A 33-year-old man in New York City has been accused of causing the death of a woman who was intentionally set on fire inside a stationary subway train over the weekend.
The man, identified as Sebastian Zapeta, is facing charges of first-degree murder and arson for allegedly setting the victim on fire and observing as she burned.
Zapeta, reportedly an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, was residing in a homeless shelter in East New York, Brooklyn, according to an ICE spokesperson.
ICE officials said in a statement that Zapeta was detained and deported shortly after crossing the border in Arizona in 2018. At some point, he snuck back in the U.S. and has been in the country for an unknown period of time.
New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the suspect and the woman had been riding an F train without any interaction between them to the end of the line in Brooklyn at around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday.
After the train came to a stop, surveillance video from the subway car showed the man “calmly” walk up to the victim, who was seated motionless, possibly sleeping, and set her clothing on fire with what appeared to be a lighter. The woman’s clothing then “became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds,” Tisch said.
Police do not believe the two knew one another.
Officers on a routine patrol at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station smelled and saw smoke and discovered the woman on fire, standing in the middle of the subway car. After the fire was extinguished, emergency medical personnel declared the woman dead at the scene.
Unbeknownst to the officers, the suspect had remained at the scene and was seated on a bench on the subway platform, just outside the train car, Tisch said. Body cameras worn by the officers caught a “very clear, detailed look” at the suspect and those images were publicly disseminated.
After later receiving a 911 call from the teenagers, other transit officers identified the man on another subway train and radioed ahead to the next station, where more officers kept the train doors closed, searched each car and ultimately apprehended him without incident, Gulotta said. The man had a lighter in his pocket when he was taken into custody, Tisch said.
The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office released the following statement:
“The depravity of this horrific crime is beyond comprehension, and my office is committed to bringing the perpetrator to justice. This gruesome and senseless act of violence against a vulnerable woman will be met with the most serious consequences. Every New Yorker deserves to feel safe on our subways, and we will do everything in our power to ensure accountability in this case. I commend the NYPD for their swift work in apprehending the suspect.”
The case marked the second fatality on a New York subway Sunday.
At 12:35 a.m., police responded to an emergency call for an assault in progress at the 61st Street-Woodside Station in Queens and found a 37-year-old man with a stab wound to his torso and a 26-year-old man with multiple slashes throughout his body. The older man was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital while the younger man was in stable condition, police said.
A 69-year-old man who stabbed two men attempting to rob him appears to have been acting in self-defense and was not charged.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul this year has sent New York National Guard members to the city’s subway system to help police conduct random searches of riders’ bags for weapons following a series of high-profile crimes on city trains. Hochul recently deployed additional members to help patrol during the holiday season.
About a year ago, Hochul supported funding to install video cameras on every train car in the New York subway system, said Michael Kemper, chief security officer for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He and other officials on Sunday credited the cameras with helping to track down the suspect so quickly.
Police say Zapeta will be transferred to federal custody and will face removal proceedings
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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