A Cabazon woman who originally reported that she was assaulted and knocked unconscious during an abduction of her 7-month-old son pleaded guilty Friday to involuntary manslaughter and other charges stemming from the child’s death.
Rebecca Renee Haro, 42, pleaded guilty Friday at the Riverside Hall of Justice to child abuse — with an allegation of great bodily injury on a child under 5 years old — as well as involuntary manslaughter and being an accessory after the fact in the death of the boy, Emmanuel, whose body has never been found. Haro was immediately sentenced to 12 years and eight months in prison.
As part of the plea agreement, charges of murder and filing a false police report were dismissed.
Her spouse, 33-year-old Jake Mitchell Haro, pleaded guilty in October to second-degree murder, child assault and filing a false police report. He was sentenced in November to 32 years to life in state prison.
Rebecca Haro, who is being held on a $1 million bail at the Robert Presley jail, entered her plea just as a preliminary hearing was about to begin to determine if there was enough evidence for her to stand trial.
“Rebecca Haro is going to prison because she failed as a mother,” Riverside County Assistant District Attorney Brandon Smith told reporters after the hearing. “She may not have put her hands on Emmanuel, but she knew that Jake was, and she had a responsibility to intervene, and she chose repeatedly not to.
“… She failed, and she deserves to be where she is today.”
Smith noted that there is “nothing satisfying about this case,” noting that the child’s body still hasn’t been found.
“I think the best we can hope for is to bring Emmanuel home, give him some peace. And we are not accomplishing that today, and we are not bringing Emmanuel back,” he said.
Jake and Rebecca Haro were arrested on Aug. 22, following a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department investigation.
Emmanuel was reported missing in the 34000 block of Yucaipa Boulevard, in Yucaipa, on the evening of Aug. 14.
Rebecca Haro told deputies she’d been assaulted while standing near her vehicle, changing Emmanuel’s diaper outside a Big 5 store. The defendant suggested she was knocked out and that the assailant fled with the tot. The boy’s purported abduction was widely covered by local media, with the Haros making numerous public pleas for help finding him.
On Aug. 18, sheriff’s detectives served a search warrant at the defendants’ Ramona Street property, and “a large amount of surveillance video” was obtained from areas of interest for review, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said at the time.
“There was forensic data from the crime scene,” Dicus said. “That’s how we learned the jurisdiction where this crime occurred (Riverside County). Forensically, there were a number of things we were able to prove.”
Rebecca Haro’s mother, Mary Beushausen, addressed the court during Jake Haro’s sentencing hearing, placing all of the blame on him for what happened, saying that if she’d known the toddler was in danger, she would have “gotten (Rebecca) out of that situation” and saved the tot from harm.
“Jake takes (his rage) out on babies,” Beushausen said. “He’s not man enough to face another man.”
According to court documents, Isabel Rebecca Gonzalez, Haro’s former spouse, filed a domestic violence retraining order against him with a request to protect the couple’s son, Eli.
Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said Emmanuel’s death was preventable, blaming a failure in the criminal justice system for enabling Jake Haro to remain free on probation after pleading guilty in a child abuse case involving his ex-wife and another infant, Carolina.
In 2023, Haro admitted a child cruelty charge, but again pleaded directly to the court, avoiding negotiations with prosecutors. Hestrin said the D.A.’s office had wanted prison for the defendant’s extensive abuse of the girl, which resulted in broken ribs, a fractured skull and a brain hemorrhage, leaving her permanently bedridden.
“If that judge had done his job, Emmanuel would be alive today,” Hestrin said.