Surviving Davis stab victim recalls near-fatal attack at Carlos Dominguez murder trial
Kimberlee Guillory, the sole survivor of accused Davis serial stabber Carlos Dominguez’s 2023 rampage, returned Monday to testify at the former UC Davis student’s murder trial in Yolo Superior Court.
Guillory, stabbed as she sat in her tent in a downtown Davis encampment, was the third and only surviving victim of the nighttime knife attacks that terrorized Davis in late April and early May 2023. David Breaux, 50, and Karim Abou Najm, 20, were stabbed to death in separate attacks at Central Park and Sycamore Park in late April.
Dominguez entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity to charges stemming from the April 26, 2023, stabbing death of Breaux, 50, in Central Park and the April 29, 2023, killing of graduating UC Davis student Abou Najm, 20, along a bicycle path in Sycamore Park. Days later, on May 1, 2023, Guillory, then 64, was nearly killed.
Dominguez also pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity to attempted murder in connection with Guillory’s attack.
Yolo County jurors last June acquitted Dominguez of second-degree murder in Breaux’s killing and failed to reach verdicts in Abou Najm’s killing and Guillory’s attack. Jurors deadlocked on whether to convict or acquit after hearing a case centered on Dominguez’s mental state at the time of the stabbings.
Prosecutors at this second trial say Dominguez, diagnosed with schizophrenia, used heavy and frequent doses of marijuana that heightened his psychosis and led to the attacks. Prosecutors also argue that, despite his mental state, he exhibited “goal-oriented” behavior during the attacks — behavior that showed he intended to attack and kill.
Guillory again recalled the sudden attack that left her fighting for her life.
“I felt like I was punched,” she testified, but at times struggled to remember details of that night, later interviews with law enforcement and Yolo County District Attorney’s Office prosecutors, as well as testimony she gave last year at Dominguez’s first trial.
Dominguez attorney and Yolo County Deputy Public Defender Daniel Hutchinson challenged Guillory’s initial, halting description of Dominguez to an officer at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento. Guillory described her attacker as white with blond, curly hair.
Guillory, in the hospital interview played for jurors, said she could not tell her attacker’s height or see his face, but said a couple camped next to her told her a man had walked past her tent earlier that night. Guillory said the couple had an argument with a man outside the tents earlier that night. Hutchinson said the man was likely not Dominguez, but a pizza delivery driver whom Davis investigators later determined was not Dominguez.
On Monday, Guillory said she did not recall talking with the officer, but wondered aloud why she described a blond-haired attacker. She later told Hutchinson that she learned about a man roaming outside her tent months after the attack.
“I don’t know why I would’ve said ‘blond,’” Guillory said. “Of course, I was pretty shook up at that point.”
Trauma surgeon Vernon Shatz was waiting for Guillory at UC Davis Medical Center. Guillory’s wounds, especially the injury to her kidney, were life-threatening. Shatz testified Guillory had lost 20% to 30% of her blood and needed a transfusion before surgery.
Guillory testified she “had no idea” how serious her injuries were after the near-fatal attack, standing before the jury and Yolo Superior Court Judge Samuel T. McAdam to show where the knife plunged into her back.
“I said, ‘Oh, my God.’ Someone said, ‘You’re bleeding.’ That’s when the blood started gushing out of me,” she testified. “I was very aware of what happened.”
Testimony in the guilt phase of Dominguez’s trial continues. A second phase to determine whether the former UC Davis student was sane at the time of the attacks will follow.
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