Though the Iryna Zarutska case is still getting a lot of attention here in North Carolina, nationally, it has pretty much fallen out of the headlines, with other stories taking precedence.
That changed last Tuesday during the State of the Union address, when President Donald Trump revisited the case of the 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, who was stabbed to death in August 2025 after hopping on the Charlotte light rail system on her way home from a shift at a local pizzeria.
Her alleged killer, 34-year-old DeCarlos Brown Jr., was a violent repeat offender under former Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper’s watch.
“We are honored to be joined tonight by a woman who’s been through hell, Anna Zarutska,” Trump began during his speech, referencing Iryna’s mother, Anna.
“In 2022, she and her beautiful daughter — so beautiful, what a beautiful young woman — Iryna fled war-torn Ukraine to live with relatives near Charlotte, North Carolina. And by the way, what’s going on with Charlotte?
“Last summer, 23-year-old Iryna was riding home on the train when a deranged monster who had been arrested over a dozen times and was released through no cash bail stood up and viciously slashed a knife through her neck and body. No one will ever forget.
“No one will ever forget the expression of terror on Iryna’s face as she looked up at her attacker in the last seconds of her life. She died instantly. She had escaped a brutal war, only to be slain by a hardened criminal set free to kill in America.”
Trump then promised to “ensure justice” for Iryna Zarutska. Brown, who is facing state and federal charges related to her murder, faces a possible death sentence if found mentally competent to stand trial and convicted.
At Trump’s mention of Zarutska’s name, former state and national RNC Chairman Michael Whatley, the expected GOP nominee in the Senate race to replace Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, posted on X a powerful new ad focusing on Zarutska’s case and her alleged killer, which included disturbing video snippets from the light rail footage of that night.
“As he said in the State of the Union, Iryna’s life was stolen by a violent criminal who should never have been on our streets — a heartbreaking reminder of why protecting families must come first,” Whatley wrote.
“Roy Cooper has Iryna Zarutska’s blood on his hands,” he concluded.
Cooper’s campaign has been quick to push back on allegations he was soft on crime, pointing in part to his 16-year record as state attorney general. They’ve been even more persistent in trying to counter reports that Brown Jr. was part of a 2021 early-release settlement deal made between the Cooper administration and the NAACP during the COVID-19 pandemic.
While Brown Jr.’s name was on a list of 3,500 inmates for early release, he had already been released after serving his mandatory minimum sentence for another crime — “robbery with a dangerous weapon,” according to WSOC-TV.
Regardless, as noted above, Brown was a revolving-door offender under Cooper’s watch, and at a time when Cooper was proudly boasting of his Task Force for Racial Equity and Criminal Justice, from which the implemented recommendations included a focus on “solutions” like pretrial release programs and destigmatizing and decriminalizing homelessness.
In other words, the exact soft-on-crime policies Cooper pushed for during his eight years as N.C.’s governor are the type of policies that had Brown Jr. back on the streets to victimize other innocent people, including, allegedly, Zarutska.
With crime remaining a top issue for voters headed into the 2026 midterms, Cooper can expect this case, and his troubling public safety record as both AG and governor, to remain in the spotlight for the duration of the campaign — as they should be.
North Carolina native Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a media analyst and regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.
