‘Sense of sadness that won’t go away’: Davis residents try to heal after week of living in fear
Longtime residents and UC Davis alumni Diana and Roger Wilkinson resumed their daily walks. Before the attacks
By Michelle Bandur
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DAVIS, California (KCRA) — The community of Davis spent the last week in fear as police searched for a serial killer terrorizing their city.
A former UC Davis student, Carlos Dominguez, is now in custody and charged in the three stabbing attacks from April 27 to May 1, where two men died and a third woman is still in the hospital.
More people were out and about riding their bikes, walking their dogs and enjoying the weekend.
Longtime residents and UC Davis alumni Diana and Roger Wilkinson resumed their daily walks. Before the attacks, they walked through Sycamore Park, where UC Davis student Karim Abou Najm was killed.
“What got me was the inability to understand it all or to protect her or even myself,” said Roger Wilkinson.
The couple walked by the park Saturday.
“I see the memorial for Karim and it’s sad,” said Diana Wilkinson.
The memorial in the park is growing as more people continue to stop by with flowers and to pay their respects.
“I think that things are getting back to normal in a sense that I feel safe to walk now because they caught the guy,” said Diana Wilkinson.
After the arrest of Dominguez, Davis Mayor Will Arnold said the work begins to heal the community and he spent his Saturday trying to get back to normal. He spent several hours at his son’s little league baseball game.
“To see the community coming back, coming back to a sense of taking these shared beloved spaces back is wonderful to see and so critical for us to be together as a community,” Arnold said.
Arnold led his city through one of the worst weeks for the community.
“While it’s so important that we come together to celebrate the good things, it also is just as or more important that we remember for some folks there is no going back to normal,” he said.
Arnold said it will take time to heal and move on from the fear and loss and residents feel that too.
“There’s just a sense of sadness about what happened and I don’t know that that is going to go away any time soon,” said Diana Wilkinson.
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