BREAKING: The Final Echo of Iryna Zarutska’s Voice
In the dim confines of a Kyiv apartment, where the distant rumble of war still echoes like a persistent nightmare, Stanislav Zarutskyi sat alone on September 22, 2025—one month after his daughter’s brutal murder on a Charlotte train. The 50-year-old Ukrainian father, finally granted humanitarian leave after weeks of bureaucratic battles and “absurd” media rumors, had arrived in the U.S. too late for Iryna Zarutska’s funeral but in time to sift through the shards of her stolen life. Clutching his phone, its screen cracked from months of anxious grip, Stanislav stared at the unopened voice message from August 22, 2025—sent at 9:42 p.m. Eastern Time, just four minutes before DeCarlos Brown Jr.’s knife ended her 23 years. “I couldn’t bear it,” he revealed in an exclusive interview with Ukrainska Pravda, his voice a gravel of grief. “Her laugh, her words… what if they were goodbye?” Last night, under the weight of a vigil’s candles and a nation’s outrage, he finally pressed play. What emerged—her lilting voice, laced with excitement about a new sketch, followed by a sudden, muffled thud and a gasp—has shattered him anew. That recording, timestamped seconds before the attack, has now been handed to U.S. investigators as pivotal evidence, capturing ambient sounds that align chillingly with surveillance: the rustle of a hoodie, a footstep, the prelude to violence.
Stanislav’s revelation, shared tearfully via video call with family in Huntersville, North Carolina, adds a visceral layer to Iryna’s tragedy, transforming a father’s private torment into a public requiem. The message, a 28-second clip on WhatsApp, begins with her familiar warmth: “Tato, listen—I drew a mushroom house today, like the ones in the forest near Babushka’s. Stas says it’s perfect for our home. Miss you. Call soon?” Her English-Ukrainian blend, honed in pizzeria shifts and community college, bubbles with that unyielding optimism that defined her. Then, abruptly, the noise: a low scuffle, as if someone shifted seats; a faint metallic click, perhaps Brown’s folding knife unfolding; and her sharp intake of breath, cut off mid-sentence. “It ends there,” Stanislav choked out, replaying it for Charlotte-Mecklenburg detectives this morning. “Like her life—snuffed.” Forensics experts, per a source close to the probe, confirm the audio’s timestamp syncs with train metadata, the “thud” matching the moment Brown, 34, with his untreated schizophrenia and litany of priors, lunged from behind at Scaleybark Station.
Iryna’s story, already a mosaic of loss, gains this auditory ghost. Born May 22, 2002, in Kyiv, she was an artist’s soul, her Synergy College degree in art restoration a testament to hands that revived the faded. Russia’s 2022 invasion hurled her family—mother Anna, sister Valeriia, brother Bohdan—into a bomb shelter’s gloom, Stanislav anchored by conscription laws barring men 18-60 from fleeing. “We left him to the wolves,” Anna wept at the September 15 funeral, where Bohdan brandished Iryna’s keychain—a house charm for their dreamed bungalow, its key vanished like her future. By late 2022, Iryna landed in Huntersville, crashing with uncle Scott Haskell, her “strong desire for a better life” igniting swift adaptation: English mastered, pizzas slung at Zepeddie’s, veterinary dreams sketched amid dog walks. With fiancé Stas Nikulytsia, a fellow émigré, she wove a tapestry in NoDa—driving lessons, a bought car, wedding booked for December 15 at McDowell Nature Preserve, vows under oaks laced with Ukrainian folk.
That voice message was routine tenderness, sent mid-ride home. “She called me ‘Tato’ always,” Stanislav said, echoing the Kyiv forests where she’d hum “Oy Khodytʹ Son,” the lullaby a cousin swore echoed faintly in her final train gasps. Stas, arriving one minute late at 36th Street—cameras capturing his scan of empty platform—now pairs it with their ritual: “Promise you’ll wait.” The recording’s handover to federal prosecutors, backed by AG Pam Bondi, bolsters murder charges against Brown, freed in January by Magistrate Teresa Stokes on a “written promise” despite violations. “This is her witness,” Stas posted on Instagram September 23, overlaying a snippet (audio blurred for privacy) with her tribute reel: pool leaps, cocktail mixes, laughter under string lights, set to Moby’s “The Last Day”—15 million views and climbing. X ignited: #IrynasVoice surged, users splicing it with surveillance stills, demanding “audio forensics now.” Activist Xaviaer DuRousseau tweeted: “Her gasp indicts us all—bystanders, bail, borders.” 50,000 likes, a chorus of fury.
The sound’s evidentiary weight ripples outward. Audio experts, consulted by WSOC-TV, note the “click” aligns with knife deployment, the scuffle with Brown’s approach—four minutes after Iryna boarded at 9:46 p.m., texting Stas: “On my way.” Surveillance etched the horror: three neck stabs, blood arcing, 94 seconds of agony—mouthing “help” (misread as “don’t”), eyes pleading right into frozen faces, one filming her fade. Before the blade, she scribbled a receipt—folded twice, resurfaced at the September 22 vigil where Anna placed it amid candles, wailing, “I don’t need money, I need my daughter.” A bloodied veil doily, embroidered “I.Z. & S.N.,” arrived at the wedding venue days later, forensics tying stains to her type. Now, this voice—her final to her father—joins the anomalies: keychain sans key at the funeral, lullaby in the din.
Stanislav’s play last night, post-vigil at East/West Boulevard where 1,000 candles flickered under Ukrainian songs by Tatyana Thulien, was catharsis laced with torment. “I heard her live again,” he told Babel.ua, voice fracturing. “Then… the monster.” Rumors of his funeral absence—fueled by Daily Mail reports of wartime bans—were debunked September 17 by Ukraine’s State Border Guard: “Absurd. He left on humanitarian grounds, with consular aid.” Yet he arrived post-burial, viewing the Huntersville service via pixels, the $450,000 GoFundMe a hollow balm. “She bought that car with tips—for our home,” he said, echoing Bohdan’s keychain reveal. Mayor Vi Lyles mourned the “heartbreaking” footage; Trump, flashing her photo, vowed death penalty: “Quick trial. No mercy.” “Iryna’s Law,” HB 307, advanced in NC Assembly September 22, targeting bail, transit guards, mental holds—Brown’s crises ignored, no officers in her car.
Broader debates simmer: racial framings—”white girl vs. black offender”—draw Substack ire from Terrell J. Starr: “Ukrainian, not prop.” Bystander chill stings: a woman walked away, phones out over hands. DaBaby’s “Save Me” re-enactment donates proceeds, flipping script to rescue; Elon Musk funds NoDa murals. Stas haunts platforms: “Her voice to Tato—now evidence. But for what? Justice?” The recording, secured in evidence lockers, awaits enhancement—perhaps amplifying that thud to damning clarity.
For Stanislav, back in Kyiv by dawn, the message loops eternally: joy, then rupture. Iryna fled bombs for this—voice to father, dreams of home, wedding whispers. That noise following her words? Not silence, but indictment: of systems slack, societies numb. As her gasp enters court records, it demands reckoning—not just for Brown, but for the prelude. In its echo, Iryna speaks still: artist, refugee, daughter unbroken. Press play, world. Listen. Act.
