Dominguez to face new murder trial in May for 2023 Davis serial stabbings
Carlos Reales Dominguez will face a second trial in May for the serial Davis stabbings that left two dead, another seriously hurt and a city terrorized in 2023.
Jury selection for the estimated 10- to 12-week trial in Woodland is set to begin May 18, with testimony before the sworn panel to follow in the days after, Yolo Superior Court Judge Samuel T. McAdam ordered Thursday.
The brief hearing Thursday set the stage for a months-long retrial, which will mark three years since the brutal knife attacks that killed David Breaux, 50, and Karim Abou Najm, 20, in Davis’ Central and Sycamore parks in April 2023.
A third attack seriously wounded Kimberlee Guillory, then 64, near downtown Davis days later, in May 2023. Guillory survived the attack and later testified at the first trial.
Dominguez also took the witness stand at the trial that ended in June with deadlocked Yolo County jurors leading McAdam to declare a mistrial. The case centered on the former UC Davis student’s state of mind at the time of the deadly attacks.
As at the first trial, Dominguez faces charges of first-degree murder and second-degree murder in Breaux’s killing, along with a charge of second-degree murder in Najm’s slaying. Dominguez also faces a charge of attempted murder in the near-fatal attack on Guillory.
Dominguez has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. Medical experts testified at trial to his diagnosis of schizophrenia. At least eight psychiatrists and psychologists, including his first treating doctor, a former director of Napa State Hospital, have examined him.
Family members, friends and Dominguez himself also testified about his mental state at the first trial.
Criminal proceedings ahead of the retrial were postponed for months while Dominguez was treated at a state hospital. He remains held without bail in Yolo County custody.
The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office is not pursuing the death penalty in the case. Prosecutors, however, shifted strategy ahead of the second trial, advancing a new theory that Dominguez’s heavy and prolonged use of cannabis contributed to his mental condition at the time of the violence.
“All these things that were going on in his life were actually symptoms of high usage of THC,” David Wilson, Yolo County Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney, argued at a November pre-trial hearing.
Wilson said prosecutors would bring expert witnesses to testify about marijuana’s effects on mental health in young people.
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