The father of missing baby Emmanuel Haro has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in connection to his son’s disappearance.
Jake Haro, 32, appeared in a California courtroom on Thursday where he also pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm to a child, and filing a false police report.
Both Haro and his 41-year-old wife Rebecca Haro, were charged in August after the mother initially claimed her 7-month-old son had been kidnapped. They initially pleaded not guilty to first degree murder and filing a false police report.
Emmanuel was first reported missing on August 14 after his mother said that while she was changing his diaper outside a Big 5 sporting goods store in Yucaipa, California, she was “physically assaulted by an unknown male and rendered unconscious,” according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
She said that when she woke up, Emmanuel was gone.
Both parents were initially cooperative with authorities but stopped after being confronted with inconsistencies in the mother’s story, according to police.
A massive search was launched but the child was never found and is now presumed dead, officials say.
At a press conference in August, officials said evidence shows that Emmanuel was abused over time, and they believe the baby eventually died from injuries from the ongoing abuse.
Court records show Jake Haro was convicted of willful child cruelty in 2023, following a case in 2018 in which his infant daughter with a previous partner suffered multiple severe injuries, including a skull fracture, brain hemorrhage, and broken ribs.
Haro and his then-wife, Vanessa Avina, pleaded guilty to abusing their daughter. In that case, Haro was sentenced to 180 days in a sheriff’s work-release program and ordered into a child abuser treatment program.
