The Associated Press, by Susan Haigh and Anthony Izaguirre
According to authorities Monday, a man in New York City is charged with murder and arson for allegedly setting a lady on fire inside a subway train and then watching her perish as she was consumed by the flames.
Sebastian Zapeta, the suspect, was arrested hours after the woman’s death on Sunday morning, according to the police.
According to Jeff Carter, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Zapeta, 33, is a citizen of Guatemala who entered the country illegally after having been previously deported in 2018.
According to authorities, the suspect approached the woman on a halted F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station in Brooklyn, where she was sitting still and maybe sleeping, and set her clothes on fire, as captured on surveillance footage.
The suspect stayed at the scene, watching the woman burn from a bench on the train station as police and a transit worker put out the fire, while Jessica Tisch, the commissioner of police for New York City, stated that the woman’s clothing was completely burned in a couple of seconds.
At the scene, the woman was declared dead. Her identification has not yet been made public by the police.
Tisch referred to the event as one of the most heinous things a person could ever perpetrate against another person.
After receiving a tip from a group of high school students who recognized the suspect’s photos that police had published, police nabbed Zapeta later Sunday while he was traveling on the same subway line.
Zapeta was removed approximately six years ago, although it is unknown when and when he returned to the United States.
“The depravity of this horrific crime is beyond comprehension, and my office is committed to bringing the perpetrator to justice,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement.
The most severe repercussions will follow this heinous and stupid act of violence on a defenseless woman, he declared.
When Zapeta will be arraigned and whether he had legal representation were unknown.
Police have published Zapeta’s Brooklyn address, which corresponds to a Samaritan Daytop Village care center that offers housing and drug misuse assistance. A request for comment was not immediately answered by the organization.
In response to a string of high-profile crimes on city trains, New York Governor Kathy Hochul sent men of the New York National Guard to the city’s subway system this year to assist police in conducting sporadic screenings of passengers’ baggage for weapons. Recently, Hochul sent out more personnel to assist with patrol over the holidays.
According to Michael Kemper, chief security officer for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Hochul approved financing almost a year ago to equip all train cars in the New York subway system with video cameras. On Sunday, he and other officials attributed the speedy pursuit of the perpetrator to the cameras.
This report was written by Cedar Attanasio of the Associated Press.
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