The mother of Decarlos Brown, the man suspected of killing Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte train, is asking the victim’s family to forgive her son.

“I hope and pray that one day they find it in their heart to forgive my son, and that they realize that I am praying for their family,” Michelle Dewitt tells the Charlotte Observer.

Ms. Dewitt says she is horrified by the crime and says Zarutska did not deserve to die at her son’s hands. She says her son was diagnosed with schizophrenia and the family had struggled to get help for him.

Brown is blaming government-implanted “materials” in his brain for the killing, according to a jailhouse phone conversation recorded by his sister.

“The material. Put it like that. The material using my body. It’s that. You know, that’s not me,” Brown says in the jailhouse phone call recorded by Tracy Brown and provided to the Daily Mail.

“I’m talking about just for no reason. But since they did that, since they did that, now they got to investigate the material my body exposed to. Since they want to do all that, now they got to investigate.”

The August 28 call bolsters the family’s claims that he is mentally unstable.

Brown told his sister that the government was in control of his actions when he pulled a knife on an unsuspecting Zarutska and slashed her to death on August 22. The killing was captured in surveillance video and has been widely shared on social media.

“I hurt my hand, stabbing her. I don’t even know the lady,” Brown says in the recording. “I never said not one word to the lady at all. That’s scary, ain’t it. Why would somebody stab somebody for no reason?”

Ms. Brown says she visited her brother again last week at the Mecklenburg County Jail, where he told her through a glass window that he targeted Zarutska because he believed she was “reading his mind.”

Ms. Brown reiterated the family’s view that he should not have been on the streets. “He was a high risk. He was not in his right mind. He was not safe for society,” Ms. Brown says.

Brown has a long rap sheet and served five years for armed robbery. His sister says he came out of prison changed. Once reserved, she said he had become unpredictable and lashed out.

Ms. Brown says her brother was arrested in 2022 for assaulting her when she asked him to keep his room clean. She says Brown bit her hand in the attack.

Brown was arrested again this year on charges related to the misuse of the 911 system after calling to complain that someone had given him a “man-made material” controlling his actions. Court records show that Magistrate Teresa Stokes released him without bond as long as he promised to appear at follow-up hearings.

In July, another judge ordered a mental evaluation for Brown after a public defender questioned his mental capacity to stand trial. The evaluation was never completed and Brown remained free until Zarutska’s murder.

The mayor of Charlotte, Vi Lyles, blamed the killing on the courts and magistrates. “Our police officers arrest people only to have them quickly released, which undermines our ability to protect our community and ensure safety,” Ms. Lyles said in a statement on Monday.

“We need a bipartisan solution to address repeat offenders who do not face consequences for their action,” her message to the community continued.

The local police union is blasting Ms. Lyles for that comment.

“What a concept. Maybe if the mayor followed our Facebook page … for maybe the past 5 years or so, she’d see we’ve been complaining about this and calling for action,” the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Fraternal Order of Police said in a Facebook response to the mayor.

Brown is now being held without bail on the murder charge. President Trump has called for the death penalty in the case.

Zarutska’s family is speaking out on the killing for the first time.

“We are heartbroken beyond words. Iryna came here to find peace and safety, and instead her life was stolen from her in the most horrific way,” a statement released Wednesday to local media outlets says. “No family should have to go through this.”