Jury selection to begin soon in Carlos Dominguez’s trial over deadly Davis rampage
Jury selection in the murder trial of Davis stabbing spree suspect Carlos Reales Dominguez will begin Wednesday in Woodland, a judge ordered Monday.
Proceedings began Monday in Woodland before Yolo Superior Court Judge Samuel McAdam. The Monday session was the start of an estimated 10-week trial to determine first whether the former UC Davis student was sane at the time of the 2023 knife attacks that left two Davis men dead in city parks; and a woman seriously injured as she lay in her tent at Second and L streets two years ago this week.
David Henry Breaux, 50, known to many in Davis as the “compassion guy,” was found dead with multiple stab wounds April 27, 2023, in the city’s Central Park.
Karim Abou Najm, 20, and the son of a university professor, was weeks away from graduating from UC Davis when was killed on the night of April 29. Najm was attacked as he walked through Sycamore Park.
Kimberlee Guillory, then 64, was attacked May 1, 2023. She was stabbed repeatedly through the tent where she slept near Second and L streets.
Jurors will then decide whether Dominguez is guilty of murder and attempted murder in the violent rampage that shocked Davis. Yolo County District Attorney’s Office has said it will not pursue the death penalty in the slayings.
McAdam suspended criminal proceedings against Dominguez in the months following his arrest and ordered him treated at Atascadero State Hospital until he was able to regain the ability to aid in his own defense at trial. McAdam deemed Dominguez fit for trial in January 2024 before setting an April 2025 trial date.
Medical experts and witnesses at trial — including Dominguez’s former roommates and his one-time girlfriend — testified to Dominguez’s behavior in the months before the attacks at Central Park, Sycamore Park and the downtown tent. Dominguez ignored roommates, heard voices, and stared into space as his mental state deteriorated, they testified.
It’s not yet known when lawyers will present opening statements. Some 550 prospective jurors have been called for the two-and-a-half-month trial. Nearly 200 completed questionnaires indicated they were ready to serve. The selection process could take days or more.
On Monday, back in Yolo County custody, Dominguez struck a far different figure in the courtroom than in the days and months after his arrest in the stabbings.
Silent and staring straight ahead seated beside defense counsel Yolo County Deputy Public Defender Daniel Hutchinson, Dominguez was clad in a blue Oxford shirt and khaki trousers with a navy blue coat and tie.
Meantime, Hutchinson and Yolo County District Attorney’s prosecutors Matthew DeMoura and Frits van der Hoek argued what questions and evidence should be permitted at trial: Questions over how Dominguez’s four-month commitment to Atascadero should be categorized to jurors; whether experts could offer their opinions on his state of mind at trial; whether evidence presented during the trial’s guilt phase can be entered in the sanity phase of trial.
McAdam said evidence introduced during Dominguez’s competency hearing may be heard at trial; but ruled that the competency hearing would only be described to jurors as a “prior proceeding in this case.” Jurors could only hear that criminal proceedings were paused for Dominguez to be sent to a state hospital for “treatment for a severe mental illness,” McAdam said.
McAdam will also review police body camera video of officers’ interviews with Dominguez before he was arrested in the attacks to address defense questions of whether police had probable cause to arrest Dominguez in connection to the rampage.
The Yolo judge also ruled that victims’ families and others could not wear shirts or other items of support for the victims in the case.
“I do so with a heavy heart. There are victims of crime here,” McAdam said from the bench. “The most important thing for this trial court is that we get a fair trial.”
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