North Carolina Magistrate Judge Teresa Stoke released DeCarlos Brown Jr. months before he allegedly murdered a Ukrainian refugee.
Judge Teresa Stokes has attracted scrutiny on social media after it emerged that she presided over a previous case involving DeCarlos Brown Jr. months before he was accused of murdering a Ukrainian refugee.
Brown, 34, has been charged with the murder of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, who was stabbed in Charlotte, North Carolina, on August 22.
Records show that Brown has been arrested 14 times in over a decade and was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
He has previously been convicted of felony larceny, robbery with a dangerous weapon and communicating threats, leading to a six-year prison sentence in 2015 for incidents dating to 2013 and 2014. He was released in 2020; then, months later, he was charged with assaulting his sister.The Context
The attack occurred on the Lynx Blue Line near the Camden Road area in Charlotte’s South End shortly before 10 p.m., police said. A video released by the Charlotte Area Transit System shows Zarutska sitting on the train shortly before Brown allegedly stood up and stabbed her in the neck from behind with a folding knife.
Zarutska was pronounced dead at the scene, and a suspect was taken to the hospital for treatment due to a hand injury. A folding knife was located near the platform, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
Brown’s criminal history, as well as the crime for which he has now been charged, raises questions about Stokes’ judgment and whether Brown should have been released.What To Know
Stokes is a magistrate judge for the Charlotte District in Mecklenburg County Court, North Carolina.
She has also been linked to a charity that provides mental health and addiction support by social media users, though Newsweek was unable to verify these claims.
