Carlos Dominguez going to state hospital; Yolo DA agrees Davis stabbing suspect not fit for trial

Carlos Reales Dominguez will be taken to a state hospital, a judge ordered Thursday after Yolo County prosecutors conceded that the former UC Davis student is not fit to stand trial in the murderous stabbing rampage that left two Davis men dead this spring and another woman seriously wounded.

Reales Dominguez will be held at the state hospital until his competency is restored and then will be returned to Yolo County to stand trial, said Yolo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven.

The District Attorney’s decision not to challenge Reales Dominguez’s competency came Thursday in Yolo Superior Court,

“In court this afternoon, we conceded on the issue of competence,” Raven said, adding that prosecutors stood by their decision to challenge defense experts’ findings.

Reales Dominguez stands accused in the slayings of David Breaux, 50, and 20-year-old graduating UC Davis student Karim Abou Najm, both stabbed to death in separate Davis city parks days apart. A third attack seriously wounded Kimberlee Guillory, 64, as she slept in her Davis encampment.

Prosecutors last week strenuously objected to defense expert Juliana Rohrer’s determination that Reales Dominguez was a “textbook example of schizophrenia” and was unable to aid in his defense against the murder charges he faced in the Davis knife attacks.

They instead asserted that Reales Dominguez was “toying with the system,” choosing when he would understand and answer questions posed to him by doctors, investigators and his own counsel.

But the long skein of testimony from Reales Dominguez’s friends including roommates and a former girlfriend, along with mental health examiners while he was in Yolo County custody was a steep climb for prosecutors to overcome.

The combined testimony painted a vivid picture of a young man in the grip of a mental spiral as Reales Dominguez sat scarcely moving behind the courtroom’s defense table. He heard voices, had stopped talking to his roommates, stared at walls, in the months before the deadly attacks in late April and early May.

“My opinion is that he’s not malingering symptoms of mental illness,” neuropsychologist Dale Watson testified last week when asked if Reales Dominguez may have been faking his symptoms. “In fact, I think he’s trying to deny them.”

More testimony was expected Monday from Patricia Tyler, the telehealth psychiatrist who on June 21 recommended that Reales Dominguez be given emergency antipsychotic medication at Yolo County Jail instead of having to take him to repeated hospital visits.

Reales Dominguez had been taken to nearby Woodland Memorial Hospital for care in the weeks after his May arrest after being placed on a rare in-custody mental health hold.

Reales Dominguez had refused meals for days at a time in custody — classified as “hunger strikes” but not life endangering — said jail officials. But Tyler testified that she recommended on June 21 that Reales Dominguez be given emergency antipsychotic medication due to his “life-threatening” refusal to eat or drink.

Reales Dominguez was 108 pounds.

Registered nurse Rosemary Gladden took the stand saying she disagreed with Tyler’s June 21 recommendation at the time, saying he was not in danger of dying.

But Yolo Superior Court Judge Samuel McAdam outside the presence of jurors suggested that medical professionals looking after Reales Dominguez should ask for the court to order emergency medication.

“I think he should’ve been medicated weeks ago,” McAdam said. “We have overwhelming evidence he has a mental health condition.”

Nearly a week later, Yolo prosecutors agreed.

Raven on Thursday said the court had recently initiated proceedings to determine whether Reales Dominguez would be involuntarily medicated.

“Based on the information that came out in trial and the recently initiated involuntary medication proceedings, we are now in agreement that Mr. Dominguez is presently not competent to stand trial,” Raven said.