The mother and sister of Decarlos Brown Jr., 34-year-old ex-con accused of randomly stabbing Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska to death on August 22 aboard a Charlotte light rail train, have spoken out. They revealed chilling details about his mental decline and warped jailhouse ramblings.
Mother’s Confession
Michelle Dewitt, 51, admitted in an interview that her son should never have been back on the streets.
“He shouldn’t have been released,” she told The New York Post, referencing how Brown, a diagnosed schizophrenic with a violent criminal past, was freed in January on a “written promise” to return to court.
Just days before the stabbing, Dewitt said she begged for help, even taking her son to a homeless shelter and trying to secure long-term mental health care. But because she wasn’t his legal guardian, she says she was turned away.
“I think Carlos had an episode,” she said, adding that in jail, her son claimed someone was “removing the chip from his brain.”
Sister’s Warning
Brown’s younger sister Tracey described her brother’s terrifying paranoia, saying he believed people were reading his thoughts and that his own family was being “trafficked by the government.”
“When I went to visit him, he looked at me and said, ‘I have to get you too. You and mama. Y’all are being trafficked,” she recalled.
In a phone call recorded six days after the murder, Brown rambled: “I hurt my hand stabbing her. I don’t even know the lady. I never said not one word to the lady at all. That’s scary, ain’t it. Why would somebody stab somebody for no reason?”
He later claimed Zarutska was “reading his mind.”
Family Torn Between Shame and Pleas for Leniency
Both Dewitt and Tracey insist Brown’s schizophrenia spiraled out of control after his 2022 release from a five-year sentence for armed robbery. They argue that their repeated warnings were ignored.
While President Donald Trump has called for Brown to face the death penalty, his family is begging for mercy. “Before they say death penalty, why not look into how he’s been dealing with this… he actually was fighting and trying to get help before he broke,” Tracey said.
Outrage Over System Failures
Zarutska, 23, had fled the war in Ukraine only to be killed commuting home from her job at a Charlotte pizzeria. Her 21-year-old boyfriend, Stanislav ‘Stas’ Nikulytsia, has blasted the justice system and called the magistrate who freed Brown “unqualified.”
“The system enabled a violent repeat offender to take Iryna from us,” he said.
The attack, captured on chilling CCTV, showed Brown slashing at Zarutska from behind while she wore headphones, unaware of what was happening.
Now, as her loved ones mourn and demand justice, Brown’s own family is left confessing that the man accused of killing her was crying out for help long before he finally broke.