{"id":502267,"date":"2026-10-20T14:10:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T14:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/502267\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T14:10:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T14:10:17","slug":"california-firefighters-reported-drowning-may-have-been-staged-for-a-sinister-reason-fbi-says-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/502267\/","title":{"rendered":"California Firefighter\u2019s Reported Drowning May Have Been Staged For a Sinister Reason, FBI Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than three years after a California firefighter was reported drowned during a boating trip, the FBI’s San Francisco office<\/a> is asking for help finding him. The FBI believes his death may have been staged.<\/p>\n

Charles Johnathen Harris, who worked for the Alameda County Fire Department, disappeared in Suisun Bay on April 4, 2023. He was facing a federal charge of possessing child sexual abuse material.<\/p>\n

“We have received, on more than one occasion, a sighting, a reported sighting of Charles Harris since the time of his alleged death,” Scott Schelble, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco office, said in ABC10’s October 2 report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The renewed effort follows conversations with family members and other people close to Harris, along with new tips.<\/p>\n

That Spring<\/p>\n

Embedded media follows; please allow a moment for it to load.<\/p>\n

A federal grand jury indicted Harris on March 2, 2023. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California<\/a> announced that he surrendered on March 7 and appeared in federal court in Oakland before being released on bond with restricted internet access.<\/p>\n

Federal prosecutors charged him with possessing child pornography on his iPhone, including images involving prepubescent children. The case began with a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and prosecutors contended that he uploaded material through Kik, including while at Alameda County fire stations.<\/p>\n

His next court appearance was scheduled for April 19. Before that date arrived, he went fishing at night with his brother in Suisun Bay, north of Concord.<\/p>\n

ABC10 reported that his brother swam to safety and reported that their boat had capsized. Search efforts recovered the boat, but Schelble said Harris’s remains were never located.<\/p>\n

On April 21, a federal arrest warrant was issued in Oakland after Harris was charged with failure to appear.<\/p>\n

A Familiar Face<\/p>\n

Harris would now be 46. The wanted notice includes photographs taken in 2019 and 2023 and lists the aliases Chuck Harris and Charlie Harris.<\/p>\n

Born in Modesto, he is described as 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighing 220 pounds, with red hair, blue eyes, and light burn scars on his hands.<\/p>\n

Anyone with information about Harris can contact a local FBI office or submit a tip through the FBI’s online tip portal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All parties are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.<\/p>\n

Want more articles like this one? Give us a follow on Yahoo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than three years after a California firefighter was reported drowned during a boating trip, the FBI’s San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8],"class_list":["post-502267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}