Photo Credit: Dakota Santiago for The New York Times
(Brooklyn, NY) — The NYPD is identifying the victim burned to death on a Brooklyn subway train earlier this month as a woman from Toms River, New Jersey. Police say 57-year-old Debrina Kawam was sleeping on an F train that was stopped at the Stillwell Avenue station in Coney Island the morning of Sunday, December 22, when a man approached her and lit her on fire. That man, 33-year-old Sebastian Zapeta, allegedly fanned the flames with his shirt and watched Kawam die while sitting on a bench on the subway platform.
Police believe Kawam was homeless and had spent some time in the city’s shelter system. Zapeta, a Guatemalan native who’s in the country illegally, is charged with first-degree murder and arson.
