In a move that was as stunning in some quarters as it was expected and considered long-overdue in others, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office withdrew murder charges against Rebecca Haro, whose seven-month-old son disappeared more than ten months ago under what remain for the public unknown and unexplicated circumstances.
The development comes nearly ten months following the presumed death of Emanuel Haro and over seven months after her husband, Jake Haro, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and assault on a child under the age of 8. Rebecca Haro made the plea this morning during a court appearance at the Riverside Hall of Justice in which she emotionally reacted at numerous points while the proceedings intended to record her cognizance of and consent to the action that was being taken in relationship to her were verbally highlighted by the Judge Jerry Lee, who was overseeing the case.
The proceedings this morning were originally scheduled as a preliminary hearing during which the prosecution team, consisting of Riverside County Assistant District Attorney Brandon Smith and Riverside County Deputy District Attorney [William] Robinson, had come prepared to present evidence providing enough support of the charges against her to convince Judge Lee to bind her over for trial. What was revealed during the hearing was that there had been substantial discussion and give and take between Smith, the lead prosecutor, and Haro’s defense attorney, Jeff Moore, that the primary count against Haro Penal Code Section 187: murder, which was not specified as either first degree or second degree in the original filing. What was laid out was that, instead, the other charge Haro originally faced – filing a false police report, California Penal Code § 148.5 – remained and the complaint against her amended to include child endangerment causing great bodily injury, involuntary manslaughter and accessory after the fact.
The case involving Emmanuel Haro’s disappearance and presumed death has been beset with difficulties and disturbing aspects from the outset which have not been satisfactorally resolved for much of the public, despite the adjudication of the cases against both of his parents.
On August 14, the couple, who lived in the Riverside community of Cabazon, had accompanied their older child, a daughter, and Jake Haro’s ten-year-old son from a previous marriage to Yucaiapa, so the boy could participate in a youth football scrimmage at a stadium in Yucaipa. Initially, both Haros maintained, Rebecca had driven in their SUV with Emmanuel to the Big Five sporting goods store in Yucaipa to purchase a mouth guard for the ten-year-old. While there and changing Emmanuel’s diaper while the infant was laid out in the SUV’s backseat, Rebecca claimed, she had been blindsided by a Hispanic man who punched her in the head and made off with Emmanuel. A report of the kidnapping was made and an all-points bulletin, emanating out of San Bernardino County alerted law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for a man roughly fitting Rebecca Haro’s alleged assailant and a child. That she had a black eye lent her story credibility. While that alert remained operative, reports of just such a pair, a Hispanic man and a baby or very young child, one from as far away as Bakersfield, were received.
After the Haros, ostensibly cooperative, were subjected to repeated rounds of questioning by detectives with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and allowed investigators access to their premises in Cabazon, discrepancies in their version of events emerged. Security video footage at the Big Five sporting goods store parking lot did not confirm Rebecca’s story. Ultimately, on August 22, 2025, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department detectives and special weapons and assault team members, decked out in military gear, at 7:59 a.m. broke through the locked gate at the Haro’s Cabazon property and then battered through the home’s front door to arrest both parents, who were yet clad in underwear and sleepwear. According to investigators, it was contradictory and provably false statements made by Jake and Rebecca Haro, blood evidence found in the home they shared with their two youngest children and Jake’s oldest son together with the discarding of their youngest child’s bedding and clothes that formed the basis of the arrest warrant.
While in custody before their arraignment on murder and false police report charges on August 26, 2025, they were separated and subjected to harsh interrogative techniques in which it was represented to them that it was a known fact that they had killed their son and that the investigative team had already found, or was on the brink of finding, the child’s body. In addition, while the couple was in the custody of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, the sheriff’s department engaged in a so-called Perkins operations against both Rebecca Haro and Jake Haro to lead them into separately believing that different individuals they were speaking with in the confines of the Robert Presley Detention Center and at the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning were inmates rather than law enforcement officers. Those officers masquerading as jail inmates were given a plausible story about a fictitious crime they were credited with committing as they attempted to casually engage with the Haros to gather information to assist in the ongoing investigation and/or to be used against them as evidence in court. In addition to the quarters in which Rebecca and Jake had these encounters with the undercover officers being subjected to both video and audio surveillance, the undercover officers were wearing body cameras.
On Sunday, August 24, two days after the Haros’ arrests, Jake, accompanied by law enforcement officers, including ones from both the San Bernardino County and Riverside County, went to an area near Gilman Springs Road off the 60 Freeway, reportedly to assist in the recovery of Emmanuel’s body. That search ended without any trace of the child being located.
Investigators then transitioned to a theory, reportedly base on an indication gleamed by one of the officers involved in the Perkins operation that Jake had killed his son and disposed of his body in the trash.
Extensive efforts to find a body at the Lamb Canyon Landfill near Beaumont were unsuccessful.
Revealed was that Jake had severely beaten a daughter he had during a previous marriage, and that the child, now under the care of Jake’s sister, will be bed-ridden for the rest of her life.
Emmanuel’s body was never recovered. If there was any tangible physical evidence of the child’s death, it was not shared with the public. The public appeared to be divided into three distinct camps. A large segment of the public assumed or otherwise pronounced the Haros to be guilty and imputed to them across-the-board sociopathic and psychopathic characteristics. Some people reserved judgment, applying a number of theories of both guilt and innocence, which included one that Rebecca had been physically abused and psychologically dominated by her husband. A third school of thought was that the investigators and prosecutors, in their zeal to resolve what had the appearances of a crime, had perpetuated a series of bluffs and false narratives in an effort to find evidence and extract confessions, in so doing creating a classic case of “blowback,” in which fabrications become indistinguishable from the truth. This last interpretation was buoyed by the reality that there was no exacting proof that the child was dead, while the Haros, whose intelligence factor was under question and constant attack from all sides, had seemingly not been broken by their captors despite the use of an array of coercive tactics against them.
In October, Jake, without a previous agreement with the prosecution, entered a guilty plea to second degree murder, which the prosecution did not contest. At that time, he declared that his wife was innocent.
The prosecution, however, did not relent in its allegations against Rebecca.
Without the child’s body, the prosecution had to rely on evidence that was less than integral or even tangible. Investigators believe that Emmanuel died as the result of repeated head trauma at the hands of Jake. The evidence to support this consisted of videos of the child that existed on the cell phones of both of his parents.
The prosecution was relying on the conclusions of Melissa Siccama, a forensic pediatrics technician with Loma Linda University Medical Center, based on her examination of photographs and videos of Emmanuel captured on the Haros’ phones. Siccama observed that the infant manifested abnormal shaking of his arms and legs, labored breathing, had an abnormal positioning of his right eye, was not responsive to certain stimuli and was possibly experiencing seizures. Smith and Williams were prepared to propound during the preliminary hearing that Rebecca Haro was aware of those symptoms, that they had been brought about by Jake Haro’s beating of his son and that his wife had done nothing in response to what she knew was occurring.
Prosecutors and investigators, who did not have access to the child’s corpse and therefore did not have an opportunity to examine it, believe the toddler was physically abused on a repeated basis and succumbed to those injuries as a result. The investigative/prosecutorial theory was that Rebecca Haro knew of the abuse and did nothing to stop it, did not seek treatment for the child and engaged in an effort to cover-up her son’s death.
According to Smith, “[T]hese symptoms did not appear suddenly on the day of Emmanuel’s death. [T]he symptoms developed over time and were observable to anyone regularly caring for the child.” The abuse Jake Haro subjected his Emmanuel to culminated in his death, Smith maintained, at which point, “Rebecca participated in the fabrication of a false kidnapping story designed to conceal the homicide.”
The prosecution amended the complaint, dropping the murder charge against Rebecca Haro and presented it to the court, with the consent of Moore, Haro’s attorney.
In court this morning, Judge Yang asked Rebecca Haro, “Are you pleading guilty because you did in fact do what the people alleged you have done?”
Haro responded, “Yes, your Honor,” Rebecca Haro responded.
Smith appeared to be highly conscious of the contradictions and loose ends in the case, including the corners that were cut in trying to get to the bottom of what had occurred and the incomplete nature of the evidence, including confirmation that the victim is actually dead. Before the morning’s proceedings were concluded, he said he wanted, “the record to reflect that for anyone reviewing this plea agreement in the future, the structure of this resolution reflects what I believe the evidences shows, what happened in those months, weeks and days leading up to Emmanuel’s murder. Jake Haro was sentenced in November to 32 years to life for his sins of commission. In other words, it was his hands that physically took Emmanuel’s life. Rebecca Haro’s plea and sentence today reflects her sins of omission. While we don’t have evidence that she personally struck or shook her son, the evidence is clear that she repeatedly and consistently chose to not intervene on behalf of her son in spite of his evident and accelerating physical deterioration. Her choice not to intervene was a choice to allow, if not facilitate, Emmanuel’s death. This defendant had a legal and moral responsibility as Emmanuel’s mother and she failed in that duty. The child abuse resulting in great bodily injury to 7-month-old Emmanuel reflects her conduct in the days and weeks prior to Emmanuel’s death. The manslaughter charge reflects her conduct in the moments leading up to his death. The accessory charge reflects her conduct after Emmanuel’s death when, once more, rather than act like a mother she chose to play the victim. The two people in the world who should have been Emmanuel’s biggest advocates and protectors are solely responsible for his murder.”
Smith has made contradictory statements as to whether the district attorney’s office stands by all of the elements of its theory of guilt. In court, he made statements to suggest that both Jake and Rebecca know where the child’s body is. In another context, he indicated that Rebecca did not know where the child’s corpse is and that if he was convinced she had that knowledge, he would not have agreed to a plea arrangement unless she divulged her dead child’s whereabouts.
As part of the plea deal, at the beginning of the proceedings, Rebecca Haro pleaded not guilty to filing a false police report. That charge was dismissed. The deal worked out among Moore, Smith and Robinson was that Haro would be given a sentence of 12 years and 8 months.
Judge Lee said, “The court will abide by the parties’ agreed upon remit. Judge Lee sentenced Haro to six years in prison on the charge of child endangerment followed by five years on the great bodily injury violation, one year on the involuntary manslaughter charge and eight months on the accessory after the fact charge. The sentences on the child endangerment and great bodily injury counts imposed were at the high end of the scale based on Haro’s acknowledgment of what was referred to as “aggravating factor 4.42183,” an admission that the victim, referred to in court as “Baby Doe,” was particularly vulnerable.
Judge Lee imposed the sentences on all the charges to run consecutively, meaning Haro is to serve the entirety of the 12 year 8 month sentence subject to parole reductions. She was given credit for 323 days served, consisting of 281 actual days and days of good behavior time.
In making the plea and accepting the sentence in court, both Haro and Moore waived Haro’s rights with regard to appealing the conviction or her sentence.
Judge Lee made clear that as a consequence of her conviction, Haro is not to be permitted, presumably after her release, to own or have a gun. The judge also made suggestions that, as a consequence of her conviction, she would be subject to deportation if it is determined she is not a U.S. citizen. There is no immediately available public record or legal information suggesting Rebecca Renee Haro, with the birth date of February 3, 1984, is or is not a U.S. citizen.
Haro did not speak to the court beyond answering Judge Lee’s questions. Moore was terse in his exchanges with the court as well.
One of the disturbing factors relating to the entire case was Smith’s acknowledgment that neither the investigators nor the prosecutors have a firm fix on when Emmanuel Haro died. Smith gave an approximation of the date of death as between August 5 through August 22, 2025. That is of some note, because it suggests that, contrary to the theory of the investigators working on the case in the early stages and what was alleged to the court after the Haros’ arrest, the child may have been alive between August 14, the day the Haros claimed he was kidnapped, and August 22, the day they were arrested. While investigators and the Haros critics, who assumed the parents were responsible for their child’s death, have accused the couple of “making things up as they go along,” it would appear that the authorities involved in the case, during its several stages, were themselves fabricating a narrative that was convenient to the position they were assuming at any particular point.
Jake Haro is serving his term at Salinas Valley State Prison. It is believed that Rebecca Haro will be incarcerated at the Central California Women’s Facility, located in Chowchilla.
-Mark Gutglueck, in Sacramento, based upon video footage provided by Court TV.