New January trial ordered for Carlos Dominguez in deadly 2023 Davis stabbing spree
Carlos Reales Dominguez will be retried in 2026 for the knife murders of two Davis men and the attempted killing of the deadly 2023 spree’s lone survivor, a Yolo Superior Court judge ruled Thursday in Woodland, even as he floated the idea of a settlement in the widely watched case.
Attorneys agreed on the new Jan. 20 trial date for the former UC Davis student nearly a month after deadlocked Yolo jurors led Yolo Superior Court Judge Samuel McAdam to declare a mistrial in a case that focused on Dominguez’s state of mind at the time of the spring slayings.
The trial, with new jurors, is scheduled to last eight to 10 weeks. Dominguez, again wearing striped Yolo County Jail-issued fatigues, sat expressionless beside his attorney, Yolo County deputy public defender Daniel Hutchinson. He remained held without bail in Yolo custody.
Yolo County prosecuting attorney Matthew DeMoura will amend the charges against Dominguez to second-degree murder in the April 2023 deaths of David Breaux in Davis’ Central Park; and the Sycamore Park slaying days later of Karim Abou Najm, along with lesser included allegations of involuntary manslaughter.
Jurors at the January trial will also consider attempted murder charges against the surviving victim, Kimberly Guillory, who was stabbed and critically wounded inside her streetside tent in the last of the attacks in May 2023, DeMoura said Thursday.
Dominguez has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity to the murders of Breaux, 50, and Najm, 20, and attempted murder in the near-fatal stabbing of Guillory, now 64. His defense argues he was experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia during the attacks.
McAdam at the brief afternoon hearing broached a potential settlement conference with defense counsel Hutchinson and prosecutor DeMoura to be heard by retired Yolo Superior Court Judge Stephen Mock. McAdam did not set a date nor did the lawyers make a decision Thursday.
“Obviously, the county has spent a lot of resources in this case and there still remains much to be done,” McAdam said from the bench. “Keep an open mind toward resolving this case,” the judge said in offering Mock as arbiter.
“I can’t say ‘yes,’ or ‘no,’” DeMoura said, calling a potential sit-down on a settlement “premature.”
The jury of eight women and four men found Dominguez not guilty in June of first-degree murder in the April 2023 stabbing death of Breaux, known as “the Compassion Guy.” On the charge of second-degree murder in Breaux’s killing, jurors deadlocked 10-2 to acquit. On the charge of second-degree murder in the killing of Najm, a UC Davis student about to graduate, jurors said they were deadlocked 9-3 in favor of acquittal.
Jurors deliberated nine days across three weeks’ time, listening to extensive readback of testimony from doctors who treated Dominguez and numerous witnesses
Dominguez, who testified at the end of five weeks of trial, faced two counts of murder and an allegation of attempted murder in the serial stabbings, as well as assault with a weapon causing great bodily injury, and special circumstances including the commission of multiple murders. Months before the trial start, prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty if Dominguez was convicted.
This story was originally published July 24, 2025 at 4:10 PM.
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