Illegal migrant who let son, 6, melt to death in 99F car was out on BAIL
An illegal migrant who was out on bail after being arrested two weeks earlier has been charged with murder for leaving his young son in a hot car.
Briant Reyes Estrada, 27, is accused of leaving his six-year-old son to melt inside a hot car under the sweltering California sun.
The father allegedly left the boy in the vehicle in the parking lot of the Paso Robles Inn on Saturday.
The temperature there reached a peak of 99 degrees that day, reported San Luis Obispo Tribune meteorologist John Lindsey.
Reyes Estrada brought the boy to Twin Cities Hospital in Templeton ,where he was pronounced dead, and the father was arrested, according to Paso Robles Police.
The U.S. Attorney's Office shared that Reyes Estrada is an undocumented migrant who had been arrested two weeks before his son's death.
An ICE detainer had been issued after his first arrest, but he was out on bail because of California state law.
'I'm angry that this young boy needlessly died,' San Luis Obispo County District Attorney Dan Dow told KSBY.
Dow posted on X that SB 54, or the 'California values act,' is the reason Reyes Estrada was allowed out on bail.
'Reyes Estrada had been arrested and booked into the San Luis Obispo County Jail on April 29, 2025, after which United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued an order to detain the inmate at the county jail,' Dow said.
'However, California's state 'sanctuary' law prohibited our county jail from detaining the individual on that detainer.
'Had Mr. Reyes Estrada been properly detained, he would not have been free and able to do what he is alleged to have done to his child on May 10th. This child's death would very likely not have happened.'
He was arrested in April and charged with false impersonation, forging a driver's license and embezzlement for a February incident.
'The prior arrest for this individual was for a property crime where he was taken to County Jail and later was legally eligible to make bail and was released from custody,' SLO County Sheriff Ian Parkinson told the local news station.
'This is an example of the complete failure of SB 54 in the state of California. SB 54 prohibits California Sheriff's from turning over somebody to ICE on a detainer.
'We also cannot speak with ICE unless the arrestee has a conviction for a qualifying offense.'
Reyes Estrada was charged with second-degree murder and child abuse for his son's death.
He pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to be back in court on May 22 for a pre-preliminary hearing.
'To charge him with murder under the circumstances that I'm aware of [is] very ambitious of this district attorney's office,' Reyes Estrada's attorney, Patrick Fisher, told KSBY.
'So, they have a lot that they're going to have to prove, and you know, it's my job to test their evidence. Can they prove it? And they've really set the bar high for themselves here.'
The Tribune reported that this is not the first time Reyes Estrada had left his child in the car.
Matt Griffith, his former supervisor at the Fireside Inn on Moonstone Beach in Cambria, said Reyes Estrada left his son in a car multiple times and Child Welfare Services was called at least twice.
'Supposedly, he didn't have a babysitter and he needed to work, so he left his kid in the car while he worked,' Griffith said.
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