WOODLAND, Calif. — Jurors entered their third week Monday deliberating the fate of Carlos Reales Dominguez, the former UC Davis student accused in a 2023 knife rampage that killed two men in Davis and nearly killed a woman experiencing homelessness.

Deliberations followed five weeks of testimony in the guilt phase of Dominguez’s trial before Yolo Superior Court Judge Samuel McAdam.

Dominguez’s defense, testifying experts and Dominguez himself asserted that his devolving mental state, later diagnosed as schizophrenia, factored in the fatal stabbings of David Breaux, 50, and Karim Abou Najm, 20, in April 2023, and the near-deadly attack on then-64-year-old Kimberlee Guillory that May.

He faced two counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, and an assault charge involving a deadly weapon causing great bodily injury. Special circumstances included allegations of multiple murders.

Jurors also had the option to consider lesser charges, including involuntary manslaughter. Dominguez remains in Yolo County custody awaiting the trial’s second phase, which will determine whether he was sane at the time of the crimes.

Dominguez sat through the final days of testimony earlier this month as he had since April — showing little visible emotion, which he and attorney Daniel Hutchinson attributed to his mental illness.

Dominguez testified shadowy hallucinations — “shape-shifters,” he called them on the stand — taunted and scared him before he lashed out at the images he saw on nightly walks through Central and Sycamore Park. He testified that it was only later while confined at Atascadero State Hospital following his May 2023 arrest in the killings that he realized the images were human.

Dominguez’s criminal proceedings were halted for months in 2023 while he was treated at Atascadero and restored to competency ahead of his April trial.

Dominguez’s attorney, Yolo County deputy public defender Daniel Hutchinson, called on jurors to find his client guilty of the lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.

Prosecutors countered that Dominguez acted out of anger, fueled by a breakup and uncertainty over his future at UC Davis. They said Dominguez “ambushed” his victims in city parks and a street-side tent during the stabbing spree.

According to prosecutors, Dominguez bought the knife used in the stabbings online in December 2022. He allegedly stabbed Breaux — known locally as the “Compassion Guy” — 31 times while he sat on a bench in Central Park.

Days later, prosecutors said, Dominguez attacked Najm on a Sycamore Park bike path. A nearby doctor heard Najm’s screams and rushed to help, stopping the assault.

Guillory was stabbed days later while in her tent near downtown Davis. She survived and later testified in court.

Once the jury reaches a verdict, the trial will proceed to the sanity phase in the Woodland courtroom.

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