Deadly Davis stabbings: Defense challenges accounts of Dominguez police interview
Carlos Dominguez’s defense attorney challenged police accounts of Dominguez’s marathon interview with detectives that helped shape the murder case against him as trial continued Tuesday in Yolo Superior Court.
Davis police Detective Mathew Muscardini returned to the Woodland courtroom Tuesday to recount Dominguez’s May 2023 interview at Davis police headquarters in the stabbing deaths of David Breaux, 50, and Karim Abou Najm, 20, in late April, as well as the near-fatal attack on Kimberlee Guillory days later.
Dominguez had not yet been arrested but was questioned for hours by Muscardini and partner Detective Steve Ramos.
Dominguez is being retried for murder in the 2023 Davis stabbing spree that killed Breaux and Abou Najm at Central and Sycamore parks, as well as the attempted murder of Guillory. Dominguez entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity to the charges.
Yolo County jurors in June 2025 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.
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.
Dominguez’s attorney, Yolo County deputy public defender Daniel Hutchinson, on Tuesday asserted that Ramos, eager to elicit a confession from Dominguez, misstated statements from Dominguez regarding the park stabbings to Muscardini.
Ramos later filed the “narrative for charging” — the summary of the detectives’ interview of Dominguez that would help build prosecutors’ case in court.
Muscardini was potentially the only person at Davis Police Department who had viewed the entire seven-hour interview including Ramos’ questioning, Muscardini said. Under questioning from Hutchinson, he said Ramos’ accounts in the narrative report to prosecutors were “not completely accurate.”
“Is it misleading?” Hutchinson asked.
“Yes,” Muscardini said.
Muscardini later testified that Ramos’ accounts, even if not completely accurate, were not delivered in bad faith.
Prosecutors in the former UC Davis student’s retrial have argued Dominguez, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, used heavy and frequent doses of marijuana that heightened his psychosis and led to the attacks.
Prosecutors also argue that he exhibited “goal-oriented” behavior during the attacks despite his mental state — showing that he intended to attack and kill his victims. Prosecutors point to a false name Dominguez used with the detectives as evidence that he tried to deceive them.
Jurors watched a brief section of detectives’ seven-hour interview during which Dominguez disputed Ramos’ claims that he confessed to one of the killings.
“I didn’t say that,” Dominguez told the detectives at one point. “I didn’t stab anybody,” Dominguez said later on video.
“Did it occur to you that the information that Ramos gave you was inaccurate?” Hutchinson asked Muscardini in testimony Tuesday.
“No,” Muscardini said.
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