Suspects in UNCC student's death make first appearances
Two cousins charged in the death of a University of North Carolina-Charlotte student from Chapel Hill made their first court appearances Monday afternoon in Gastonia.
Posted — UpdatedIrina Yarmolenko, a Chapel Hill High School graduate, was found dead on the bank of the Catawba River in Mount Holly on May 5. Police said the 20-year-old had been asphyxiated.
Mark Carver suffers from schizophrenia and takes medication, according to WBTV News, a Charlotte TV station.
Cassada also takes medication. In court Monday, his attorney said, "He's out of his head," in reference to Cassada's not having taken his medication since Friday.
It remains unclear how Yarmolenko would have encountered Carver and Cassada, but police have said it was not random.
Carver said that he and his cousin were fishing at Catawba Lake the day Yarmolenko’s body ended up there, but had nothing to do with her death.
"I've never seen her before in my life. I don't even know how to say her name," Carver told a WBTV reporter from his jail cell.
About 30 members of the suspects' family attended Monday's court proceedings. The Yarmolenko family was not there.
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