New York police have named the lady who was set on hearth and burned alive on a Brooklyn subway prepare.
Authorities on Tuesday recognized Debrina Kawam, 61, of New Jersey because the sufferer of the apparently random Dec. 22 assault that burned her physique past recognition.
Sebastian Zapeta, 33, is accused of beginning the hearth with a lighter whereas Ms Kawam slept. He allegedly fanned the flames with a T-shirt after which watched the hearth develop from a bench outdoors the subway automobile.
Last week, a grand jury indicted Zapeta, who says he has no reminiscence of the incident, on 4 counts of homicide and one in every of arson.
It took authorities greater than every week to totally establish the physique.
Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district lawyer, mentioned at a information convention early within the investigation that authorities had been working to gather DNA and fingerprint proof from Ms. Kawam’s stays.
“It is a precedence for me, my workplace and the police division to establish this lady so we are able to notify her household,” Gonzalez mentioned.
False and unverified details about her, together with a false AI-generated picture, circulated on-line as authorities labored.
There has additionally been an outpouring of help, together with a vigil held for the then-unidentified sufferer final week.
Police say Ms. Kawam was immobile, apparently asleep, on a stopped subway prepare on the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn early Dec. 22, when Mr. Zapeta allegedly approached her with a lighter.
The pair by no means interacted and police imagine they didn’t know one another.
The video seems to indicate the suspect waving a T-shirt at her in an obvious try to fan the flames, somewhat than put them out. He then exits the subway automobile and watches the hearth from a bench on the platform.
Jessica Tisch, New York’s police commissioner, mentioned the scent of smoke attracted cops and Metropolitian Transit Authority personnel to the hearth the place they put out the flames.
“Unknown to the responding officers, the suspect had remained on the scene and was sitting on a bench on the platform simply outdoors the prepare automobile,” Ms. Tisch mentioned.
Authorities pronounced Ms. Kawam lifeless on the scene.
Tisch described the incident as “some of the wicked crimes an individual can commit towards one other human being.”
At a preliminary listening to Tuesday, prosecutor Ari Rottenberg mentioned Zapeta instructed investigators he had been ingesting and did not bear in mind the incident, however recognized himself in surveillance photographs and movies that confirmed the hearth burning.
Zapeta, initially from Guatemala, was deported from the United States in 2018 and later re-entered the nation illegally, immigration authorities mentioned.
He is due again in courtroom on Jan. 7, prosecutors mentioned.
