SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The attorney for accused Davis serial stabber Carlos Reales Dominguez questioned whether his client was mentally sound enough to proceed with his case, forcing a Yolo County judge to suspend criminal proceedings.
Doctors will now begin their psychiatric evaluation of the 21-year-old, who is being held on murder and attempted murder charges with special circumstances in the killings of two Davis men, including a UC Davis student weeks from graduation, and the critical wounding of a homeless woman in her encampment.
Yolo Superior Court Judge Samuel McAdam told attorneys to return to his Woodland courtroom June 20 for a competency hearing. to review the doctors’ findings.
On April 25, just days before the violence that paralyzed the college town, Reales Dominguez, a UC Davis sophomore studying biological studies, had been expelled from the university for academic reasons.
The weeklong blitz of knife attacks that followed terrified Davis before the calls from neighbors near Sycamore Park that ultimately led to his arrest.
At the hearing Monday, Reales Dominguez, his long black hair again a veil over his eyes, was clad in a heavy green safety vest and shackled at the wrists and waist.
He sat next to Yolo County deputy public defender Daniel Hutchinson and tried several times to speak during the hearing, before finally declaring before rising to leave the courtroom that he no longer wanted Hutchinson to represent him.
“I don’t want an attorney,” Reales Dominguez said, as he rose from his seat. “I’d like to take it myself, if possible.”
The hearing ended shortly after, and Yolo County Sheriff’s deputies ushered him out of the courtroom. Reales Dominguez will remain held without bail while criminal proceedings are suspended.
Family members of the second victim, Karim Aboj Najm, the 20-year-old student and son of a university professor, slain April 29 as he walked through Sycamore Park, sat quietly in a rear row of the fourth-floor courtroom. Some wore T-shirts emblazoned with the young man’s image.
Najm’s body was found not far from the park where Reales Dominguez lived with roommates and where he was spotted before his arrest.
Three members of Reales’ family sat in the courtroom in the row directly in front of Najm’s family. The two families did not interact with each other during the hearing. Reales’ relatives left quickly after the hearing ended and did not speak to news reporters.
Najm’s family left the courtroom and met with representatives from the District Attorney’s Office. They left the courthouse about 45 minutes later and declined to speak to reporters.
Najm’s killing came two days after David Henry Breaux, 50, the man known to many as the “Compassion Guy,” was found dead with multiple stab wounds in the city’s Central Park.
Maria Breaux, Breaux’s sister, also was in the courtroom for Monday’s hearing. It was the first time for her being in the courtroom and seeing the young man accused of killing her brother. She also declined to speak to reporters Monday.
Kimberlee Guillory was the victim of the third attack. Guillory was stabbed repeatedly through the tent where she lived near Second and L streets before midnight May 1. Guillory was critically wounded but survived the violent assault.
Yolo County prosecutors also announced subpoenas at the morning preliminary hearing conference. They plan to present records from medical and mental health care provider Wellpath, as well as records from Davis fire officials related to the first victim Breaux’s fatal attack, at a June 6 hearing before McAdam.
Kari Peterson, one of Breaux’s closest friends, also attended Monday’s hearing. She said it was appropriate that the judge ordered a mental health evaluation for Reales Dominguez, because he appears “to be not well.”
Peterson said she was filled with a lot of anxiety seeing Reales Dominguez in court, thinking about what his mother and family are going through right now. She said she’s heartbroken over the death of her friend, whom she wants to honor by experiencing this the way Breaux would.
“I just keep hearing David say ‘You got to look at things through the lens of compassion,’” Peterson told reporters outside the courthouse.
“There’s a lot of anger and a lot of fear, and I don’t begrudge people with those feelings,” Peterson said. “I understand them completely. I’m angry, as well.”
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