[month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone] A mural of Iryna Zarutska at 2415 W. Montrose Ave. in North Center, Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times Flipboard Near the corner of Western and Montrose avenues, a large mural has conspicuously appeared on the side of a brick building where a taqueria is situated. The painting is of Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who was fatally stabbed Aug. 22 while riding a train home from work in Charlotte, North Carolina. It depicts her in a blue shirt, from her shoulders up, along with her name and “2002-2025” written in white. No artist signed the mural. “It’s good to keep this memory of this innocent girl,” said Halyna Parasiuk, archivist at the Ukrainian National Museum of Chicago. Video of the attack went viral on social media, and politicians from both sides quickly condemned the killing. Republicans, including President Donald Trump and his supporters, blamed Democrats for Zarutska’s death because the man charged in the stabbing had been in and out of jail several times over the last decade. Parasiuk has seen the video. It put her “in shock.” She struggles to understand how it happened, and how no witnesses rushed to help Zarutska. Parasiuk simply called the whole situation “really sad.” “It’s not a problem about some party, Democrats or Republicans, I believe. But leaders must be thinking about what’s going on around people, because I believe human life is [the] most important [that all] politicians must care about,” Parasiuk said. The man charged in the killing, Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, had previously served nearly six years in prison for robbery, and had been arrested 14 times in North Carolina dating back more than a decade ago. Brown’s mother said her son suffers from a history of mental health issues, and said he has claimed that he is controlled by an “object” in his head, the Charlotte Observer reported. Trump and other MAGA Republicans have used the case as a political symbol to call for more forcible punishments against people convicted of violent crimes — whether suffering from mental illness or not. Vice President JD Vance said Democrats’ “soft-on-crime” policies were responsible for Zarutska’s death. “She came from a war-torn country, sought shelter in the United States, and because of soft-on-crime policies she was murdered here and not in the war-torn country she came from. Isn’t that a disgrace?” Vance said, speaking to a crowd in September in North Carolina. The painting in Chicago is the only mural seen in its vicinity in the North Center neighborhood, which isn’t necessarily known for its street art, like other parts of the city. But it is apparently the first mural of Zarutska that has appeared in Chicago, following others that have been painted in cities across the U.S., including New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Washington, D.C. Elon Musk, who previously served in the current Trump administration, has pledged at least $1 million toward the effort to paint murals of Zarutska. Musk could not be reached for comment. Eoghan McCabe, CEO of an artificial intelligence service called Intercom, has also led the effort and has contributed at least $500,000. McCabe, who didn’t respond to an interview request, regularly posts photos of murals of Zarutska on the social media platform X. His post of the mural in Chicago says it was painted by an artist known as Sav45. The artist didn’t respond to an interview request. A mural of Iryna Zarutska at 2415 W. Montrose Ave. in North Center,, Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times The mural is painted on the building at 2415 W. Montrose Ave. The building owner, Glascott Realty, did not return several messages seeking comment. A manager at Taqueria 5 De Mayo, which occupies the building, said the mural was finished within the last couple of weeks, and that the restaurant owners hadn’t known about it being painted. A representative for the local Ald. Matt Martin’s office (47th) said he wasn’t involved in the process to approve the mural and was seeking more information about it. ‘No one’s in charge of the mental health system’ Zarutzka’s death, and Brown’s arrest, rekindled nationwide conversations about mental health issues in the criminal justice system. At the time of the attack, Brown had been out on bail on a misdemeanor charge, which is typical for low-level offenses, after he had repeatedly called 911 from a hospital to report a man-made substance that was controlling him, the Charlotte Observer reported. In that case, a North Carolina judge ordered a mental evaluation for Brown a month before Zarutska died. His lawyer said he has a history of mental health issues and he has also motioned in the murder case for an evaluation to determine if he’s fit to stand trial. The disconnect of mental health treatment in the criminal justice system is prevalent across the country, said Mark Heyrman, a former University of Chicago law professor who is on a state task force examining issues of mental health in the criminal justice system. “We don’t have a coordinated system in a variety of ways,” Heyrman said. “...This is true of all 50 states — this isn’t a criticism of Illinois — no one’s in charge of the mental health system in Illinois.” Heyrman said more funding for mental health services would be needed to start creating a coordinated system and help lower recidivism rates. But the Trump administration has been cutting mental health funding, as well as funding for Medicaid, which is the principal funder for mental health services in the U.S. “If you cut that back, you are just going to have more people who are poor, who are not getting mental health services, and therefore will deteriorate and end up either in hospitals, which is expensive, or sometimes in the criminal justice system,” Heyrman said. “So, if you want to prevent that, you have to spend more money on mental health services. You have to make sure everyone is covered.” SHARE