UC Davis senior, 20, killed in weekend stabbing remembered as ‘exceptional’ academic star
Update: Third stabbing reported as Davis police urge shelter in place during downtown manhunt
The 20-year-old man fatally stabbed at a Davis park Saturday night was an aspiring software engineer who had been on track to graduate from UC Davis next month after an impressive academic career rounded out by internships and research work.
His father, a professor at the university, said he already had two jobs lined up and was ready to begin his professional career in a matter of weeks.
The Yolo County Coroner’s Office identified Karim Abou Najm as the man found shortly after 9 p.m. Saturday with multiple stab wounds at Sycamore Park, following a 911 call reporting a dispute.
It was the city’s second deadly stabbing at a park in three days. The first took the life of 50-year-old David Henry Breaux, a well-known local figure nicknamed the “Compassion Guy,” Thursday morning at Central Park.
‘He was a bundle of energy,’ father says
Majdi Abou Najm, the UC Davis student’s father, said his son was on his way home Saturday night, using a path through the park he’d often used. His son had been on campus Saturday for a student research project presentation and had been with friends before he decided to head home.
He doesn’t know what might have led to the attack on his son.
On Monday, the Abou Najm family were welcoming grieving relatives and friends into their home as they made arrangements for the young man’s funeral.
“He was just six weeks away from graduation,” the father told The Sacramento Bee. “It’s devastating. Instead of attending his graduation, we’re making arrangements for his departure.”
An associate professor of soil biophysics at UC Davis, Majdi Abou Najm said he’s received about 50 emails from people at the university. The father said his son touched so many lives, serving as a mentor to many for help with job interviewing skills, math and computer science. He said his son worked hard, but developed a perfect balance with fun.
“Karim was an exceptional talent,” he said. “He was a bundle of energy.”
Majdi Abou Najm said his son already had two jobs lined up to start his career after college, including a startup company where he would work on developing technology for speech recognition for smart glass. The technology would be beneficial for people with hearing impairments.
Who was Karim Abou Najm?
Karim Abou Najm graduated from Davis High School in 2020 and had planned to graduate this June from UC Davis with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, according to university officials, his father and his LinkedIn profile.
He completed software engineering internships at Amazon and Audible, and was “deeply involved in computational neuroscience research,” according to his LinkedIn page, working at Lee Miller’s Speech Neuroengineering and Cybernetics Laboratory.
“By all accounts, he was an exceptional student, son and friend,” Chancellor Gary S. May wrote in a Sunday message to the UC Davis community.
Most recently, according to his LinkedIn page, Abou Najm began work in March as a software engineer for XRAI Glass, a software company that is working to create augmented reality glasses that can display subtitles for those who are deaf or hearing impaired.
Davis City Council members in a Sunday statement called him “a 20-year-old whose promise was extinguished too soon.”
Police still investigating homicides
A search-and-rescue crew organized by the Yolo County Sheriff’s Office was combing Sycamore Park on Monday to search for more clues that could help identify a suspect.
Authorities said they are looking for a man between the ages of 19 and 23 and 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-8 as a potential suspect in Abou Najm’s death.
Police said the suspect was “a light-skinned male, possibly Hispanic,” had “long curly loose hair” and was last seen wearing a white hat and a light-colored T-shirt beneath a button-up shirt. Police believe the suspect was riding a men’s bike with straight handlebars.
Investigators at the park Monday were searching for any physical evidence related to the stabbing as detectives continued tracking down leads provided by the public.
Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel told the Davis Enterprise on Sunday that there were multiple similarities between the homicides, including the park locations and the “brutal manner” of the knife attacks, adding “at this point, we have to investigate them as linked, and we are doing so.”
There are no known connections between the two victims.
Police in the course of investigating the two homicides have made arrests on unrelated charges or outstanding warrants, but as of Monday morning had not made any arrests in direct connection to the stabbings.
“We urge all residents to be cautious,” Davis City Council members said in their Sunday statement addressing the stabbings. “Travel with friends after dark and avoid situations that make you nervous. Report suspicious activity and if you feel that you are in danger, call 911.
“We also urge our community to take time for their mental health and to consider our youth as they can also be overwhelmed.”
