The man accused of slaughtering 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail train in August 2025 has been found incompetent to stand trial.
Central Regional Hospital evaluated the suspect, Decarlos Dejuan Brown Jr., determining he was “incapable to proceed” to trial in a December 2025 report, according to court documents filed Tuesday. Brown faces a first-degree murder charge in North Carolina state court. Additionally, the federal government charged Brown with one count of committing an act causing death on a mass transportation system, which carries a maximum statutory sentence of life in prison or death.
Brown’s attorney, Daniel Roberts, petitioned the court Tuesday to delay a key hearing for 180 days.
“... [A] capacity hearing is a ‘critical stage’ hearing that cannot currently take place while [Brown] remains in Federal custody for the parallel Federal proceedings. Furthermore, should the court accept the findings of Central Regional Hospital, any resulting orders to attempt to ‘restore capacity’ to the Defendant cannot be effectuated while the Defendant is in Federal custody.”
The court has yet to determine Brown’s capacity to proceed. Note that the state proceedings are separate from federal proceedings — Competency findings in federal proceedings have not been released, and Brown could still receive the death penalty based on the federal charge.
The Timeline
Let’s first establish the events leading to Zarutska’s murder.
A black man with long dreadlocks wearing a red hoodie spent several hours riding on the Lynx Blue Line on August 22, 2025. That man has been identified as Brown.
At 8:18 p.m., security footage shows two Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS) security officials walking past Brown. He does not interact with them. If the employees had talked to the man, they might have discovered he had no ticket to ride the train, as CATS later confirmed of Brown.
At 8:26 p.m., Brown boards a southbound light rail car, according to security footage obtained by WBTV. He sits near the back of the car. He begins laughing to himself, apparently at nothing, over the course of about 20 minutes. He moves his head and mouth in an erratic manner.
At 9:46 p.m., Zarutska boards the Lynx Blue Line and sits in front of the man in the red hoodie. She looks at her phone. Zarutska is wearing a hat and a shirt bearing the logo of Zepeddie’s Pizzeria, the local pizza shop where she worked.
At approximately 9:50 p.m., the man, gazing out the window, pulls a pocket knife from his hoodie. He opens the knife, leans on his arm, then viciously slashes Zarutska three times from behind, including at least once in the neck, before walking away.
Zarutska, shocked, covers her mouth and cowers, looking around at the man, then at another passenger. She appears to begin sobbing, then slumps over, falling to the floor and losing consciousness. Blood is on the seat where she was sitting. Blood is sprinkled on the floor. Blood begins pouring from Zarutska’s body and forming great pools on the subway floor.
After the attack, Zarutska’s alleged killer reportedly says, “I got that white girl, I got that white girl.”
Officers located and arrested Brown on the light rail platform after the attack, according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release.
Is He Crazy? Does It Matter?
Zarutska’s alleged killer apparently had enough sense to avoid attacking any of the adult men in the subway car. He did not stab the large black woman sitting across from Zarutska. He chose a tiny, blonde woman for his apparent victim, and in the moments after the murder, reportedly gloated about killing “that white girl.”
Brown had a lengthy rap sheet reportedly dating back to 2007. He has been arrested at least 14 times, including for assault, firearms possession, felony robbery, and larceny, according to the New York Post. He reportedly served a five-year sentence for robbery with a deadly weapon, was released in September 2020, and was quickly arrested again for assaulting his sister.
Brown was homeless — a bum — prior to being arrested for Zarutska’s murder, according to WSOC-TV.
Brown made a series of false emergency calls to 911 in January 2025, reports WSOC-TV. He was reportedly arrested for those calls, but Mecklenburg County Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes reportedly released him after he signed a written note promising to show up at his next court hearing.
Brown reportedly told authorities that he was possessed by a “man-made material” which controlled his eating, walking, and talking.
Brown’s mother told WSOC-TV reporter Joe Bruno that her son was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
“Brown’s mom says the court should have never let her son be out in the community knowing he had mental health issues and previous arrests,” wrote Bruno.
Indeed, Brown should not have been permitted to walk free. Why was he? The justice system, knowingly or not, determined Brown’s freedom was more important than the freedom of the general public.
Brown is certainly dysfunctional. If reports regarding his schizophrenia are true, he’s also somewhat delusional. But that doesn’t preclude the possibility that he’s also evil. He is alleged to have done a very evil thing. He has not, as far as I know, expressed regret or repentance for the murder of which he is accused.
Brown was apparently competent enough to roam the streets of Charlotte, but not competent enough to stand trial. I doubt Stokes will face any legal repercussions for loosing such a man on the public.
Catch-22
Only an insane man would stab a woman to death in plain view of security cameras and other passengers. Ergo, her murder is evidence of her killer’s insanity.
If insanity is taken to mean extreme irrationality, then fine, this logic tracks.
The question is: Should a murderer’s insanity mitigate the severity of his punishment?
Our criminal justice system says, “Yes.” The prosecution is generally required to prove the defendant’s mens rea (”guilty mind”) in order to prove his guilt in a criminal trial.
The criminal justice system is, or should be, a tool to punish the guilty and protect the innocent. Brown’s presence in public seems a danger to the innocent (even putting the murder charge aside, consider his reported schizophrenia and his rap sheet). He cannot be released, ever.
A jury has not yet determined Brown’s guilt. But if Brown is too dumb and/or crazy to stand trial, that should really be an aggravating factor in his punishment.
A person who lashes out at random is more dangerous to the general public than a person who carefully plans revenge on an enemy. If, hypothetically, your incompetence leads you to slaughter a stranger, and you assert you’re too incompetent to face the consequences of that slaughter, you have accepted the status of a rabid dog, and should be put down as such.
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A very frustrating topic and one that has been known to get my motor running. Suffice it to say that I agree 100% with your final paragraph. The comparison to a rabid dog is apt and their fates should be the same. We also need to do a better job of getting people like this off the streets before they hurt someone. We need to build more asylums, rehab tho ones that have fallen into disrepair since being emptied, and quit with the bleeding heart sympathy. If you're too addled to assist in your own defense, you've given up the right to walk freely amongst us. And if you're that mentally ill or of such low intelligence, you won't know what you're missing anyway. Law-abiding citizens shouldn't be at the mercy of a lunatic with a get out of jail free card in his back pocket. It's bad enough we're at the mercy of idiot judges and lazy, possibly woke, prosecutors who seem to be too happy to drop charges and make deals that only benefit the bad guys. The justice system needs a reset. One that punishes criminals and looks after victims. That protects society at large and doesn't perform legal gymnastics to protect the rights of thug criminals who don't give a flying eff about their victim's rights.