Carlos Dominguez and the Davis Stabbings: Split Verdict and Retrial

Carlos Reales Dominguez is a former UC Davis student charged in the Davis stabbings, a series of three attacks in late April and early May 2023 that killed David Henry Breaux and Karim Abou Najm and critically wounded Kimberlee Guillory. A first jury acquitted him of first-degree murder in June 2025 but deadlocked on the remaining counts, and a retrial on second-degree murder and attempted murder charges began in May 2026 in Yolo County.

What Happened in Davis

The violence began on April 27, 2023, when David Breaux, 50, was fatally stabbed in Central Park. Breaux, known locally as “the Compassion Guy,” suffered 31 stab wounds and cuts. Two days later, Karim Abou Najm, a 20-year-old UC Davis computer science student, was attacked while biking home through Sycamore Park and died at the scene with 52 injuries.¹ On May 1, Kimberlee Guillory, 64, was stabbed inside her tent at a downtown encampment on L Street. She lost 20 to 30 percent of her blood from a severe kidney injury and underwent emergency surgery at UC Davis Medical Center.²

The attacks put the college town on edge for days. City police issued a temporary shelter-in-place order after the third stabbing, and the FBI joined the investigation.³

Who Carlos Dominguez Is

Dominguez was 21 when he was arrested on May 3, 2023, two days after Guillory was attacked. Officers stopped him near Sycamore Park after more than a dozen people said he matched the suspect’s description. He had cuts on his hands and was carrying a grocery bag containing a knife. He gave police a fake name, a false date of birth, and a nonexistent address.⁴⁵

Born in El Salvador, Dominguez entered the United States in April 2009 as an unaccompanied minor at age six. He graduated from Castlemont High School in Oakland in 2020 and enrolled at UC Davis that fall as a biological sciences major.⁶ His grades collapsed; his transcript showed a 1.65 GPA in winter 2021 with a notation that he was subject to disqualification.⁷ UC Davis formally separated him for academic reasons on April 25, 2023, two days before the first killing.⁸

Shortly after his arrest, Dominguez was diagnosed with schizophrenia and found incompetent to stand trial. In August 2023 the case was placed on indefinite hold and he was sent to Atascadero State Hospital, where he received antipsychotic medication. Doctors later determined his competency had been restored through compelled medication, and proceedings resumed in early 2024.⁹ He entered pleas of not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity to two counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.¹⁰

The First Trial and Its Split Verdict

Testimony in the first trial began on May 5, 2025, in Yolo County Superior Court before Judge Samuel T. McAdam. The prosecution did not seek the death penalty. Dominguez faced two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder, attempted murder, involuntary manslaughter, and weapon and great-bodily-injury enhancements.¹

Deputy District Attorney Frits Van Der Hoek argued the stabbings were “willful, deliberate, and premeditated.” Prosecutors said Dominguez had bought a hunting knife on Amazon during finals week in December 2022 and powered off his phone during the attacks.¹¹ They pointed to DNA linking the knife to two victims, blood-stained clothing in his possession, and the false name he gave when arrested. Their theory: Dominguez was “disgruntled with life” after academic failure, job loss, and a breakup, not psychotic.¹² A poem recovered from his phone, titled “Knife in my hand,” was offered as evidence of intent.¹⁰

Deputy Public Defender Daniel Hutchinson did not contest that Dominguez committed the stabbings. The defense argued he was experiencing his first psychotic break from untreated schizophrenia and did not understand what he was doing. Mental health professionals described his decline from an “athletic, scholarly and habitually hygienic young man” into someone paranoid, delusional, and unkempt.⁵ Dominguez testified that he saw “shadow figures” at the scenes and had no memory of the stabbings, and said he did not believe he had killed anyone.¹⁰ Hutchinson called the poem a sexual metaphor and compared it to Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.”¹³

After nine days of deliberation, the jury unanimously acquitted Dominguez of both counts of first-degree murder. It hung on the rest. The split on second-degree murder for Breaux’s death was 10 to 2 for acquittal; for Abou Najm’s death, 9 to 3 for acquittal; and on attempted murder of Guillory, 8 to 4 for acquittal.¹ On June 27, 2025, Judge McAdam declared a mistrial on the unresolved counts.¹⁴ Because the first-degree acquittals were unanimous, those charges cannot be retried.

The Retrial and Its New Theory

Jury selection for the retrial began on May 15, 2026, and opening statements followed on May 28 in a Woodland courtroom before Judge McAdam. The trial is expected to run about 12 weeks and will proceed in two phases: guilt, then sanity. The most severe charge is now second-degree murder.¹⁵

The prosecution has shifted its theory significantly. Deputy District Attorney Matthew DeMoura, joined by Deputy DA Alex Kian, replaced Van Der Hoek as lead prosecutor.¹⁶ Prosecutors no longer dispute that Dominguez has schizophrenia. Instead, DeMoura argues that Dominguez’s “heavy and prolonged use of potent marijuana” triggered a “cannabis-induced psychosis” that exacerbated his mental illness. “Cannabis can reveal schizophrenia, or it can exacerbate symptoms, push someone over the edge,” DeMoura told jurors.¹⁷

The prosecution’s core claim is that even in psychosis, Dominguez intended to kill. DeMoura pointed to “purposeful, directed, goal-oriented behavior”: Dominguez fled each scene, left Guillory’s tent after stabbing her, and gave police a false name when stopped.¹⁸

Hutchinson has rejected the cannabis theory as something “created by the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office last autumn.” He notes that three medical professionals have diagnosed Dominguez with schizophrenia, while only one expert, who never personally interviewed Dominguez, supports the cannabis theory. The defense plans to call its own experts, including a former director of Napa State Hospital, and has argued that Dominguez continues to have psychotic symptoms despite antipsychotic medication and three years of abstaining from marijuana.¹⁷¹⁸

Guillory testified again at the retrial. Under questioning from Hutchinson in June 2026, she acknowledged that at the hospital she had initially described her attacker as white with blond, curly hair, and said she could not explain the discrepancy, noting she had been “pretty shook up.”² As of late June 2026, testimony was continuing.¹⁹

The Victims

David Henry Breaux, 50, was a Stanford graduate who in 2009 gave away his possessions and chose to live without stable housing, dedicating himself to asking passersby to define “compassion.” For 14 years he sat on a bench at the corner of Third and B streets in Davis, becoming a beloved local figure. The city has renamed that corner “Compassion Corner.”²⁰ Breaux had once written a note to his sister: “If I’m ever harmed or unable to speak for myself, forgive the perpetrator and help others forgive that person.”²¹

Karim Abou Najm, 20, was a UC Davis computer science student six weeks from graduating with honors when he was killed. Born in Lebanon in 2002, he had attended high school in Davis and was developing software to assist people who are hearing-impaired.²² He was returning home from an undergraduate award ceremony when he was attacked in Sycamore Park. UC Davis posthumously awarded him a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at its June 2023 commencement.²³

Kimberlee Guillory, 64, was the sole survivor. She was asleep in her tent at a downtown encampment when she was stabbed and required emergency surgery for a kidney injury and major blood loss.² She has testified at both trials.

1
KCRA. Carlos Reales Dominguez Davis Stabbings Trial Jury
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Sacramento Bee. Kimberlee Guillory Testimony Davis Stabbings
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NBC News. Stabbings at UC Davis Prompt Switch to Remote Evening Classes
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CBS News. Bodycam Footage Davis Stabbings Carlos Dominguez Arrest
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Courthouse News Service. Murder Trial of Davis Stabbing Suspect Kicks Off
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Sacramento Bee. Carlos Reales Dominguez Davis Stabbings
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KCRA. Carlos Dominguez Testimony Davis Stabbings Trial
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Los Angeles Times. What We Know About the Former UC Davis Student Accused in a Serial Stabbings
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CapRadio. Carlos Reales Dominguez Faces a Retrial for Davis Stabbing Spree
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Courthouse News Service. Prosecutor Cuts Into Accused Davis Stabber’s Insanity Defense
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CBS News. Davis Serial Stabbings Trial Carlos Dominguez
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KCRA. Davis Stabbings Carlos Dominguez Trial Testimony
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Courthouse News Service. Defense Disputes Lucidity Claim in Davis Stabbing Closings
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Courthouse News Service. Jurors in Davis Stabbing Case Find Carlos Dominguez Not Guilty of First-Degree Murder
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KCRA. Davis Deadly Stabbings Retrial Opening Statements
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Davis Vanguard. Dominguez Mental State Retrial Davis
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Sacramento Bee. Davis Stabbings Retrial Opening Statements
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Courthouse News Service. Prosecutors Invoke Drug-Induced Psychosis in Retrial of Accused Davis Stabber
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KCRA. Davis Serial Stabbings Retrial
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KCRA. Davis Stabbings One Year Later Family Friends Honor Lives
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Greater Good Science Center. How I Practiced Forgiveness When It Hurt the Most
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Davis Enterprise. Day of Remembrance Set for Stabbing Victim
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KCRA. Family Accepts Honorary Degree Karim Abou Najm