After Decarlos Brown Jr. was arrested in late August and accused in the fatal stabbing of a Ukrainian refugee aboard a Charlotte light rail train — a killing that has drawn statewide and national attention — a capacity evaluation was quickly ordered by the court. The evaluation is the first step in a process that could determine whether Brown is mentally competent to stand trial. The result will begin to inform how the case moves forward.
Brown, 35, reportedly has schizophrenia and was homeless at the time of the killing. In a recorded jail phone call with his sister, obtained by ABC News after his arrest, he tells her that “material in his body” was controlling him at the time of the attack on 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska.
Seven months earlier, during a January encounter with law enforcement — when he was charged with a low-level misdemeanor for repeatedly calling 911 — Brown similarly told officers that “he believed someone gave him a ‘man-made’ material that controlled when he ate, walked, talked, etc.”…