WOODLAND, Calif. — The retrial of Carlos Reales Dominguez proceeded Thursday in Yolo County Superior Court with testimony from a retired Davis Police Department police service specialist and additional forensic evidence related to the 2023 killing of Karim Abou Najm.
Dominguez is being retried for the murders of David Henry Breaux and Karim Abou Najm and the attempted murder of Kimberlee Guillory in 2023. After his arrest, he was found incompetent to stand trial and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Dominguez was hospitalized for treatment.
Last year, after being deemed fit to stand trial, he was acquitted of first-degree murder, but the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision on the manslaughter and second-degree murder charges, which led to a mistrial.
On Thursday, the jury continued to hear testimony from a Davis police corporal who helped uncover a bicycle and water bottle that were found to belong to Abou Najm.
The corporal was shown another series of photographs by Deputy District Attorneys Matthew De Moura and Alex Kian, who asked him to identify their contents. The photographs primarily showed different angles of the bicycle, with a red substance smeared along parts of it, including the brake handle and seat.
The corporal was then cross-examined by Deputy Public Defender Dan Hutchinson, who asked him to confirm the timeline of his investigation. The officer repeated that he and his partner, a trainee at the time, self-dispatched to the area surrounding Sycamore Park, where Abou Najm was murdered, at about 9:20 p.m. This included nearby state Highway 113 and Crystal Grove Lane.
They originally were looking for the suspect, but after another officer discovered the bicycle, the corporal testified that he and his partner became “unofficially” in charge of it.
Hutchinson continued verifying the timestamps of photographs taken on an iPhone and compared them with the corporal’s recollection of events. According to the metadata, the first photograph was taken at 11:07 p.m. and the last at 11:42 p.m. The corporal testified that the bicycle was officially removed from the crime scene at about midnight.
Hutchinson was also curious about how many officers were taking direct action to locate the suspect and suggested alternate routes the suspect could have taken that police may not have investigated. He asked whether areas north to Covell Boulevard and east over the pedestrian bridge, or south to Russell Boulevard over state Highway 113, had been searched.
The corporal agreed that fellow officers may have been waiting for the suspect to return to the original area after officers searched surrounding locations.
De Moura and Kian then called a Davis Police Department police service specialist who had been assigned to the Evidence Response Team at the time of Abou Najm’s murder. She testified that she retired from the department in October 2025.
They also asked her to identify a series of photographs of the same bicycle with the red substance on it that had been shown to the corporal. She was dispatched to the intersection of Hampton Drive and Crystal Grove Lane on the night Abou Najm was killed.
She explained each step she took in the investigation, including photographing the scene, collecting evidence and taking fingerprints. It was her job to process the bicycle, as well as a water bottle found near it. Both items had the red substance on them, as well as what appeared to be fingerprints.
She testified that she and her team were responsible for collecting latent fingerprints. If she determined that a print was of sufficient quality and potentially identifiable, it would be submitted to the crime laboratory for further analysis. Her process involved photographing the evidence, dusting it for fingerprints, lifting any visible prints with adhesive tape and transferring them onto a fingerprint card, where a sketch or notation of the print could be recorded.
The retired police service specialist also took DNA swabs from the water bottle. She described this process as using a fresh pair of gloves for each swab, wearing a face mask and using distilled water to prevent contamination.
She reported that the bicycle was then transported to the police station’s evidence department by a sergeant.
She testified that she was also shown photographs of Abou Najm’s body. According to her testimony, several items were located near the body, including a white plastic bag, a hat and a backpack. His shirt appeared torn.
During her examination, Kian questioned her about the positioning of the body and the direction in which various body parts were facing. She stated that the body remained undisturbed until later that night and was surrounded by evidence markers and crime scene tape, with a tarp placed over it.
The trial is scheduled to reconvene June 5, 2026, at 9:30 a.m. in Yolo County Superior Court, Department 14.
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