Bay Area man with long criminal history convicted of murder in car crash
A man with a long criminal record in the Bay Area was convicted Tuesday of second-degree murder for a car crash that killed a woman in Marysville.
Dominik Oshay Cash, 30, was also found guilty of other charges including reckless evasion and resisting arrest and faces a sentence of 21 years to life in prison, the Yuba County district attorney’s office said.
Cash’s residence was in San Francisco at the time of his arrest in 2021. He previously lived in Oakley, and he had been arrested for a variety of crimes across the Bay Area.
The chase that ended in the fatal crash began around 11 p.m. on Jan. 16, 2021, when a California Highway Patrol officer attempted to pull Cash over for speeding on Highway 70 south of Oroville. He refused to stop, and other officers joined the pursuit.
Cash continued south on Highway 70 for almost 20 miles, reportedly reaching speeds of 135 mph in his Toyota Camry. On the outskirts of Marysville, he ran over a CHP spike strip, but he was still going more than 100 mph when he approached downtown. There he ran a red light and struck a pickup truck, sending both vehicles spinning across the intersection.
Cash fled on foot and was arrested after a CHP helicopter crew spotted him on the roof of an apartment building.
The pickup truck’s driver — Dawn Ritter, 55, of Marysville — was killed instantly in the crash. A longtime resident of the Yuba-Sutter area, she was the mother of three and had four grandchildren.
Prosecutors detailed Cash’s criminal history, including:
• A conviction for a pursuit in December 2017 in Contra Costa County in which Cash, allegedly driving a stolen car, cut across four lanes of traffic on a busy highway and then drove against traffic to elude a Pittsburg police officer.
• A conviction for reckless evasion in Contra Costa County in May 2018.
• Warrants for reckless high-speed chases in San Francisco, Solano and Placer counties.
• A guilty plea in 2019 to sexual battery for rubbing against a 16-year-old girl and exposing himself to her in the cosmetics aisle of the Rite Aid at Corte Madera Town Center.
• A guilty plea in 2019 to stealing alcohol valued at more than $1,500 from Rite Aid and Safeway stores in Mill Valley and Corte Madera.
• Other arrests or warrants for allegedly stealing alcohol in Mountain View and Belmont.
• Other convictions including vehicle theft, soliciting a lewd act and carrying a loaded firearm in public.
In August 2018, Cash was identified by Palo Alto police as the suspect in a Safeway shoplifting that turned into a chaotic scene when a shopper opened fire on him in the parking lot.
The shopper — a 37-year-old military veteran from Nevada — reportedly confronted Cash after seeing him loading crates of stolen liquor into an SUV outside the Safeway in midtown Palo Alto. When he was struck by the vehicle, the Nevada man pulled out a handgun and fired four times, Palo Alto police said. The SUV, driven by a woman, fled the scene.