Heartbreak Deepens in Iryna Zarutska Case: Final Call to Sister and Unanswered Mystery Dial Haunt Charlotte Murder Investigation

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – In a gut-wrenching disclosure that has left a grieving family and a stunned community grappling for answers, Sofia Zarutska, the 19-year-old sister of slain Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, revealed to authorities that she spoke with her sister just 12 minutes before a brutal stabbing ended her life on a Charlotte light rail train. “Don’t worry, I’ll be home soon,” Iryna assured Sofia over the phone at 8:24 p.m. on August 22, 2025, her voice carrying the familiar warmth of an older sibling calming nerves. The call, logged at four minutes long, was filled with mundane plans: dinner, a Netflix binge, and a promise to braid Sofia’s hair for a weekend outing. But a second, chilling detail emerged from Iryna’s phone records, obtained through a Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) subpoena: an unanswered incoming call at 8:29 p.m., moments before she boarded the fatal LYNX Blue Line train. The number, unregistered and tied to a prepaid burner, went to voicemail. No message was left. Who was trying to reach her – and why?

The revelation, detailed in court filings unsealed Thursday, adds a poignant layer to a case already steeped in tragedy and enigma. Iryna, a 23-year-old artist who fled Ukraine’s war-torn streets in 2022, was a beacon of resilience in Charlotte’s tight-knit refugee community. After settling in the U.S. with her mother Anna, sister Sofia, and brother Dmytro, she carved out a modest life as a server at Antonio’s Pizzeria, her paint-splattered sketchbooks and dreams of veterinary school tucked away for quieter days. “She was our rock,” Sofia told investigators through tears, clutching a locket Iryna gifted her for her 18th birthday. Their final call, made as Iryna left a bus stop near Archer Hills, was routine yet tender. “She sounded tired but happy, said the pizza rush was crazy but tips were good,” Sofia recounted in a statement shared with WCNC. “She laughed about our cat Kyiv stealing her socks again. I told her to hurry home.”

That call ended at 8:28 p.m. One minute later, Iryna’s phone logged an incoming call from a number that forensic analysts now describe as a “ghost line” – a prepaid SIM with no linked identity, purchased at a Charlotte gas station two weeks prior. The call rang for 22 seconds, unanswered, before cutting to voicemail. Iryna, perhaps distracted or wary, didn’t pick up. By 8:30 p.m., surveillance footage captures her stepping onto the Blue Line at Scaleybark station, sans the black apron seen on pizzeria CCTV earlier, her expression described by witnesses as “ expectant” as she glanced repeatedly toward the train doors. At 8:36 p.m., her Garmin smartwatch recorded a heart rate spike to 182 bpm – the moment Decarlos Brown Jr., a 34-year-old with a history of violent arrests, allegedly plunged a pocketknife into her neck and torso, severing her jugular. Two minutes later, the watch was manually shut down, a detail that continues to fuel speculation of tampering.

The unanswered call has ignited a firestorm of questions. Was it a coincidence, a wrong number from a burner phone common in Charlotte’s underbelly? Or was it tied to the mysterious figure seen pacing outside the train doors, never boarding, as revealed in prior footage? Sofia’s testimony, coupled with phone data, paints a picture of a young woman on the cusp of danger she may have sensed but couldn’t name. “She’d mentioned creepy messages before,” Sofia told police, referencing Iryna’s unease about anonymous Instagram DMs from a profile tagged to Kyiv, blocked weeks earlier. “I thought she was just jumpy from the war. Now I wonder if she knew someone was watching.” Private investigators hired by the family are tracing the burner number, but prepaid lines, often paid in cash, are notoriously elusive. “It’s like chasing smoke,” said Elena Vasquez, the lead PI, in a press call. “But that call’s timing is too precise to ignore.”

The emotional weight of Sofia’s account has reverberated across Charlotte and beyond, amplified by a swell of grief on social media. On X, where #JusticeForIryna trends with over 3 million impressions, users shared snippets of Sofia’s interview, aired by ABC News. @Chesschick01 posted: “Iryna told her sister she’d be home soon, 12 minutes before dying alone on a train. That unanswered call at 8:29 p.m. – who was it? Her killer’s lookout?” The post, liked 12,000 times, links to a grainy still of the platform lurker, fueling theories of a coordinated attack. Another user, @stillgray, wrote: “Sofia’s words break me. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be home soon.’ Iryna deserved to make it home. Someone out there knows who called her.” The clip of Sofia, eyes red from crying, has 1.8 million views, with comments urging CMPD to cross-reference the burner with local cell tower pings.

Investigators are doubling down. The CMPD’s Digital Evidence Unit, already dissecting the smartwatch shutdown and missing apron, has subpoenaed Verizon for tower data near Scaleybark, hoping to triangulate the caller’s location. Early analysis suggests the call originated within a half-mile radius of the station, overlapping with the lurker’s timeline. “We’re treating it as a potential lead, not a coincidence,” CMPD Chief Johnny Jennings said at a Friday briefing, his voice tight with resolve. The department is also re-canvassing the bus route Iryna took from Antonio’s, where she was last seen with her apron at 6:47 p.m. The 75-minute gap before boarding – and the apron’s disappearance – remains a blind spot, but the unanswered call narrows the window of intrigue to those final, fateful minutes.

Decarlos Brown Jr., charged with first-degree murder and a federal hate crime for targeting a vulnerable immigrant, offers little clarity. Arrested blocks from the scene, blood on his red hoodie and knife, he rambled about “demons” in bodycam footage, consistent with his schizophrenia diagnosis. Released on reduced bond weeks earlier by Magistrate Teresa Stokes – a decision now under ethics scrutiny – Brown’s erratic history doesn’t explain the burner call or the lurker. Could he have had an accomplice, signaling via phone? Or was the call from someone else entirely, perhaps the Instagram stalker Iryna feared? The family’s PI team is digging into her digital footprint, recovering deleted DMs that mention a “shadowy guy” near her bus stop in July. “It’s not just Brown we’re looking at,” Vasquez said. “This feels layered.”

The case’s emotional toll is palpable. Sofia, now 19 and working odd jobs to support her mother and brother, spoke at a vigil outside Antonio’s Pizzeria, where Iryna’s coworkers hung aprons in her memory. “She called me to say she was safe,” Sofia said, voice breaking. “I hear ‘I’ll be home soon’ every night in my dreams.” The GoFundMe for Iryna’s immigrant art scholarship has soared to $300,000, with donors from Kyiv to Charlotte etching tributes: “For Iryna, who painted light in darkness.” A mural of her, holding her cat Kyiv, now adorns the pizzeria’s alley, a splash of color against grief’s gray.

As forensics chase the burner phone – results expected by mid-October – and cameras scour for the lurker’s trail, Iryna’s final words to Sofia echo like a plea. That unanswered call, ringing in the void, may be the thread that ties a random act to a calculated crime. Was it a warning she missed, a predator’s taunt, or a bystander’s failed cry for help? In a city where trains carry dreams but also dangers, Iryna Zarutska’s last promise – “I’ll be home soon” – demands we find out.