A suspect has been arrested for allegedly setting a sleeping woman on fire onboard the New York City subway.
Sebastin Zapeta, a 33-year-old Guatemalan migrant, was arrested shortly after allegedly setting a woman on fire and running away, as reported by Fox News.
He was apprehended while onboard a train at 34th Street in Manhattan after three high school students recognized the suspected perpetrator at the same station and alerted the authorities, according to the New York Post.
The train was instructed to halt at the subsequent station, where two transit officers entered the train, identified the individual in question, and proceeded to take him into custody.
Zapeta has not yet been charged with any wrongdoing, but is accused of lighting the woman on fire at around 7.29am.
Police say the victim was sleeping when Zapeta, who was sitting across from her onboard an F train at a station in Coney Island, got up, walked over and lit her on fire.
‘The suspect used what we believe to be a lighter to ignite the victim’s clothing, which became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds,’ Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference Sunday night.
Officers arrived at the scene after receiving a call of a woman needing assistance, but the woman was already on fire, authorities said in a statement.
Zapeta was then caught on camera at the station sitting on a bench and watching as the woman was engulfed in flames.
Cops briefly talked to him and told him to clear the area in the immediate aftermath.
They put out the fire with the help of an MTA employee, before the woman died from her injuries at around 7.30am.
Officers were later seen using a tarp to cover up one of the train’s windows – seemingly to block a view of the grisly scene.
Then at around 1pm, police were seen carrying a body bag out of the train and placing it on a gurney, before transporting it to a Medical Examiner’s van.
‘On Sunday… at approximately 0729 hours, an unidentified female victim was sleeping aboard a stationary “F” train at the Stillwell Avenue Subway station when an unknown male individual approached and lit the victim on fire,’ police later said in a statement.
‘The individual then left the subway car. The victim was pronounced deceased by EMS at the scene.’
Officers then asked for help identifying the suspect, whom they descried as a 5’6” tall, 150-pound male who was last seen wearing ‘a gray hooded sweatshirt, blue jeans, a dark colored knit hat with a red band, and brown boots.’
Police added that the woman was found with a litany of liquor bottles – though law enforcement sources who spoke to The New York Post said investigators remain stumped as to whether that played a part in the fire.
No other information was readily available about the female victim, and the suspect’s motive – if any – still remains unclear.
Meanwhile, authorities are also working to determine whether the suspect is in the country legally.
He had entered the United States and was detained by border patrol agents in June 2018, but did not appear to have any previous criminal history in New York.
Yet Sunday’s murder left service for the F train shut down in both directions.
The 5 and 6 platform, in addition to that of the F train, were also roped off with police tape as a result, as witnesses were left reeling.
One MTA employee told the Post: ‘It just looked like all the clothes were burnt off.
‘I was just walking by. The cops [were] there already. I didn’t see her in flames, but that’s what I heard,’ the unidentified worker said, explaining, ‘They shut the lights off [in the train car] so nobody could see.
‘That s*** is crazy – it’s only three days until Christmas,’ he noted. ‘That’s messed up.’
Alex Gureyev, a 39-year-old construction manager, also said New York City’s subway system is ‘going downhill a bit.
‘Everybody keeps saying its going back to the ’70s,’ he said, referencing a time of high crime in the Big Apple.
‘It’s a frequent occurrence – not like this, setting people on fire – but like the mugging, the killings, the fighting, the shootings – they’re really common nowadays,’ Gureyev said. ‘[It’s] very bad.’
New York City Mayor Eric Adams also said his prayers are with the victim’s family in ‘this senseless killing.’
He added that he is ‘grateful to the young New Yorkers and transit officers who stepped up to help our NYPD make a quick arrest following this morning’s heinous and deadly subway attack.
‘This type of depraved behavior has no place in our subways and we are committed to working hard to ensure there is swift justice for all victims of violent crime,’ he said.
This is a developing story; please check for updates.
