Iryna Zarutska's accused murderer reportedly was released in 2021 under a COVID-19 settlement signed by then-Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat.
That resurfaced detail prompted Republican North Carolina Senate candidate Michael Whatley to warn voters before arguably the nation's biggest midterm battleground race.
"Roy Cooper's reckless decisions put North Carolinians in danger and cost an innocent woman her life," Whatley wrote in a statement emailed Wednesday to Newsmax. "He released repeat offender Decarlos Brown who later brutally murdered Iryna Zarutska."
North Carolina civil rights groups struck a February 2021 deal with then-Gov. Cooper's administration to allow for the early release of 3,500 inmates in state custody under the guise that COVID-19 pandemic conditions violated inmates' rights under the state constitution.
Decarlos Brown, a repeat offender among those released, was alleged to have gone on to murder Zarutska, 23, on a Charlotte train on Aug. 22.
"Cooper told the public the inmates he released were not violent: That was a lie," Whatley said in his statement.
Further, when exposed for his policy letting the killer free, Cooper called it merely an attempt to score "political points."
"When the truth came out, he tried to cover it up instead of taking responsibility," Whatley's statement said. "An innocent woman is dead, the blood is on Roy Cooper's hands, and he continues to lie rather than answer for the deadly consequences of his pro-criminal, anti-victim agenda.
"He has disqualified himself from serving in public office."
Newsmax reached out to Cooper's campaign for a comment.
North Carolina has become a key battleground state, and the winner of a prospective Whatley-Cooper race in November could help determine the Senate majority for the final two years of President Donald Trump's second administration.
While Whatley, the former Republican National Committee chair during Trump’s 2024 victory, is enthusiastically endorsed by Trump, the Republican trails by nearly double digits (8.6 points) against Cooper, according to the RealClear Politics polling average.
That data is mostly skewed outside of prospective margins of error by a registered voters poll that had given Cooper a 24-point edge in a hypothetical matchup, which amounts to a wild data outlier.
Trump will take interest in this race as he attempts to help his party keep the Senate majority as political history portends a flipping of the House to Democrats. Trump said Democrats will seek "impeachment" on whatever case they can try to make with political control of Congress.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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