Paso Robles father charged with murdering son, falsifying identification records

May 22, 2025

By KAREN VELIE

For nine hours a boy who recently turned 6-years-old waited for his father, locked in a car with the windows rolled up while outside temperatures reached 99 degrees. The child is dead, his mother now knows where her missing son is, and the father is facing a litany of charges including murder.

Interviews with family members of 6-year-old David Reyes Diaz, school officials, his father’s supervisor and law enforcement paint a disturbing picture of a young child who fell through the cracks during a time of political divide over immigration.

David’s father, 27-year-old Briant Reyes Estrada, was born in Donato Guerra, Mexico, according to a federal criminal complaint. When he was 21, he impregnated a 16-year-old girl. In Mexico, it is not a crime to have consensual sex with a minor over 15 years of age.

David was born on April 2, 2019.

On Feb. 23, 2022, a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer encountered Reyes Estrada near Naco, Arizona – a small community on the United States-Mexico border. Under COVID emergency protocols, the officer returned the undocumented Reyes Estrada back to Mexico after adding his fingerprints and photographs to a CBP data base.

A year later, Reyes Estrada was back in the United States, this time with his son.

There are two versions of how David ended up in the United States with his father. In one scenario, Reyes Estrada took his son and left Mexico, while David’s distraught mother searched for the child.

Reyes Estrada’s cousin tells a very different story. The cousin, who shared a home in Paso Robles with Reyes Estrada and his son, said David’s mother was using drugs and “did not want to be part of David’s life.” CalCoastNews agreed not to publish the cousin’s name.

“So, his father and David emigrated to this country to have a better future together,” the family member said through a language translation app. “Unfortunately, it could not be achieved since the father had to be a father and mother at the same time, work, and take care of the child at the same time.”

On April 6, 2023, Reyes Estrada, who was living in San Simeon with David at the time, applied to the Bluebird Inn for a housekeeper position using fraudulent documents, according to a federal criminal complaint.

Reyes Estrada provided his prospective employer with a permanent resident card, also known as a green card.

The green card showed Reyes Estrada had been a resident of the United States since Feb. 26, 2019. However, the version of the green card Reyes Estrada provided had been discontinued in 2017, according to the criminal complaint.

In addition, the number on the social security card bearing Reyes Estrada’s name belonged to another person. The Bluebird Inn hired Reyes Estrada on April 10, 2023.

On July 27, 2023, Reyes Estrada applied for a maintenance engineer position at the Fireside Inn on Moonstone Beach in Cambria, again allegedly using fraudulent documents. On the application, Reyes Estrada falsely claimed to have a legal right to work in the United States, according to the criminal complaint.

On several occasions, the father left David in his vehicle while he went to work, leading to at least two reports to San Luis Obispo County Child Welfare Services, said Matt Griffith, a supervisor at the Fireside Inn.

In late Sept. 2024, management at the inn suspended Reyes Estrada regarding issues not related to leaving his son in a vehicle while he worked. Reyes Estrada, however, refused to leave and management called sheriff deputies who escorted him off the property.

Fireside Inn management terminated Reyes Estrada on Oct. 3, 2024 for violating company policies.

On several occasions, Reyes Estrada was discovered filming or harassing female employees at the Fireside Inn.

“Reyes Estrada locked a female employee in an engineering room and turning off the lights, then laughed while the female employee was trying to leave the room,” according to the criminal complaint.

On Oct. 30. 2024, Reyes Estrada allegedly used a Fireside Inn credit card at a hardware store in Cambria, where he spent $1,000.

In a surprising twist, on Nov. 4, Reyes Estrada filed a small claims lawsuit against the Fireside Inn claiming he was unfairly fired and had not received his last check. He was seeking $1,500.

Reyes Estrada then secured a job at the Paso Robles Inn and moved to north county city with his son, who attended Pat Butler Elementary School. During the short time they lived in Paso Robles, the boy frequently missed school.

On at least five occasions, school officials reported their concerns to SLO County Child Welfare services, according to a Paso Robles Joint Unified School District official.

On April 29, deputies arrested and booked Reyes Estrada in the SLO County Jail on charges of false impersonation, falsifying a driver’s license, and embezzlement related to the Fireside Inn credit card purchases. ICE then issued a detainer to deport Reyes Estrada.

However, deputies released Reyes Estrada in compliance with California’s sanctuary state law.

On May 10, Reyes Estrada allegedly locked David in his vehicle, with the windows up and the car turned off, while he worked a nine hour shift at the Paso Robles Inn without checking on his son, according to the criminal complaint. Paso Robles experienced a record breaking 99 degree high temperature that afternoon.

Reyes Estrada drove his son from the Paso Robles Inn parking lot to Twin Cities Community Hospital in Templeton, where the child was pronounced dead.

Three days later, the SLO County District Attorney’s Office filed two felony counts against Reyes Estrada – murder and child abuse on May 13.

Homeland Security Investigations determined Estrada Reyes “had no visas or applications approved or pending that would render him employable in the United States,” according to the criminal complaint. He also had ” had no visas, applications, and/or petitions that would lawfully allow him to be present in the United States.”

On May 21, federal prosecutors filed a criminal complaint charging Reyes Estrada with committing fraud and misuse of visas, permits and other documents regarding his use of falsified records to secure employment in the United States. He faces up to 10 years in prison on these federal charges.

Employers in California cannot legally question a prospective employee’s green card, or any other immigration-related document, before offering employment or during the initial hiring process even if they suspect the documents are forgeries.

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