(L) New York Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch hold a press conference. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images) / (R) Guatemalan illegal alien Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33. (Photo via: New York Police Department)
OAN Staff Brooke Mallory 1:27 PM – Tuesday, December 31, 2024
According to police on Tuesday, the victim who was killed after being lit on fire by an illegal alien on a Brooklyn F train was reportedly a 57-year-old woman from New Jersey named Debrina Kawam.
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Mainstream news outlets originally claimed that she was 61-years-old. This information has since been corrected by the police.
Additionally, the authorities have not released an image of the victim.
On December 22nd, at 7:30 a.m., Kawam was asleep on the train at the Stillwell Avenue-Coney Island station when she was set on fire. She died by homicide caused by thermal injuries and smoke inhalation.
Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, a Guatemalan illegal immigrant, is currently being charged with first-degree murder, among other charges, in connection with the heinous attack.
In horrifying camera footage, the suspected murderer can be seen quietly later observing the burned victim from a bench on the station while stoking the fire as Kawam was engulfed by it.
She was determined to be homeless by the Coalition for the Homeless. Kawam’s identity was found via fingerprints that were put through a national database, sources said.
Kawam had been residing in homeless shelters in the Big Apple since at least September 9th. On November 30th, she was assigned a bed in the Franklin Williams Women’s Shelter in the Bronx, but she fled on December 2nd. According to law enforcement officials, she had at least three previous run-ins with the law: a 1994 prostitute bust in New Jersey, a 2010 disorderly conduct charge in Maryland, and an April 28th transit bust for alcohol.
“She resided in New Jersey and had a brief stint in our shelter system,” Mayor Eric Adams (D-N.Y.) stated on Tuesday. “Our hearts go out to the family for this horrific incident.
“It was just a bad incident and impacts how New Yorkers feel,” the mayor continued. “But it really reinforces what I’ve been saying, people should not be living on our subway system. They should be in a place of care.
“No matter where she lived this shouldn’t have happened.”
The Post was also informed by a witness that the woman was still alive when she was lit on fire, with a walker and other bags that belonged to her close by.
According to earlier reports, the body was so badly charred in the attack that the city medical examiner went through a lengthy process in order to identify her.
Zapeta-Calil, the illegal immigrant, is now imprisoned at Rikers Island without bail after being charged with first-and second-degree murder and arson.
He was deported less than a week after entering the U.S. illegally in 2018, according to federal immigration officials, but he later managed to return to the Big Apple. Zapeta-Calil was residing in the shelter system in New York City by March 2023.
The Post outlet was informed by a friend of his at the Brooklyn facility where he last checked himself in that the migrant was addicted to smoking the narcotic K2, which is synthetic marijuana that is also known as “Spice,” and that he was an alcoholic as well.
Jordan Neely, NYC’s 30-year-old crazed homeless man who died after being restrained by Marine veteran Daniel Penny after threatening the lives of women and children around him, was similarly on the drug K2 during that particular incident, according to a medical examiner report. K2 is known to cause aggression, violent behavior, seizures, increased heart rate, and suicidal tendencies.
The suspected murderer claimed to police that he “didn’t remember” starting the fire because he was so intoxicated.
“He smoked K2, drank and bugged out,” stated shelter resident Raymond Robinson, who previously slept on a cot at the facility next to Zapeta-Calil.
“He would bug out and talk to himself when he was high, but never harmed nobody but himself,” Robinson said. “That’s why this s–t f–ked my head up because I slept next to him and he was never like that. I wouldn’t leave my daughter with anybody but he was the type of dude I could trust.
“As long as he wasn’t high,” he added.
BREAKING: Police identify Debrina Kawam, 61, of Toms River, NJ as the woman who was lit on fire by illegal Sebastian Zapeta on the NYC subway.
