Police have identified the woman who was set on fire while sleeping on a Brooklyn subway train as horrified straphangers looked on, law enforcement officials announced Tuesday.
The woman was set on fire at around 7:30 a.m. on Dec. 22 as she slept on the F train at Stillwell Avenue Coney Island Station in Brooklyn. Sebastian Zapeta Khalil, an illegal Guatemalan immigrant, is currently charged with first-degree murder. disease attack.
Horrifying video footage shows the suspected killer fanning the fire as the woman burst into flames, then calmly watching his charred victim from a bench on the platform.
The Homeless Coalition described her as homeless.
The woman's identification is being withheld pending notification of her family.
Officials told the Post that she was alive when she was set on fire and that her walker and several bags were nearby.
The city medical examiner had difficulty identifying the body, which had suffered severe burns from the attack, relying primarily on dental records when fingerprinting was no longer possible.
Zapeta Khalil, charged with first- and second-degree murder and arson, is being held on Rikers Island without bail.
Federal immigration authorities say he entered the United States illegally in 2018, was deported after less than a week, and eventually found his way back to the Big Apple.
By March 2023, he was living in New York City's shelter system.
Friends at the Brooklyn facility where he was last holed up told the Post that the immigrant was addicted to smoking the synthetic drug K2 and drank heavily every day.
The murder suspect allegedly told police he was so high that he didn't remember starting the fire.
“He was smoking K2, drinking and bugging,” said Raymond Robinson, a shelter resident who slept on a cot in the facility next to Zapeta-Khalil until his arrest.
“He would eavesdrop and talk to himself when he was high, but he never hurt anyone but himself,” Robinson said. “That's why this was so crazy. I was sleeping next to him and he never did that. I didn't want to leave my daughter with anyone, but… , he was the type of guy I could trust.
“As long as you're not high,” he added.
Robinson said Zapeta-Khalil liked to drink vodka, “the cheapest vodka.”
