By Editor,Rachel Sharp

Copyright dailymail

The graphic, nightmarish video captured the terror in Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska’s eyes as she cowered from the man who had just attacked her.

Moments later, she collapsed lifeless on to the floor of the crowded, light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Zarutska did not know the man who allegedly plunged a knife into her neck in a random, unprovoked attack.

They hadn’t even had a glimmer of interaction when the 23-year-old boarded the train to commute home from her job at a pizza parlor.

But the man – 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr. – was well-known to law enforcement.

And so too was his family.

As the nation reels from the unprovoked murder of a woman who had fled the war in her home country for a new life in America, the Daily Mail has uncovered new details about the criminal past of Brown’s family.

And haunting parallels have emerged between Brown’s alleged crimes and those of his younger brother Stacey Dejon Brown.

Court records and police reports show Stacey – one year Brown’s junior – is currently serving a 36-year sentence in state prison for the 2012 murder of a 65-year-old man.

In Stacey’s case, he and an accomplice had tried to rob the victim, Robert Heym.

Stacey – then aged 20 – pulled a gun and shot Heym in the face.

Like Zarutska, Heym was simply traveling home on Charlotte’s light rail train after a day’s work.

Like Zarutska, Heym had moved to the city in the hopes of a better life.

And like Zarutska, Heym never made it home that night because of an unprovoked attack at the hands of a career criminal he never even knew.

Stacey’s links to the murder that has become a flashpoint in the US don’t end there.

The then-20-year-old used the very same light rail train system on which his brother allegedly killed the 23-year-old Ukrainian as the escape route from his own horrific crime more than a decade earlier.

The 2012 murder of Heym marked the climactic point of what had been a life of crime all by the tender age of 20.

Between October 2011 and October 2012, Stacey had at least 10 run-ins with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, records obtained by the Daily Mail reveal.

In total, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department told the Daily Mail they had multiple pages worth of police reports on Stacey.

The police department told the Daily Mail the records do not include juvenile arrests or convictions – meaning Stacey racked up all the known interactions in just two years since turning 18.

The first report, dated July 2010, shows an arrest for trespassing.

The crimes quickly escalated from there, including arrests for assault, vehicular theft, and felony breaking and entering.

August 2010 saw an arrest for assaulting an on-duty police officer.

In October 2011, Stacey allegedly carjacked a yellow cab driver at gunpoint, stealing the vehicle, his cell phone and money and wallet.

The same month, a police report recorded Stacey and two others attacking a man and stealing his firearm, while weeks later he was arrested for breaking into an apartment.

In June 2012, he was arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman. A different woman reported three months earlier that he had stolen her debit/check card from her bedroom and taken $300 from it.

The final police report was the most serious – for the murder of Robert Heym in October 2012.

At that time, Stacey was just 20 years old.

Like Zarustka one decade later, Heym had moved to Charlotte for a better life.

His high school friend Carole Ross told local outlet WSOC-TV at the time that Heym had fallen onto hard times in New York and ended up living on the streets.

Ross revealed she convinced him to move to Charlotte in 2004 and life had been looking up for him since.

He moved into a home in the south of the city and got a new job at BJ’s Warehouse.

On the night of October 23, 2012, Heym finished his shift at the store and took the light rail to the stop near his home.

He was walking the final part of his journey home when Stacey and his accomplice Roderick Crawford approached him at around 9pm.

The two men tried to rob the 65-year-old of his cell phone.

When Heym resisted his attackers, Stacey pulled out a shotgun and shot him in the face.

Heym died from his injuries at the scene. He was only a few blocks away from his home.

Investigators quickly learned the shocking killing was part of a three-prong crime spree where another victim also narrowly escaped with his life.

One night before Heym’s murder, Stacey shot another victim for $17 in cash, according to the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office and police records.

It was around 9pm on October 22, 2012, when Stacey, Crawford and a third accomplice Joshwah Townsend robbed Kevin Eugene Robinson at gunpoint.

They stole a green Army Sack, $17 in cash and a money clip.

Robinson tried to flee his attackers.

Stacey shot him in the back with a single barrel sawed-off shotgun as he ran away.

Miraculously, Robinson managed to keep running until he got to his sister’s apartment nearby for help.

He suffered serious injuries, but survived.

Three months earlier on July 19, 2012, Brown and an accomplice had also used bricks to break into three vehicles in the parking garage of a Holiday Inn.

They stole a stash of personal belongings from inside including an XBOX 360, LG TV and several pairs of Air Jordan sneakers before being arrested on the scene.

Stacey and Crawford were arrested one day after Heym’s murder and Stacey was ultimately charged with all three incidents.

In April 2014, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, two counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and breaking or entering a motor vehicle in April 2014.

He was sentenced to 36 years in prison.

Stacey’s life behind bars has been equally volatile.

Prison records show he has racked up 44 infractions since he was sent to Eastern Correctional Institution – a 450-strong inmate facility in Maury, North Carolina.

Among the long list of bad behavior is: fighting, involvement with a gang, extortion, active rioting, threatening to harm or injure staff, possession of a weapon, assault with a weapon, setting fires, possession of a substance and theft.

A third brother of Brown told the New York Post that side of the family has a long criminal history.

‘He was on my father’s side. They have a record of being in jail and stuff,’ Jeremiah, who shares the same father as Brown and Stacy, said of Brown.

Their father Decarlos Brown Sr. has several prior arrests including for breaking and entering, felony conspiracy, theft, possession of stolen goods and possession of a weapon on a university campus.

Brown’s sister Tracey Vontrea Brown – Stacey’s twin – has also had several brushes with the law.

Police records reviewed by the Daily Mail show Tracey, 33, was recently arrested in May 2024 for misdemeanor larceny and felony conspiracy.

Three months earlier, she was arrested for misdemeanor shoplifting, Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office records show.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police records show the 33-year-old has also been the victim of several crimes including assaults.

A Monroe Police Department report also shows she was the victim of a kidnapping in July 2024.

In 2022, Brown allegedly assaulted his younger sister inside her home, not long after being released from prison.

Tracey told the Daily Mail about the incident in a recent interview, revealing he bit her hand when she asked him to clean the house.

The police were called but she later dropped the charges.

‘I dropped the charges because I understand him on a deeper level, because I was trying to put myself in his shoes,’ she said.

‘I understood what he was going through and I knew that he just needed to talk about it.’

Tracey said that she and her siblings had been removed from their parents’ care and grew up in the foster care system.

Brown had always been a ‘protective’ older brother to her but changed after his first stint in prison for armed robbery.

‘When he came home, he was not the same brother that I remember,’ she said.

‘He seemed like he was not in our reality any more,’ she added.

Brown’s arrest record dates back to 2007 and convictions for armed robbery, felony larceny and breaking and entering.

After his release from prison in 2020, Tracey said it was clear he was struggling with mental health issues and he was homeless.

He told family members the government was controlling his brain and had sought mental health treatment several times in recent years, she said.

‘I strongly feel like he should not have been on the streets at all,’ Tracey said.

‘I’m going to be honest. I’m not blaming anyone for his actions, except for the state. I’m blaming the state for letting him down as far as seeking help.

‘When you have mentally ill people seeking help, and you’re running tests on them, and you clearly see that you are dealing with a psychosis on an acute level, you do not let them go back into society.

‘He was a high risk. He was not in his right mind. He was not safe for society.’

Brown was arrested in January for misusing the 911 dispatch. At the time, he told officers a ‘man-made’ material was controlling him.

He was released with no bond.

Months later, in August 2022, he boarded the light rail in Charlotte.

Zarutska boarded the train and sat on the seat in front of him.

Seconds later, Brown allegedly pulled out a knife and stabbed Zarutska fatally in the neck.

Since his arrest, Brown claimed to Tracey that the government-controlled materials in his brain did it.

‘They just lashed out on her, that’s what happened,’ Decarlos said in a jailhouse call obtained by the Daily Mail.

‘Whoever was working the materials they lashed out on her. That’s all there is to it.