Witness reports after Charles Johnathen Harris’ presumed drowning are among the evidence prompting federal agents to renew their search for him.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The FBI says a former Alameda County firefighter facing a federal child pornography charge may have staged his own death in a 2023 boating accident, citing the failure to recover his remains and reports from people who said they encountered him alive after his disappearance.
Charles Johnathen Harris, 46, remains wanted on a federal failure-to-appear warrant more than three years after he was reported missing in Suisun Bay. The FBI’s San Francisco office recently renewed public attention on the case, saying the circumstances surrounding his presumed drowning deserve further scrutiny. An FBI official told SFGATE that investigators received multiple reports of sightings shortly after Harris disappeared and interviewed people who said they were confident the person they encountered was Harris.
Harris had been indicted by a federal grand jury on March 2, 2023, on one count of possession of child pornography. Prosecutors said investigators found images involving children, including prepubescent children, on his iPhone. The investigation began after federal authorities received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. Prosecutors also alleged that Harris uploaded child sexual abuse material through the Kik messaging platform, including while he was at Alameda County fire stations. An indictment is an allegation, and Harris has not been convicted of the charge.
Harris surrendered to federal authorities on March 7, 2023, and appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Kandis A. Westmore in Oakland. He was released on bond with restrictions on his internet access and was scheduled to return to federal court on April 19. If convicted of the possession charge, he faced a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and restitution, according to federal prosecutors.
Instead, Harris disappeared less than a month after his initial court appearance. The FBI says he allegedly drowned in a boating accident in Suisun Bay on April 4, 2023. According to later accounts from investigators, Harris had gone onto the bay with his brother late the previous night. His brother eventually reached shore and reported that their small boat had capsized and Harris was missing. Authorities launched a search, but Harris was not found. The boat was recovered, while Harris’ remains were never located.
Questions about the reported drowning emerged soon afterward. At an April 2023 federal court hearing, a prosecutor said investigators had concerns about parts of the account surrounding Harris’ disappearance, according to reporting based on court records. Among the details drawing attention was that the recovered boat was missing a plug. Harris’ attorney disputed suggestions that Harris had intentionally skipped court and said at the time that he believed his client had died. The defense maintained Harris’ not-guilty position in the underlying criminal case.
The FBI now points to another factor that has kept the case alive: reported sightings after the presumed drowning. Scott Schelble, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco office, told SFGATE that agents followed up on multiple tips from people who reported encounters with Harris after April 4, 2023. Investigators met with those people and showed them photographs of Harris. Schelble said the witnesses were highly confident that Harris was the person they had encountered in California. The FBI has not publicly identified those witnesses or disclosed the precise locations of the reported sightings.
Those reports do not establish that Harris staged his death, and the FBI’s public wanted notice stops short of declaring that as a proven fact. The agency says instead that law enforcement believes the circumstances warrant further scrutiny, including the possibility that the drowning was staged. The absence of recovered remains alone also does not establish that Harris survived. Taken together, however, the unresolved questions about the boating incident and reported encounters afterward have led investigators to continue treating Harris as a wanted person rather than a confirmed drowning victim.
Harris failed to return for his scheduled federal court proceedings, and the FBI says another federal arrest warrant was issued April 21, 2023, after he was charged with failure to appear. The warrant remains active. The FBI lists Harris under the aliases Chuck Harris and Charlie Harris and describes him as 5 feet, 10 inches tall and about 220 pounds, with red hair, blue eyes and light burn scars on his hands. He was born in Modesto and was living in Coulterville when the original federal case was filed.
Federal investigators have not publicly identified a current location for Harris. Schelble said the FBI is keeping the search geographically broad because Harris could be elsewhere in California, outside the state or outside the country. The agency continues to seek information about his whereabouts as investigators try to determine whether the reported 2023 drowning was an accident or whether Harris survived and disappeared while facing prosecution.
Author note: Last updated October 3, 2026.