In an unusual move several weeks into the trial of 23-year-old Carlos Dominguez, his defense attorneys have put him on the witness stand to testify about his mental state.

It's the fourth week of the trial Carlos Dominguez, the former UC Davis student accused of stabbing three people, two of the fatally, in the spring of 2023, in a spree that set off a brief panic in the usually quiet college town. Dominguez is now standing trial after an earlier trial was aborted due to questions about Dominguez's mental competency to stand trial.

After being stabilized at a state hospital, Dominguez's competency was deemed restored in late 2023, and he's now standing trial.

As campus newspaper the California Aggie reports, when Dominguez's trial resumed last week following a holiday break, the defense called Dominguez's parents and former girlfriend to the stand. Both testified to his deteriorating mental state in late 2022 and early 2023, with the girlfriend saying she had broken things off with Dominguez because of his increasingly strange behavior.

It seems clear that the defense is hoping that Dominguez will be found not guilty by reason of insanity, and as he took the stand Monday morning, he was first questioned about the traumas he endured as a child of undocumented immigrants. As KCRA reports from the courtroom, Dominguez described being raised primarily by his grandmother during his youngest years in El Salvador, after his parents had already come to the US.

Sometime around kindergarten, his grandparents handed him off to a smuggler and he says he crossed a river into the US on "floaties," and was briefly in foster care before being reunited with his parents in Oakland — whom he did not remember. He described becoming fluent in English by fifth grade, and becoming a mostly straight-A student by high school. But he also described his parents drinking on weekends and becoming violent with each other. He said he learned he was undocumented around age 13.

Dominguez also reportedly testified to taking medication regularly for his schizophrenia since August 2023.

Psychiatrists have already testified regarding Dominguez's mental illness, and have tried to define schizophrenia to the jurors.

Prosecutors have argued that Dominguez acted with premeditation and intent, and was acting out because he had become disgruntled with life. We know that his grades had suffered to the point that he had been placed on academic leave prior to the killings.

Dominguez is accused of killing 50-year-old David Breaux, a mostly unhoused local eccentric who was known in town as "The Compassion Guy." Breaux was found on a park bench where he often slept with 31 stab wounds on April 27, 2023.

Then, on April 29, Dominguez allegedly stabbed 20-year-old UC Davis student Karim Abou Najm, who died from his wounds. He was found to have 52 total wounds, with 12 stab wounds and 40 cuts.

And after two days on the run, on May 1, 2023, Dominguez allegedly stabbed a 64-year-old homeless woman, Kimberlee Guillory, in her tent, and she survived the attack.

Dominguez's appearance in the courtroom is markedly different from when he made his earliest court appearances. Two years ago he appeared gaunt, unshaven, with long hair that had grown over his eyes. Now, clean-shaven and with a haircut, his face has also filled out with some extra weight.