Dominguez’s father, sister testify at murder trial in violent 2023 Davis attacks
Carlos Reales Dominguez’s father testified he first saw the signs that something was wrong with his eldest son the winter before the violence that would stun Davis just months later.
“I tried to talk to him, if he could tell me what was going on; if he was consuming something; what he was feeling,” Juan Carlos Reales said Monday through an interpreter as testimony in Dominguez’s murder trial resumed in Yolo Superior Court in Woodland. “We wanted him to stay home because we saw he was not in a good state.”
Dominguez’s defense opened Monday with Reales’ testimony laying out the timeline of his son’s life: their native El Salvador; then Oakland, where Dominguez’s mother had family and where he was raised. Dominguez’s final months at UC Davis and the charges that had the former UC Davis student facing judge and jury in a Yolo County courtroom.
Carlos Reales Dominguez has pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity of murder in the knife killings of David Breaux, 50, and 20-year-old Karim Abou Najm; and the near-fatal attack on then 64-year-old Kimberlee Guillory in Davis in late April and early May 2023. He remains held without bail in Yolo County custody.
Dominguez’s sister, Mia Reales Dominguez, 13, would testify in the afternoon. She said she hadn’t seen Dominguez since March 2023. Carlos Dominguez, dressed in a gray suit and yellow tie, stared straight ahead during her testimony.
Juan Reales and wife Carla had come to the United States first, Juan to Maryland in 2004, when Carlos was almost 2 and Carla to the Bay Area in 2006. Son Carlos stayed in El Salvador with his grandparents until kidnapping threats against family in the Central American country led them to have the young Dominguez smuggled to the United States and reunited with his parents in Oakland, Reales testified. It was 2009. Carlos Dominguez was six years old.
Reales recalled his and his wife’s misgivings: “He could get lost. He could be kidnapped. He could die,” he told Dominguez’s attorney, Yolo County deputy public defender Daniel Hutchinson.
Dominguez left El Salvador in May 2009 with a family friend and a coyote who got Dominguez as far as Texas, where he was detained and held for nearly four months in an immigration detention center, Reales testified. Dominguez eventually arrived in Oakland with Carla Reales’ uncle. It was the first time Juan Reales had seen his son since he was born; the first time the young Dominguez saw his mother since she left for this country.
Reales said Dominguez had difficulty adjusting to life with his parents after years apart: “He was not very loving, he didn’t trust us,” he recalled. Dominguez’s grandmother flew out to the Bay Area months later “so he would be more trustful,” his father said.
Dominguez eventually settled into life as older brother to his younger brother and sister, did well in school and enjoyed sports, especially football.
“He had a good life, a happy life — normal for a teenager,” Reales said from the witness stand.
But Reales and later Dominguez’s sister said Dominguez began to change in December 2022 at their Tracy home. Dominguez had recently broken up with his girlfriend, she testified.
“He was skinnier, he wasn’t taking care of himself and he would just start staring at the walls. He said he was seeing things. I was questioning but never asked what it was,” his sister said.
“He wouldn’t cut his hair. He wouldn’t eat as much,” Mia Reales Dominguez testified Monday afternoon. “He wouldn’t talk, he wouldn’t smile, he wouldn’t leave his room.”
That same month, Dominguez was also searching for knives online, including the model that Yolo County prosecutors said was the weapon used months later in the deadly Davis attacks.
An Amazon data specialist last week testified that Dominguez had searched the online retailer more than 30 times for knives using the words “combat knife,” and “hunting knife.”
Juan Reales testified earlier Monday that he did not know his son had purchased a knife; and did not know of his troubles paying rent or his estrangement from his roommates.
But by March 2023, the Realeses sensed something was wrong. Dominguez stayed in his room during his younger brother’s birthday party, coming out only for a slice of cake. He was distant on the drive with his father back to Davis.
Back on campus, his father’s text messages went unanswered.
Two months later, on May 3, 2023, Sacramento Bee reporter phoned the family’s Tracy home.
Dominguez had been arrested in Davis on two counts of murder and a count of attempted murder.
This story was originally published May 19, 2025 at 4:18 PM with the headline "Dominguez’s father, sister testify at murder trial in violent 2023 Davis attacks."
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