The video of Iryna Zarutska’s final moments on that North Carolina train is like something out of a horror movie—not because of the terrible way it ends, but because of how it begins.
Shot from overhead inside the fluorescent-lit interior of a Lynx light rail car in Charlotte, North Carolina, the footage silently tracks the arrival of a slender young woman in glasses and khakis, her hair tucked up under the uniform cap of a local pizzeria. She enters the train, her eyes on the phone in her hand rather than the environment around her; she barely looks up as she drops into an empty seat.
If this were a horror film, this is the moment when the audience would sit up and start shouting at the screen: Oh my god, stop! What are you doing? Don’t sit there!
Because there’s someone else in this shot, sitting in the seat just behind the one the young woman has taken. It is a man whose attire, whose posture, whose mannerisms, and whose mere presence on public transit in this U.S. city at that time of night all signal that he is someone from whom you should keep your distance. Someone you should watch out for even as you pretend not to notice him, and certainly not someone you want to turn your back on.
And that’s before you even notice that he’s holding a knife.
That he’s unfolding it.
That he’s rising behind her, clutching the blade, and raising his hand to strike.
