The man accused of setting a woman on fire onboard a Brooklyn subway train was charged Monday with first and second-degree murder.
Law enforcement sources identified the suspect as Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, was arrested on Sunday after he allegedly walked up to a woman on an F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station and used a lighter to set her ablaze. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene.
Detectives escorted him from the Coney Island stationhouse on Dec. 23. Wearing a Tyvek suit, Zapeta-Calil said nothing to reporters waiting outside while keeping his head down as he was loaded into a police car en route to Kings County Criminal Court for arraignment.
Officers stationed at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station smelled and saw smoke early on Sunday morning, NYPD commissioner Jessica Tisch told reporters on Sunday. When they arrived on the platform, the woman was standing inside the subway car engulfed in flames, and could not be saved.
After he set the woman on fire, Zapeta-Calil allegedly sat on a bench on the platform, though officers did not realize he was the alleged perpetrator. Their body cameras, though, captured clear photos of his face, which were later circulated publicly as the NYPD searched for the perp.
On Sunday afternoon, a group of teens recognized Zapeta-Calil onboard a train at the Jay Street-MetroTech station in Downtown Brooklyn and called 911. Police stopped the train at the Herald Square station in Manhattan, walked through the train, and cuffed the suspect.
“I want to thank the young people who called 911 to help. They saw something, the said something, and they did something,” the commissioner said. “This is an example of great technology and even greater old-fashioned police work with a huge assist from the public.”
Meanwhile, cops confirmed that Zapeta-Calil is an immigrant who illegally arrived in the U.S. from Guatemala in 2019. According to federal officials, authorities removed him from the United States on June 7, 2018 back to Guatemala, yet they say he then reentered America at a later date. At some point, made his way to New York. When he was arrested, Zapeta-Calil was allegedly in possession of an ID from a shelter in Queens, though it was not immediately clear if he was living at the shelter at the time of the incident.
Police confirmed that both the victim and the suspect did not know one another, and the attack was completely unprovoked. Sources also state that the suspect only has one prior arrest in Arizona, which is believed to have been connected with his alleged illegal entry into America.
Over 24 hours after the incident shocked the city, NYPD detectives are still working to identify the female victim who was so severely burned she was left unrecognizable and unidentifiable.
“We all want to offer our sincere and deepest condolences to the family of the victim of this brutal, senseless homicide,” MTA Chief Security Officer Michael Kemper said at a Sunday press conference. “The MTA team has been involved, myself included, from the inception of this incident, working hand-in-hand with the NYPD to offer closure, or get to closure, of this case.”
This story was first published by Brooklyn Paper’s sister site amNewYork.
— Additional reporting by Kirstyn Brendlen
