Accountability is assigned to a person who can take responsibility. There are very few people on this planet who are unable to take responsibility for their actions. These include non-verbal autistic children, those with Down syndrome, and individuals with severe cerebral palsy. These are very rare cases—and even among them, you don't see a high number of murders. Almost non-existent.
But a non-disabled adult male who is clearly capable of feeding himself, clothing himself, navigating public transit, and engaging in the necessities of staying alive is absolutely capable of accountability. That's why it's so insane that a North Carolina killer who has been held accountable by the courts many, multiple times has now been found not competent to stand trial in the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska.
Iryna Zarutska survived a war zone. She lived in a bomb shelter in Kyiv, packed up what she had, and came to Charlotte, North Carolina, with her mother, sister, and brother. She got a job at a pizzeria, enrolled in community college, walked neighbors' dogs, and worked toward becoming a veterinary assistant.
On August 22, 2025, she boarded the Lynx Blue Line after a long shift, still in her work uniform, earbuds in, phone in hand. She sat down in front of a man she'd never seen. Four minutes later, Decarlos Brown Jr. pulled out a folding knife and stabbed her three times from behind. Surveillance photos show her terror. She bled out on the floor of the train while other passengers watched and did nothing.
Brown was arrested on the platform. He faces both state and federal murder charges. This week, his attorneys filed a motion to delay an upcoming April 30 court hearing—and in doing so, revealed that a state psychiatric hospital had evaluated him back in December and found him "incapable to proceed" to trial. Those findings had been sealed for three months. A scheduled court date finally forced them into the open.
A man who stabbed a 23-year-old woman to death on a commuter train, in front of witnesses, on camera, may never set foot in a courtroom for it. After the killing he said "I got that white girl."
Brown has 14 prior arrests. He served five years in prison between 2015 and 2020 for armed robbery, breaking and entering, and larceny. Five years in state custody with no documented mental health evaluation. However, starting in 2024, Brown began experiencing what appeared to be hallucinations and paranoia, making repeated bogus calls to 911.
Then, in January 2025, he was arrested for those 911 calls—he'd been calling repeatedly from a hospital, telling officers a man-made substance had been implanted in his body to control when he ate, walked, and talked. He was released the same day on a written promise to appear in court.
His public defender, seeing obvious signs of psychiatric instability, requested a mental health evaluation to determine whether Brown could even understand the charges against him or participate in his own defense. A judge signed the order. Brown was told to show up for it himself within seven days. A man with active paranoid delusions was expected to schedule and attend his own psychiatric evaluation. He didn't go. Nobody followed up. Three weeks later, Iryna Zarutska was dead.
Even with a mental health diagnosis, murder still happened, and someone—whether mentally competent or not—needs to be held accountable for it. Giving someone a pass because of auditory or visual hallucinations is not justice or human rights. You're taking away the human rights of millions of people who have to live in a world where a mental health patient gets a pass. Give Iryna’s family their day in court and allow this man to be held guilty for his crime. There is no other justice.
A judge still has to accept the hospital's findings formally. The court could reject them and order a second evaluation—unlikely, but possible—and at this point, one of the few slivers of accountability left on the state side.
The federal case is a matter entirely different. Brown faces a separate federal indictment for committing an act of violence causing death on a mass transportation system, proceeding independently of the state case, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty.
Under North Carolina law, the state murder charge alone could be dismissed after just ten years. The federal case is the last real shot at a reckoning.
There is no justification to provide Brown with leniency, mercy, or human decency. He has been a menace to society for nearly 20 years and finally ended his criminal career with murder, only to now be deemed "incompetent"—given a second chance at the destructive life he leads.
Human rights are human rights until you give them up. Brown gave up his rights the moment he took out that knife, and he needs to be judged accordingly.
Soad Tabrizi is a licensed marriage and family therapist with a private practice based in Orange County, CA (www.soadtabrizi.com). Soad is also the founder of www.ConservativeCounselors.com.
