By Mike Weland
Jacob Ronald Navarro, 34, formerly of Boundary County and now living in Sandpoint, faces up to 15 years in prison and/or up to a $50,000 in fines when he goes up for sentencing at 2 p.m. Thursday, January 8, after pleading guilty to one count of aggravated battery after his 13-year-old step-son fled to a next-door neighbor’s and told her that Jacob was threatening “to end him.”
According to the affidavit of probable cause, the incident that uncovered multiple felony charges came at about 7:25 p.m. Thursday, November 7, 2024, when the neighbor called 911 and reported that “a neighbor kid … came over and ran into her house locking her door behind him … the kid looked really scared and stated to her that his stepdad was ‘going to end him.’”
It wasn’t the first time the boy ran to her house fleeing Jacob … the time before, he’d arrived covered in blood. She told the dispatcher that Jacob was knocking on the door and yelling, that she was not going to let him in.
Deputies arrived and made contact outside with Navarro and his wife, Savannah, the boy’s mother, who said their son ran off to avoid a “time out” in the corner.
Inside, the boy gave a far different account.
Running late for school that morning, he said, he’d neglected to feed the chickens or gather the eggs. That evening, they’d gone out to the coop to turn on the heat lamp and Jacob notice that his boy had neglected his chores and he grew angry.
The boy told the deputy that as they walked toward the house, Jacob was angry, that he said he was “going to end him,” meaning, he told the deputy, that Jacob was going to kill him, “once they got inside the house.”
Asked why he felt that way, the boy replied that Jacob had been physically beating him for the past year, about once a week or whenever he “messes up or doesn’t do his chores.”
He described being beaten regularly with a “construction stake,” a foot-long board about two inches wide and half an inch thick and pointed at one end, commonly used in concrete work, or a “stick” about 18-inches long, an inch and a half in diameter and forked at one end and similar to what fishermen rest their poles on.
Asked if these beatings left him bruised, bleed or scarred, the 13-year-old said, “yes,” and that he currently had scars and bruises caused by Jacob. He showed deputies several; a two-inch long scar about a quarter-inch wide on the back of his head, made, he said, a few months earlier when Jacob hit him over the head with the stake.
That was one of the times he fled to his neighbor’s. She’d called the police the next day, well after he’d returned home, and a records check verified the contact. A deputy at the time suggested he go live with his grandfather.
The boy showed the deputy numerous scars and bruises all over his body. Asked if his mother knew Jacob was striking him with these objects, he said he didn’t know, that she went to another room when he was being “punished” by Jacob. He said his mother noticed his injuries but ignored them. He said she knew he was bleeding as his bedding, not changed in over four months, had his blood all over it.
Based on evidence developed, deputies were able to obtain a warrant for Jacob’s arrest on a charge of misdemeanor injury to a child, along with a search warrant for the home, which turned up enough evidence, including illegal drugs and paraphernalia left in plain sight, to arrest both Jacob and Savannah Navarro on multiple charges. Both were jailed, the 13-year-old was taken in by Idaho Health and Welfare.
Subsequent investigation revealed that the abuse began when the family lived in Bonners Ferry and escalated when they moved to the rental on Oliver Road in Sandpoint about a year earlier and that the boy’s injuries, as revealed by forensic examination that worse than suspected, requiring 113 MRI images to fully document.
On November 14, 2024, Jacob Navarro, was charged with five counts of aggravated battery, felony injury to a child and felony possession of a controlled substance, to which he pled not guilty December 5, 2024. On September 25, 2025, four days before his scheduled trial, he accepted a plea agreement, pleading guilty to one count of aggravated battery and felony injury to a child in exchange for dismissal of the remaining charges.
Jacob remains free on $100,000 bond pending sentencing at 2 p.m. Thursday, January 8, in the Bonner County Courthouse before Judge Susie Jensen.
Savannah Navarro was charged with felony injury to a child and felony possession of a controlled substance and pled guilty to both on October 9, 2025. She was sentenced two to five years in prison with credit for 83 days served. The prison term was suspended and she’ll be on felony probation for five years.
She and Jacob were divorced August 14.
That is very disturbing, and I feel bad for the boy. The father could use some rehab for sure. Unfortunately we see this happening more and more as the holidays are here. Boundary County is my favorite place in the world, and I just hate reading stories like this , especially when you know the parties involved.