Last Friday, August 22, Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian woman, was stabbed to death on a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina, in a savage attack by a deranged drug addict.
Zarutska had recently arrived in the United States to escape the war in her home country and seek a new life. Her tragic death has shocked both the local community and the Ukrainian diaspora.
The crime occurred around 10:30 p.m. at the East/West Boulevard station of the Lynx Blue Line, in the South End neighborhood of Charlotte. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) reported that Zarutska was attacked on board the train, where she was stabbed at least three times, one of them in the neck. She died at the scene before she could receive medical assistance.
The scene was captured by transit system surveillance cameras, which show Zarutska boarding the train at 9:46 p.m. wearing her pizzeria uniform and sitting down to look at her phone. Four minutes later, the suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr., 34 years old, attacked her with a folding knife without saying a word, in conduct worthy of a savage beast.
The video shows how Brown, after the attack, walks through the car, takes off his jersey, and waits by the door, while other passengers begin to notice the blood. Then, Brown gets off the train at the next station, where he was arrested shortly after. The police recovered the weapon near the platform. Brown was taken to a hospital for a hand injury before being formally charged with first-degree murder.
According to court documents, Brown has a long criminal history dating back to 2011. Previous charges include armed robbery, threats, and grand larceny, although many of those charges were dismissed. It was also reported that he is homeless and had served five years in prison for robbery.
In January of this year, Brown was arrested for misuse of 911 after an incident in which he claimed to have a "man-made material" inside his body that controlled him, according to a police report.
