A father arrested after his seven-month-old went missing told a fellow inmate he killed the baby and left his body in a waste bin at their home in California.
Jake Haro, 32, and his wife Rebecca, 41, were charged with murder after detectives allegedly found evidence contradicting their story that their son Emmanuel had been kidnapped.
Emmanuel’s body has not been found but prosecutors say they have a ‘pretty strong indication’ of where it is and how he died.
An undercover officer or informant placed in the same jail as the boy’s father reportedly spoke to the suspect after he arrived.
Sources told US outlet NewsNation that Haro admitted to the killing, although details of the method were not disclosed.
District Attorney Michael Hestrin told a press conference that reports of a ‘confession’ were not true.
The boy’s mother claimed a stranger hit her on the head and snatched Emmanuel while she changed him outside a store in San Bernardino, about 35 miles from their home in Cabazon, near Palm Springs, on August 14.
After interviewing his father, detectives noticed inconsistencies in the couple’s stories and charged them with murder several days later.
Jake Haro then reportedly told investigators he had accidentally rolled onto Emmanuel while he slept and suffocated him before burying his body near a freeway.
He was pictured in handcuffs leading detectives in a remote field in Moreno Valley, but authorities did not announce the body had been found.
Authorities say evidence shows Emmanuel was in fact subjected to campaign of abuse and eventually died from his injuries.
It’s thought he may have died as early as August 5.
Jake Haro was previously given a suspended sentence in 2023 for child cruelty against his infant daughter with a previous wife.
He and his then-wife, Vanessa Avina, pleaded guilty to inflicting various injuries including a skull fracture, brain haemorrhage and broken ribs on the girl.
Haro was ordered to complete 180 days in a work-release programme and complete a child abuser programme.
DA Hestrin told Wednesday’s conference Haro ‘should have been in prison’ and called the ruling an ‘outrageous error in judgment’.
‘If that judge had done his job … Emmanuel would be alive today,’ he said.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
