Criminal proceedings against a man accused of fatally stabbing three people near the University of California, Davis campus have been temporarily halted after a judge ordered him to undergo a mental fitness review.
Attorneys for 21-year-old Carlos Dominguez claimed during a Monday (22 May) hearing at Yolo County Superior Court that Mr Dominguez is not mentally competent to stand trial, prompting the presiding judge to order a psychiatric assessment, The Sacramento Bee reported.
Mr Dominguez, a disgruntled former student at the UC Davis campus, allegedly killed two men and wounded a homeless woman during a violent rampage over a span of days. As a manhunt unfolded, students in the serene community just outside of Sacramento stayed at home or ventured out in pairs amid fears of a killer on the loose.
The suspect was finally arrested on 4 May and charged with two counts of murder and one charge of attempted murder. At a court appearance earlier this month, Mr Dominguez entered a not-guilty plea.
Mr Dominguez appeared in court on Monday wearing an anti-suicide vest and with his hair covering most of his face. He was shackled at the wrists and waists.
Several times throughout the hearing, he attempted to interrupt his public defender, ultimately saying he “[didn’t] want an attorney.”
Police have not disclosed a motive, but it has emerged in the aftermath of the killings that Mr Dominguez was expelled from the university for poor academic performance just days before he allegedly carried out the stabbings.
One of the fatal victims was David Henry Breaux, a 50-year-old Standford graduate known to the local community as “Compassion Guy” who was experiencing homelessness. His body was found on 27 April.
Twenty-year-old Karim Abou Najm, a computer science major who was set to graduate this semester, was killed on April 29 as he walked through Sycamore Park.
The third stabbing occurred on 2 May, when a woman reported being stabbed more than once through a tent near 2nd Street and L Street.
Relatives of Najm attended the hearing on Monday, some of them wearing T-shirts with the young man’s image.
Mr Dominguez had been a third-year student majoring in biological sciences until 25 April, when the university let him go for academic reasons.
Mr Dominguez was caught by police after more than a dozen people reported seeing him in the neighbourhood where the second victim was killed, wearing clothes recognizable from the third stabbing. Authorities from the city of Davis, UC Davis police, and the FBI worked together to identify and arrest Mr Dominguez, according to a statement from the university.
A competency hearing is scheduled for late June.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
