WOODLAND, Calif. — The retrial of Carlos Reales Dominguez reconvened Thursday in Yolo County Superior Court with testimony from a family member, a former professor and an incidental witness, whose accounts provided additional context surrounding the case and further corroborated earlier testimony about Dominguez’s behavior before the alleged attacks.
In April 2023, Dominguez was charged with two counts of felony murder, one count of felony attempted murder, enhancements for using a deadly weapon, inflicting great bodily injury and circumstances in aggravation.
Dominguez is a former UC Davis student accused of fatally stabbing two men and seriously injuring a woman during a roughly weeklong series of attacks in Davis.
Proceedings began with the cross-examination of Dominguez’s uncle, who was questioned about his nephew’s mother. The witness recounted several instances in which Dominguez’s mother displayed erratic behavior.
He was first asked by Deputy Public Defender Dan Hutchinson to discuss a family trip to Las Vegas that included Carlos Dominguez, Dominguez’s mother and several other family members.
On the first night of the trip, the group went out to dinner, but because of COVID-19 regulations, only six people were allowed at each table. When the family decided to split up, with the boys at one table and the girls at another, Dominguez’s mother became upset with the decision.
She “took off” and was “locked up in her room” for the remainder of the trip, Dominguez’s uncle testified.
On the drive back to Tracy, Dominguez’s father asked the witness to drive and told him that Dominguez’s mother had planned to “grab the steering wheel and kill us all,” referring to the 15 passengers in the van.
The witness said this was not the only instance of Dominguez’s mother’s erratic behavior that he had witnessed.
He recounted an incident in 2021 at Dominguez’s parents’ house, when he witnessed Dominguez’s mother grab his brother’s stepson by the collar of his shirt, “ripping” it off, leaving marks on his chest and then attempting to “go after him” with a broken glass beer bottle.
He noted that Carlos Dominguez and his brother “had to restrain their mother.”
The witness also described an incident in 2013, when Dominguez’s father and uncle attended a Raiders game and Dominguez’s mother was supposed to drive them home.
When she arrived to pick them up, she saw Dominguez’s father speaking with a female fan. After getting out of the car and yelling, she drove away, leaving him behind. Dominguez’s uncle had to drive him home instead.
Hutchinson asked how often Dominguez’s mother reacted so erratically to seemingly trivial matters, and the witness responded “like every time we hung out.”
The next witness called to the stand was an employee at Steve’s Pizza in Davis. While walking home from work one Monday night, he passed several unhoused individuals along the street.
He testified that he became anxious and quickened his pace when he noticed one individual riding a bicycle toward him while yelling something he could not understand. When the bicyclist caught up to him, however, the individual simply warned him to be careful on his walk home.
The witness recalled later speaking with police by phone and recounting what had happened that Monday night in 2023.
Before the noon recess, the court heard testimony from one of Dominguez’s former professors.
The professor testified that Dominguez joined her class on April 10, 2023, and that she immediately noticed his “unusual” appearance. She recalled that he regularly wore a “dark colored hoodie” with the hood pulled over his head and a mask that concealed most of his face.
When asked whether Dominguez had ever behaved in an explicitly or implicitly threatening manner, she answered, “No.” However, she said his behavior was consistently “bizarre” and that his conduct in every class remained similar to what she had observed “in the first class.”
Concerned about his well-being, the professor completed a “Concerned or Concerning Student Report.” She testified that she wrote in the report that “something was very wrong.”
After learning of the first stabbing, the professor testified that she did not associate Dominguez with the incident. However, after authorities released a description following the second stabbing, it “made [her] think of Carlos.” Even then, she said she hesitated to contact law enforcement because she did not want to “waste police resources” or unnecessarily involve police in Dominguez’s life.
While considering whether to report her concerns, she discovered that Dominguez had been removed from her class roster, and she testified that this factored into her decision to contact authorities. She said everything else “could be coincidental,” but that additional detail prompted her to submit a tip.
Dominguez did not attend the next class but was later seen by the professor as she walked back to her car.
Upon seeing him, she testified that she felt “scared” because she “didn’t know why he was there.” When Deputy District Attorney Alex Kian asked whether she feared Dominguez might become violent during the encounter, she responded, “Potentially.”
The two did not interact, and the professor testified that it was the last time she saw Dominguez before testifying in court during the first trial.
After a third stabbing was reported and Dominguez was arrested in connection with all three incidents, the professor testified that she “was frightened” but that “part of [her] was relieved that [she] wasn’t crazy.”
She added that the relief was accompanied by sadness because “Carlos was [her] student and [she] had been worried about him,” making the developments difficult to process.
The court recessed at noon and was scheduled to reconvene later that afternoon.
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