Moreno Valley on a report of child abuse made by Jake Haro, Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco said. He declined to elaborate on Haro’s allegations and the location of where deputies responded.
However, in a jailhouse interview Wednesday at the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning, Jake Haro said his and Rebecca Haro’s 2-year-old daughter, McKenzie, was removed from their custody by Riverside County Children’s Services prior to their arrest. He said their daughter was “fine” and there was “not a bruise on her” when she was removed from their home.
But when he subsequently visited McKenzie at the county children’s services office, at 23119 Cottonwood Ave. in Moreno Valley, he said, “She looked like she got hit by a truck that then reversed and ran over her again.”
Bianco said Haro’s allegations were determined to be unfounded, and “possibly a deliberate attempt to distance himself from future abuse allegations.” Asked if he was referring to possibly future child abuse allegations against the Haros involving their 2-year-old daughter, Bianco declined to answer.
On Sunday, Haro, wearing a red jail jumpsuit, was accompanied by investigators as they looked for Emmanuel’s body in a brushy area off of the 60 Freeway near Gilman Springs Road in the Riverside County Badlands. It was unclear if Haro led investigators to that location or they wound up there based on other leads.
Dicus did, however, say during the news conference that investigators have been receiving “some level of cooperation with the suspects,” but it wasn’t clear if that cooperation was related to the Badlands area search.
Hestrin said Emmanuel’s suspected death was preventable. He cited Jake Haro’s 2023 guilty plea to charges of abusing his 10-week-old daughter by a previous marriage in 2018, leaving her permanently bedridden with cerebral palsy. Hestrin said his office pushed for mandatory prison time, but the judge instead cut Haro a “big break” and he received a suspended four-year sentence and 180 days of work release.
“It was an outrageous error in judgment by this judge, and I don’t have any problem saying that,” Hestrin said. “Mr. Haro should have been in prison at the time that this crime happened, and if that judge had done his job as he should have done, Emmanuel would be alive today, and that’s a shame and it’s an outrage.”
Hestrin said the girl’s extensive injuries — fractured ribs that were either fresh or in various stages of healing, a partial bone fracture of the skull, a brain hemorrhage and a healing leg fracture — were presented to the judge.
“This is severe abuse for an infant,” Hestrin said. “Someone who does that to a child belongs in prison, period.”
Hestrin said his office is not interested in any plea agreements in the Haro case.
“We’re interested in a trial and getting justice,” he said.
Staff writer Brian Rokos contributed to this report.
