The Virgin Spring and the murder of Iryna Zarutska: on innocence, evil, images, and retribution
When I was very young – in my early teens – I was alone, flipping around the TV dial late one night, and came across the Ingmar Bergman movie The Virgin Spring.
It’s not for young people. I didn’t know anything about it or about Bergman, but it seemed interesting and I started to watch it. It seemed to be about a medieval family in Sweden and its beautiful blond teenage daughter, who set out on an errand and – well, what happened to her profoundly shocked me. I didn’t see it coming, and it terrified me and affected me deeply enough that I remember it still, all these years later, although certainly not every detail. The images and plot, which featured beauty and innocence defiled, and retribution and revenge (sometimes literally overkill, I might add), were incredibly powerful. I didn’t really understand the movie and yet I partly did, at least on a visceral level.
You may or may not have ever seen the movie. If you haven’t, spoiler alert for the discussion in this clip. But I put the video up here because it features a number of scenes from the movie, and a summary of the film’s themes:
Yesterday, in pondering the murder of Iryna Zarutska, the video images of it that have been circulating, and the reaction to those images, I kept thinking about The Virgin Spring. There is noting racial in the movie, by the way; everyone is white because after all this is Sweden in the 13th century (or 14th, depending on your source). But the theme of evildoers defiling and ending the life of a young blond girl is there, and the “evil versus good” images are extraordinarily powerful. Thus it is with the video and images on the train. The still image of the killer, standing up, hand raised to strike, poised above the diminutive Zarutska who looks younger than her years, is blood-curdling and bone-chilling.
One wants to yell “stop!”, to go back in time and stay his hand. But no one can.
So there is blame, and suggestions for retribution. In this case, there are many many people to blame. The first is, of course, the perpetrator Decarlos Brown. He is a violent career criminal, and this was an utterly unprovoked crime against the most innocent – and unaware – of victims.
But wait – there’s also the judge who set him free for his last offense, which was a 911 call that he made and then hung up. A forensic psychiatric evaluation was ordered in that case at his lawyer’s request, but it never happened. Why? “The system” was broken, or set up to fail.
Then there is the soft-on-crime policy of the city, courtesy of Democratic politicians. And the idiocy of allowing people to ride the light rails without paying.
One thing I think is clear, however: no one on the train that night could have prevented the crime. Even if the equivalent of Daniel Penny had been there, Brown wasn’t verbally threatening anyone, and he acted so quickly I don’t think anyone could have stopped him. What they should have done afterward – and didn’t do – is another question, one I have dealt with previously in yesterday’s post and my comments on the thread there (see this as well as this).
Now, finally – and too late – Brown is in custody without bail. A great many people are calling for his execution. But although I understand the call, I’m not one of them – for the simple fact that I think Brown is almost certainly a schizophrenic. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think he’s not guilty. But mental illness of that nature, with active psychotic delusions – and his were documented prior to the crime and not just as an ex post facto excuse (which also happens sometimes) – can be a mitigating factor in the sentencing phrase. I am not in favor of executing people who commit crimes, even heinous ones, while under the influence of active hallucinations.
I would have to know more, however, because I could change my mind about Brown. But at the moment, life imprisonment would seem more appropriate. Brown is a very difficult case because he combines two things: a violent history that may or may not predate his schizophrenia, plus the schizophrenia itself. But the schizophrenia was documented prior to the murder – in fact, his original 911 call was about one of his delusions. To refresh your memory:
The alleged killer, however, currently has pending charges for misuse of the 911 system in January following a police welfare check — which revealed his troubling thoughts, the outlet [Charlotte Observer] reported.
Brown told authorities during the visit he believed someone had given him a “man-made” material that controlled when he ate, walked, and talked, an affidavit obtained by the newspaper said.
“Brown wanted officers to investigate this ‘man-made’ material that was inside of his body,” the affidavit said.
Officers then advised Brown that he was suffering a medical issue, and there was nothing more they could do to help him.
He became upset over their response and called 911. He was arrested after he hung up the phone, the outlet reported.
He called 911 and it sounds as though paramedics should have come, and/or he should have been taken to the hospital for an evaluation. Did the cops or paramedics try to do that, and he refused? I’d really like to know, because a hospital evaluation would have been highly appropriate. I’ve known people that has happened to, but it doesn’t even seem like he got a psychiatric consult. And yet, with evidence that he was actively psychotic and paranoid, plus his violent record about which the police had to have known if they checked, some sort of dramatic intervention was called for.
I’m not making excuses for him. I believe he needs to be locked up, probably for life this time. But he should have been locked up (and gotten treatment) earlier, and many people are at fault.
One more thing – you may think this interview (if real) is just Brown blowing smoke and making up excuses. But note that it’s very consistent with what he told the police many months ago when he made that 911 call and at the time of the original call he wasn’t facing charges for anything:
In a phone interview circulating online, Brown blames “The material. Put it like that. The material using my body. It’s that. You know, that’s not me.
“I’m talking about just for no reason. But since they did that, since they did that, now they got to investigate the material my body exposed to. Since they want to do all that, now they got to investigate.” …
“They lashed out on her. Well I was working out … Whoever was working the material, they lashed out on her.”
That is essentially what he told police long before the murder. It is consistent with a schizophrenic delusion, and also with the utterly unmotivated and unprovoked nature of the crime. You may call it BS, and perhaps it is, but the time frame indicates otherwise. Again, that does not absolve him of criminal responsibility, but to me it indicates that the death penalty should not be imposed. I expect a lot of disagreement on that.
NOTE: Here’s what happens at the end of The Virgin Spring (spoiler alert once again). You’ll have to click on the link to watch the scene, because embedding has been disabled.
Also, here’s Ang Lee on what the movie meant to him when he saw it at the age of eighteen.
I’ve seen a number of Bergman films, but not that one. However, I had a similar film viewing experience at about the same age, early teens, with the film Last Summer (1969). The context is radically different between the two films, but the crisis moment is similar and extremely disturbing.
Some thoughts with which some, if not many, may disagree.
Over the course of time, tribes and societies developed defense mechanisms against transgressors. Many of those were very harsh. Of late, presumably out of compassion many, if not most, of those defensive measures have been abandoned, to the detriment of innocent members.
There seems to be huge eddy in the criminal justice system. Some excuse not using prison sentences, because prisons are too crowded. So, since there is little deterrent, crime increases proportionally, and puts more pressure on the system. The flotsam and jetsam of society are part of the circular flow and never move downstream.
It now seems that a large percentage of perpetrators of violent crime are mentally ill; or claim to be. This apparently provides some sort of immunity from ordinary prosecution. And yet the mental health establishment appears to be woefully unprepared to deal with violent criminal-patients.
If the concept of immunity from prosecution by reason of mental illness is to continue, Society needs to establish a more robust system of ‘Institutions for the Criminally Insane’, and use them. There needs to be serious accountability for mental health professionals who are derelict, or even complicit, in loosing violent persons on society.
The death penalty is controversial; and I suppose it should be. But there should be honest debate. Life imprisonment for crimes such as murder makes no sense to me. Why, I ask, should society support for life an individual who has been found guilty of the ultimate crime, and who is considered too dangerous to be set free? There seems to be a logical disconnect of epic proportions.
The issue of very young violent perpetrators is also a difficult one. For starters, I believe that law enforcement should make a concerted effort to identify any adults who influenced their criminal activities and the Justice system should ‘throw the book at them’ so to speak. In fact, if it is determined that an adult motivated a child to commit murder, it should be a mandatory death penalty for the adult. As for the parents of such children, if there are any identified, they should be charged as accessories to the crime.
I believe that there is growing doubt that society can protect its members; which leads a person to question its value.
‘we are fighting not merely against men, but powers and principalities of the air’
demons in human form, this event that happened nearly three weeks and the passing of Charlie Kirk today,
The murder reminded me again of something written by Antoine de St-Exupery in his strange unfinished novel Citadelle. See my new post Of Springs and Cables:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/74979.html
I yield. Plura de hac re dicere nihil possum.
miguel:
Precisely.
Oldflyer:
Mental illness does NOT prevent prosecution, in many cases. It depends on the state, the crime, and the illness. The prisons are full of mentally ill people who have been prosecuted and sentenced.
That said, it’s a complicated and difficult issue. It was so already back when I was in law school, and I recall wrestling with it in several papers.
David Foster:
Odd that you also thought of something featuring the word “spring.” Different sort of spring, of course.
Brown told authorities during the visit he believed someone had given him a “man-made” material that controlled when he ate, walked, and talked, an affidavit obtained by the newspaper said.
“Brown wanted officers to investigate this ‘man-made’ material that was inside of his body,” the affidavit said.
_________________________________
This is classic schizophrenia territory, coming under the heading of “delusions of control.” Unless Brown had read up on schizophrenia in order to play the part, he was in serious trouble.
I once read an astonishing memoir of schizophrenia, “Operators and Things,” by a woman who woke up one morning with three strange beings who explained to her that that they were “Operators” and she was a “Thing” being controlled by Operators.
The story was as good as anything by Kafka or Philip K. Dick. I’ve long wondered if it were true. However, I’ve never found anything definitive. Still an amazing read.
Apparently her schizophrenia was a rare one-and-done experience and she lived a normal life thereafter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operators_and_Things
I once came home from college and discovered my mother had rented a massive air purifier and it was rattling away in her bedroom.
She explained to me that her landlord was putting LSD into the air she was breathing and that she was being followed by young men in white panel trucks.
She spent some time in a locked ward. When she got out, she still believed, but she had learned to keep such thoughts to herself.
huxley:
I read Operators and Things in my mid-teens, and it made a deep impression on me. Fascinating book.
Sorry, I can’t resist…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw4ylHuBOVk
It’s possible we should look at the whole youthful offender thing again. The motive for sealing childhood records was to allow children to grow up and live without the shadow of childhood follies — but it appears now that it just makes it easier for violent criminals not to be recognized as dangerous.
You may want to learn a few things about mental health and its legal implications (theoretical and practical).
The real question (and the one routinely answered by mental health experts) isn’t whether Brown’s mind was clear enough (by any standard), but whether he would have done the same thing (thus committing the same crime) had any person of authority (“a cop”, in the most common thought experiment) been watching him.
If he wouldn’t, he is guilty and should be executed.
Also, in a sane world that Brown would have never been born. But that’s a different story.
Oldflyer on September 10, 2025 at 4:40 pm;
“Life imprisonment for crimes such as murder makes no sense to me.”
We have the historical view that execution is the suitable answer. But now we have “innocence projects” that fight to prove people adjudged “guilty” within “due process” sometimes are later proven not to have committed the crime(s) for which they were lawfully convicted. With that potential for error in mind, but also the probability that the legally obtained judgement was really correct, I have wondered if we are medically able to put such guilty persons in a coma – either until they die or they can be awakened to participate in a new/revised evidence/trial situation. They are not conventionally still enjoying “living”, but are potentially available if changing events warrant it.
I once asked an anesthesiologist about the ability to do this purposeful coma for very long times, and she implied it should not be done, but the setting of my query was not really suitable to explore it in greater depth. Perhaps one of our MD’s herein can offer their views?
“As for the parents of such children, if there are any identified, they should be charged as accessories to the crime.” I suspect the wisdom or morality/ legality of this focus on the parents may have some merit, but it is really dependent upon situations and circumstances that do not deserve automatic association between the child’s end behavior or crime and the parents’ roles in initiating or allowing it — i.e., their real ability to influence that behavior or the end resulting crime(s).
Sorry to disagree with you, neo, but it is not a difficult decision once the bafflegab of modern “therapeutic criminal justice” is disregarded and the actor is adjudicated on the nature of the act, rather than his “mental state.” The killer sat there, having the murder weapon in his pocket, with enough time to premeditate his homicidal behavior. He calmly walked away and sought to evade capture, which bespeaks clarity of thought. He should be, if there is any such thing as “justice” left in America, be executed. Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent. Always was, always will be.
Steve:
I am not suggesting, as I believe I made quite clear, that mental state should affect the verdict. But active schizophrenia should affect the sentencing phrase and bar execution.
With execution you are sure of one thing, a killer is not going to do it again.
Snow on Pine on September 11, 2025 at 10:27 am said:
With execution you are sure of one thing, a killer is not going to do it again.
Unless possibly the convicted person was not actually the killer. Then of course the real killer might well kill again. But as commonly said in engineering, so also presumably to law: perfection is the enemy of good enough.
Is part of the long delays in conducting so many court cases the lack of enough qualified judges and court rooms and prosecutors? In the big picture, I doubt judicial infrastructure and talent is all that expensive or rare, compared to so many other boondoggles.
Defense lawyers may well want to delay, but usually the prosecution does not.
R2L—
As with many other contentious issues, and with partisan organizations and individuals involved, it is very hard to know if the statistics offered to justify this or that position—say, for instance, how many innocent people are jailed for life or put to death for a murder they didn’t commit—are really both comprehensive and accurate.
And if the issue at hand becomes part of the left’s culture war, things get even murkier.
As a prime example of manipulating statistics, look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics during the Biden Administration, and how the substantial gains in employment reported by the BLS were subsequently all wiped out in a massive downward “revision.”