Emmanuel Haro’s father declares wife innocent, says ‘God is with us’ in jailhouse interview

Despite instructions from his attorney, the father of missing 7-month-old Emmanuel Haro sat for a jailhouse interview Wednesday where he declared his wife innocent and said God was on their side, The Orange County Register reported.  

The 45-minute interview was held over a video hookup with a reporter from the Southern California News Group, The O.C. Register’s parent company, while Jake Haro, 32, was inside the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning.  

Both Jake and his wife, 41-year-old Rebecca Haro, were formally charged by the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office with murder and filing a false police report in connection with baby Emmanuel’s disappearance.  

On Aug. 14, Rebecca told police that her infant son had been kidnapped after she was knocked unconscious by a stranger in the parking lot of a Yucaipa Big Five Sporting Goods store. 

Prosecutors now reportedly believe the boy, who was presumed dead, could have been killed as early as Aug. 5, nine days before the alleged kidnapping.  

In Wednesday’s interview with the SCNG reporter, Jake admitted his attorney advised him to avoid the press, saying that while he wanted to talk about Emmanuel’s disappearance, he couldn’t.  

He did, however, call Riverside County DA Mike Hestrin’s assertion that the 7-month-old was the victim of repeated abuse untrue and spoke at length about his prior felony conviction for willful child cruelty stemming from a 2018 arrest in Hemet while he was married to another woman.  

The 32-year-old claims he accidentally dropped his daughter, Carolina, on a sink divider while giving her a bath, but when the 10-week-old girl’s mother, Vanessa Avina, rushed her to the hospital later that night, doctors found far more serious injuries, including a skull fracture, fractured ribs, a brain hemorrhage and evidence of other injuries that were healing.  

Jake, according to The Register, said he wanted to take the case to trial but couldn’t afford it and that his 2023 guilty plea was a financial decision because the judge told him no one would believe his side of the story.  

“Somehow, they magically convinced me to take this damn plea deal,” he said during the interview. “I was sick of court. The judge knows I didn’t do it. They just railroaded me. I was the fall guy.” 

Hestrin on Wednesday chastised the judge in the 2023 case, calling Jake’s suspended four-year sentence, 180 days in the sheriff’s work-release program and an order to attend child-abuse treatment an “outrageous” error in judgment.  

“I don’t have a problem saying that,” Hestrin added. “If that judge had done his job, which he should have done, Emmanuel would be alive today.” 

During the jailhouse interview, Jake also told the reporter that his wife, who is being held at the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside, is innocent.  

“The media is killing her,” he said. “She is a beautiful woman. She loves her children.”  

The 41-year-old mother has continued to maintain her innocence in the baby’s alleged murder.  

Jake is reportedly hoping that enough money can be raised, usually around 10% of the bail, so that she can be released from custody until the trial.  

“God is with us. The allegations are horrendous, so of course, people are going to be riled up,” he told the reporter during the interview.  

Outside of Wednesday’s interview, reports emerged that Jake reportedly confessed to killing Emmanuel to an undercover informant posing as a fellow inmate and that he put the child’s body in a trash can at the couple’s Cabazon residence. 

While Jake was spotted with investigators searching for Emmanuel’s remains on Sunday in the Moreno Valley Badlands, the child remains missing. However, at a Wednesday morning press conference, DA Hestrin indicated authorities have a pretty strong idea of where the child’s remains are located.

Jake and Rebecca are each being held on $1 million bail, according to The Register. They are scheduled to appear in court again next week.