Iryna Zarutska's criminal killer said 'I got that white girl' after stabbing her to death on Charlotte light rail

Decarlos Brown wandered through the light rail car after stabbing Ukranian refugee Iryna Zarutska to death muttering "I got that white girl, I got that white girl." Brown was sitting behind Zarutska on the train when, without warning or any interaction with her, he took out his knife, unfolded it, and stabbed her repeatedly.

After the stabbing, he got up from his seat and wandered through the train car, other riders getting out of his way. After about 90 seconds, others on the train tried to aid Zarutska, but she had been stabbed multiple times, including in the throat.

"The train travels for approximately four and half minutes before the suspect pulls knife from his pocket, unfolds the knife, pauses, then stands up, and strikes at the victim three times," police said in a report.

"Blood visibly drips on the floor as the defendant walks away from the victim. The victim goes unresponsive shortly after the attack. The defendant is the assailant on the video. There appears to be no interaction between the victim and defendant," according to police.

"I got that white girl, I got that white girl," said Brown, walking up and down the car. He tracked blood through the car and took off his blood-spattered sweatshirt. "Oh shit," he said standing by an exit door. He then mumbled unintelligibly.

The others on the car just moved out of his way. Brown is a career criminal who had been arrested 14 times, most recently in 2025 when he was let go without bail. A psych evaluation was ordered for him but was never carried out. He previously spent time in prison on felony robbery charges and when he was released, in 2020, he was arrested for assaulting his sister.

Brian Stelter claimed on CNN that the reaction to the stabbing was "racist" and being used for political gain. "Most murders in the US never become national news. This one’s garnered attention for a couple of reasons," he said. Among those, he said, was the recent release of the video.

Zarutska was murdered on August 22, but the video was just released over the weekend, prompting an outcry due to the brutality and randomness of it. Stelter also cited the "energy from pro-Trump activists. They picked up on this video from local news and ran with it. It’s a little bit like the times when civil rights groups have raised attention about police-involved shootings."

But, Stelter said, "Some of the comments around this story are baldly racist, stoking fear of African Americans because this man attacked a white woman. The open racism on sites like X today, it's eye popping."

Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles, who took a knee for George Floyd in 2020 and penned an op-ed in a local weekly on the anniversary of his death in Minneapolis while in police custody, praised media outlets for not showing the video of Zarutska's murder.

"The video," said Lyles, "is now public. I want to thank our media partners and community members who have chosen not to repost or share the footage of out of respect for Iryna's family."

"We will never arrest our way out of issues such as homelessness and mental health," Lyles said regarding the career criminal Brown. "Mental health disease is just that — a disease like any other that needs to be treated with the same compassion, diligence and commitment as cancer or heart disease."