WOODLAND, Calif. — A Davis police sergeant acknowledged Friday in Yolo County Superior Court that surveillance footage prosecutors were using to trace Carlos Reales Dominguez through downtown Davis on the night of a 2023 stabbing contains significant timestamp errors — including one video that was off by three hours, and a three-to-four-minute gap in which the sergeant conceded he did not know where the suspect was or what he was doing.
Hours later, jurors began watching what Judge Samuel T. McAdam called the single longest piece of video evidence in the trial — the recorded police interrogation of Dominguez — after Sgt. Stephen Ramos testified that investigators used rapport-building techniques and asked questions to which they already knew the answers “to see if they’re truthful.”
Dominguez, a former UC Davis student, is being retried on two felony counts of murder and one felony count of attempted murder in the spring of 2023 Davis stabbings that killed David Breaux and Karim Abou Najm and injured Kimberlee Guillory, with enhancements for use of a deadly weapon and infliction of great bodily injury, according to the court’s minute order. He remains in custody without bail after his first trial ended in a hung jury. Friday marked the close of the fourth week of the retrial.
On his second day of testimony under direct examination by Deputy District Attorney Matt DeMoura, Ramos used a map of downtown Davis to trace what he believed was a single person’s path through surveillance clips from the night of May 1 into May 2, 2023.
Figures appear walking near a PG&E substation on Third Street at about 11:06, 11:08 and 11:36 p.m., then running through the same area at 11:42 p.m. A bicyclist turns south onto H Street at about 11:45 p.m. and reappears moving west on Second Street through the Blue Peak and Helmus clips at 11:53 to 11:55 p.m. — a path Ramos noted leads toward the UC Davis campus.
Ramos testified that the substation area mattered because the adjacent tree line was the third crime scene, where Guillory was attacked. The walking figure was “the only person that I have seen walk in that area other than one or two vehicles that pass by.”
Yet he repeatedly conceded he could not say definitively that the figures were the same person. The identification rested largely on clothing — “the darker black pants with the white stripes” and footwear that “appears to be Crocs.” When Ramos interviewed Dominguez on May 3, he testified that Dominguez wore almost all of the same clothes, but different shoes.
The timeline’s reliability came under scrutiny when questioning turned to the cameras’ clocks. Ramos acknowledged he never personally verified the timestamps, explaining that “the time discrepancies were handled by the officers who collected it,” and confirmed that one video carried a three-hour error.
An SPCA clip stamped 2:12 a.m. on May 2 was actually recorded around 11:12 p.m. on May 1, according to Ramos’ testimony.
He was also pressed on the three-to-four-minute gap after the H Street turn and on why the rider never pedals the bicycle again afterward, instead “shuffling” along on it.
Ramos initially responded, “I don’t know.” Later, when invited to offer possible scenarios, he suggested “either an injury or a mechanical issue with the bike.”
No evidence was presented Friday establishing any injury, how one occurred or what happened during the unaccounted-for minutes.
The afternoon shifted to May 3, 2023, when Dominguez was detained in West Davis and brought to the Davis Police Department.
Ramos testified that he and Sgt. Mathew Muscardini interviewed Dominguez together. Muscardini was assigned to Guillory’s case, while Ramos was assigned to Abou Najm’s. The interview took place in a room with two fixed cameras and a body-camera backup, beginning at 5:38 p.m.
Before playing the video, Judge McAdam warned jurors it would run through Monday.
“There is no other comparable video in the trial,” McAdam said.
In the early portions played Friday, Dominguez — who had earned a 3.8 GPA at UC Davis — spoke about his background and what he wanted to do with his life.
But when asked about a knife in his bag, he denied having one, and his voice audibly shifted. At another point, he could not recall the gender of his own roommates.
The trial resumes Monday, June 15, in Yolo County Superior Court, with the interrogation video expected to continue.
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