Antioch man accused of killing 2-year-old boy in Oakland, second suspect charged with helping bury child’s body

OAKLAND — On the night of last Dec. 7, an Antioch resident named Keonte Harris allegedly showed up to the Suisun City home of his friend, Joel Saavedra, in a car containing the body of 2-year-old Jamari Madkins, dead from multiple blunt force injuries to the head.

Harris allegedly told Saavedra he was desperate and needed help. About an hour earlier, he’d allegedly taken Jamari’s body with him, leaving the boy’s 17-year-old mother behind in Oakland, after refusing to take them to a hospital.

Faced with a choice of enormous, heart wrenching proportions, Saavedra allegedly grabbed a shovel and got into Harris’ car, heading through Fairfield towards the Napa County wilderness.

Now, Harris, 22, faces charges of assault on a child causing death, while Saavedra, 21, is facing a charge of accessory after the fact. The tragic case includes allegations of human trafficking, child abuse, and a cover up of the homicide that was only discovered weeks later, after Jamari’s mother and Harris were arrested in a traffic stop in San Pablo.

Harris has been jailed in Santa Rita, without bail, since his Dec. 23 arrest in San Pablo. Until Thursday, when prosecutors filed the assault charge, Harris had been facing allegations of trafficking the 17-year-old girl, described by police as a teen who ran away from home in early December, just days before Jamari’s death. Saavedra, meanwhile, was arrested March 9 and is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail.

The assault charge, while not covered under California’s murder statute, is just as serious. Those convicted can be sentenced to 25 years to life, the same prison term applicable to those convicted of first degree murder, the state’s penal code says.

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