She fled to the US for safety from her war-torn Ukrainian homeland, convinced America would offer the chance of a better life. Instead, Iryna Zarutska met a brutal fate that she wouldn't have even expected from the Russians.
The young, beautiful and kind-hearted blonde who loved animals and dreamed of becoming a veterinary assistant had found a job in a pizza parlour in Charlotte, North Carolina, after emigrating with her mother and two siblings in 2022.
According to her family, she was a 'gifted and passionate artist' who'd 'quickly embraced her new life in the United States'.
Then, on a Friday evening last month, she was returning home by train after a work shift when a deranged homeless man sitting right behind her pulled out a pocketknife and savagely stabbed her in the neck repeatedly.
CCTV footage from the light railway carriage showed her killer suddenly standing up, entirely unprovoked, then slashing the slightly-built refugee three times as she sat engrossed in her phone.
