‘They kept hitting me until I broke loose’: Weeks before he was shot dead, Antioch man sought restraining order against his suspected killer

ANTIOCH — Just seven weeks before he was shot and killed as he slept on the couch of his home, a local resident filed a restraining order request against one of the two men who is now charged with killing him, records show.

Efren Reynoso, 47, filed the request against 21-year-old Elijah Birba, naming Birba as his roommate at a shared residence on East 8th Street, and accusing Birba and several others of attacking him as he slept. He also claimed Birba had stolen valuable property from him — his Playstation 4 and a motorcycle.

“I was asleep in my room and I was woken up to being punched on left (sic) side of my head and my left eye,” Reynoso wrote in the filing. “Then I see Elijah and four of his friends over me while I was laying in bed. At that moment they kept hitting me until I broke loose and fled to neighbors’ house.”

Reynoso was hospitalized due to injuries from the attack, according to the court records.

The description is eerily similar to what authorities say happen last Aug. 16. Reynoso was asleep on a couch in the front part of his home when Birba and a co-defendant, 23-year-old Christopher Paez Jr., allegedly walked up and shot him several times through a front window.

Police haven’t listed the suspect motive behind the killing. Both Birba and Paez are being held in the Contra Costa jail system and have been charged with murder.

Reynoso’s restraining order request lists the date of the assault as June 15, and says he filed it a week later. He wrote that he was unable to personally serve Birba, who “left the house without a word” after the attack.

A judge granted Reynoso’s request for a temporary restraining order, but the courts dropped the matter after both men failed to show up to a hearing date in July, records show.

Police haven’t said how Birba and Paez were identified as suspects, and a preliminary hearing date has not yet been set.

Anyone with information related to the case can contact Detective Arturo Becerra at 925-779-6937 or abecerra@antiochca.gov.