The recent murders of Iryna Zarutska of Charlotte and Zoe Welsh of Raleigh have brought scrutiny over how North Carolina’s criminal justice system handles such cases and what can be done to improve the system to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future.
Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, was allegedly stabbed in the neck on Aug. 22 by 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr. on Charlotte’s Lynx Blue Line on her way home from work. He was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
Brown, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia, had been previously arrested 14 times, including for felonies…