DeCarlos Brown Again Found Mentally Incompetent to Stand Trial 

Federal evaluators have found that DeCarlos Brown, the man accused of fatally stabbing a Ukrainian refugee last year on a Charlotte light rail train, is mentally incompetent to stand trial, according to new court documents filed Thursday. 

This is the second time that a forensic psychiatrist has found Brown mentally incompetent to stand trial. Brown, 35, faces charges in state and federal courts for the death of Iryna Zarutska, 23, in August 2025. He was indicted in Mecklenburg Superior Court on charges of first-degree murder. In federal court, Brown has been charged with committing an act of violence resulting in death on a mass transportation system. If convicted of either charge, he could face the death penalty. 

The federal case is being prosecuted in U.S. District Court in the Western District of North Carolina. The next step would be for a federal judge to hold a competency hearing. If the judge rules that Brown is mentally incompetent to stand trial, Brown would then be sent to a secured prison medical facility for at least four months, where prison medical officials would determine if his mental capacity could be restored. 

This is the latest development in a case that has grabbed national headlines, and one that Republicans have used to blame Democrats for being soft on crime. Surveillance cameras captured the brutal stabbing of Zarutska, who had come to the United States from war-torn Ukraine. The footage was publicly released last September and quickly went viral. 

In February, President Donald Trump invited Zarutska’s mother to the State of the Union, where he called Brown a “deranged monster” and falsely claimed that he “came through open borders.” (Brown was born in Charlotte.) That same month, the N.C. House Oversight Committee held a hearing in which Republican legislators lambasted Charlotte leaders over Zarutska’s death. 

The Republican-led General Assembly also passed a bill named for her, and Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, signed it last year. Among other things, the new law restricts pre-trial release and seeks to revive the state’s long-dormant death penalty. 

Brown’s attorneys argue in court documents that he has a long history of mental illness that centers around his belief that he was exposed to a material that controls his every movement. 

“He refers to it as his Body Emergency,” attorneys Megan Hoffman and Joshua Kendrick write. “His delusions are constant and persistent.”

Brown has sought help many times, including from law enforcement, about his delusions, Hoffman and Kendrick write. Brown’s mother, Michelle DeWitt, told media outlets that after his release from prison in 2020 for armed robbery, he started changing, slamming doors and yelling. She said he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and prescribed medication, but he refused to take it. 

His family took him to a mental-health facility, but it didn’t have enough beds to take him, DeWitt said. She petitioned a magistrate to involuntarily commit him, and a hospital kept him for 14 days. Brown was then released into the family’s care. 

DeWitt told ABC News that they dropped him off at a men’s shelter. In recent months, she said she saw him on the streets. 

Brown appeared to begin spiraling into a mental-health crisis in 2024. Officers were dispatched to the Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center five times on a single day because a “schizophrenic individual”—Brown—kept calling 911, according to an incident report. That night, Brown moved a couple of blocks away and continued to call 911, “requesting help when it was not needed,” according to the incident report. Police arrested him for misusing the 911 system, a misdemeanor. 

In January 2025, police again went to Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center, where Brown had been repeatedly calling 911. According to a charging document, Brown told officers that “he believed someone had gave him a ‘man-made’ material that controlled what he ate, walked, talked, etc. Brown wanted officers to investigate this ‘man-made’ material that was inside of his body.”

When officers said they couldn’t help him, Brown called 911 again and asked to speak with different officers. Police again arrested him for misusing 911. That charge is still pending. 

“For years, DeCarlos Brown has suffered from debilitating mental illness and impairment, including severe delusions,” Hoffman and Kendrick said in a statement.

Now, mental health examiners for both the state and federal government have concluded Brown is mentally incompetent to stand trial, Hoffman and Kendrick said. 

“Our Constitution requires that when a defendant like Mr. Brown is too mentally ill and impaired to understand the charges against him or to work with his defense team, he cannot be tried in that condition,” they said. 

But Brown’s attorneys and federal prosecutors both emphasized that this does not mean the case has ended. Federal prosecutors Edward Ryan and Daniel Cervantes said in court documents that whatever happens, Brown won’t be released anytime soon. If it’s found that Brown’s mental competency could not be restored, he would still be subject to an involuntary commitment.