The woman who was burned to death in a New York City subway car earlier this month was publicly identified Tuesday by the New York Police Department.
She was Debrina Kawam, 61, of Toms River, New Jersey.
Ms. Kawam died on Dec. 22 after being set on fire while asleep on a stopped train at the Coney Island station in Brooklyn.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said at a press conference Tuesday that Ms. Kawam “had a brief stint in our homeless shelter system,” adding that “people should not be living on our subway system, they should be in a place of care. And no matter where she lived, that should not have happened.”
Julie Bolcer, spokesperson for the New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, told the Gothamist that Ms. Kawam was identified via her fingerprints. Her body was too damaged by the fire to use other methods of identification.
Sebastian Zapeta, an illegal immigrant Guatemalan, is accused of lighting her on fire, and has been indicted on charges of murder and arson.
“My office is very confident about the evidence in this case and our ability to hold Zapeta accountable for his dastardly deeds,” the office of Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez wrote in a post on X.
Mr. Zapeta faces charges of murder in both the first and second degrees, the former of which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors claim that Mr. Zapeta set the sleeping Ms. Kawam’s clothes on fire with a lighter, fanned the flames himself by waving his shirt and stepped outside the train car to sit down at the platform and watch her burn to death.
Mr. Zapeta had been apprehended at the U.S-Mexican border in Arizona in 2018 but returned to the U.S. sometime after that. He has been living in New York City since 2023.
Mr. Adams said that incidents like Ms. Kawam’s death is overriding in the public’s mind the success the city has made on crime.
“Random acts of violence. Those are terms that I have used and they have basically overshadowed the success of our city. … They say someone just got burned, Eric. If, you know, someone is shoved to the subway system on the tracks, you know, people are seeing and feeling what they’re reading,” he said.
• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.