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California father left 6-year-old son to die in hot car, police say

A booking photo of a dark-haired man.
Briant Reyes-Estrada of Paso Robles was being held without bail after his son’s death on Saturday.
(Paso Robles Police Department)

A Paso Robles father is in custody after his 6-year-old son was left in a hot car and died.

The boy was taken to a hospital by his father, 27-year-old Briant Reyes-Estrada of Paso Robles, police said in a news release. The child had life-threatening, heat-related injuries after being left inside a vehicle, which had been parked in the Paso Robles Inn parking lot for several hours.

Temperatures inside a car on a hot day, even with the windows cracked, can rise 20 to 40 degrees higher than the outside temperature within minutes, according to the National Weather Service.

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The boy died just before 6 p.m. Saturday at Twin Cities Hospital in Templeton, sparking the police investigation, officials said.

Reyes-Estrada was booked on suspicion of murder and willful harm and injury to a child likely to produce great bodily injury and is being held without bail, according to the news release.

The Paso Robles Police Department has asked anyone with any information, or anyone who was in the parking lot of the Paso Robles Inn on May 10, to contact police at (805) 227-7455.

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