Murder on the Carolina Express: Samaritans Silent, Kindness Killed

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I’ve always loved Agatha Christie. Old-school mysteries with Peter Ustinov’s Poirot, a little gray matter and a lot of moral clarity. But Agatha, darling, would not be pleased with how our reality now imitates her fiction. In Christie’s classic, a man lies dead on a luxury train and the twist is brutal: everyone did it. Many hands on one knife.

Last month, our own trains replayed the scene. A young woman—23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, Iryna Zarutska—was stabbed to death on a Charlotte light-rail car. Not in the shadows. In public. With passengers sitting feet away. Cameras rolling. And no one moved to stop it. The suspect had been arrested again and again, yet released again and again, as if evil were a misunderstanding instead of a reality that maims and kills.

Here’s the part Christie never wrote: in our version, it wasn’t only many hands on the knife.

It was many hands folded. Watching. Waiting. Recording. Silent.

The Silence That Condemns

What does it say about a people when a car full of witnesses can watch a neighbor die and remain unmoved?

Jesus warned, “Because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). Paul described a culture untethered from God as “heartless” and “without mercy” (Romans 1:31). Isaiah thundered, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil” (Isaiah 5:20).

We live there now. We’ve been conditioned into apathy—taught to scroll past, to keep our heads down, avoid inconvenience or intrusion…to treat silence as safe.

But Scripture refuses to let silence wear a halo. “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17). And the wise say, “Rescue those being taken away to death… if you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?” (Proverbs 24:11–12). God reads our inaction as consent.

Many Hands on the Knife

Yes, policies matter. Releasing the violent without sober assessment is not compassion; it is cruelty toward the innocent. Ecclesiastes 8:11 is blunt: “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.” Accountability withheld becomes permission granted.

Romans 13:3–4 adds that civil authorities are meant to be “a terror” to bad conduct—“an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.” When leaders distort or disregard that calling, citizens bleed. When citizens shrug, evil advances.

But the deepest failure isn’t only institutional; it’s spiritual.

We no longer fear God. We no longer grieve sin. We no longer love our neighbor enough to risk stepping in.

What Does Faithful Response Look Like?

The Bible’s answer is not to grow harder but to grow holy.

“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause” (Isaiah 1:17). “Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy” (Proverbs 31:8–9). “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2).

What does that look like on a train, in a city, in a church? It means we recover moral reflexes shaped by the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37): we cross the aisle, we intervene when it is prudent and possible, we call for help, we testify truthfully, we refuse to let fear and convenience govern our choices. It means we stop rehearsing excuses and start cultivating courage—together. Families train for emergencies. Churches practice neighbor-love that costs something. Communities honor those who protect the weak and refuse to shame those who step in wisely.

The Gospel Ending

A refugee who survived Russian bombs could not survive American indifference.

That sentence should shake us awake. Every rider on that train was a witness. So are we.

When we shrug at injustice, scroll past wickedness, or stay quiet about sin, we ride along.

Silence is not neutral. Not for the one attacked by a criminal. Not for the many that we watch silently fall to sin and be bound for death, eternal separation from God.  There is no difference, friends.

Allowing one to parish because we are unmoved to intervene. Allowing many to parish because we refuse to intervene.

Christie’s story ended with everyone guilty. Ours would, too—except for the gospel. The Savior entered a world of many knives and many silences, and He did not stand by. He set His face toward the cross, bearing our violence and our apathy in His body, and rose to conquer death and sin, rose that we might rise IN HIM.

If we belong to Him, we cannot ride quietly anymore.

We name evil as evil, we demand accountability with wisdom and mercy, and we open our mouths for the vulnerable while we open our hands in costly love.

“Slow to speak” is not at all the same as refuse to speak. “Slow to become angry” is not at all the same as refuse to care.

“Look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4). “Remember those who are mistreated as though in prison with them” (Hebrews 13:3).

And when the next train car becomes a courtroom, may witnesses find us on our feet—present, prepared, and unwilling to let our indifference condemn to death.