Illegal immigrant charged with burning woman alive on New York subway

The man accused of burning a woman to death in a train station of the subway of New York City was indicted on murder and arson charges, a prosecutor said Friday, as authorities continue to work to confirm the victim’s identity.

The indictment comes days after Sebastián Zapeta’s arrest and subsequent police interrogation, in which authorities say he claimed not to know what had happened, although he identified himself in photos and surveillance videos showing the fire.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez told reporters that the indictment will be unsealed on January 7 and that Zapeta has been charged with several counts of murder as well as one count of arson. The top charge carries a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“It was a malicious act. A sleeping and vulnerable woman in our subway system,” González said.

Zapeta, 33, who federal immigration authorities say is a Guatemalan citizen who entered the United States illegally, was initially charged with murder and arson in a criminal complaint.

Such indictments are often a first step in the criminal process because, in New York, all felony cases require a grand jury indictment to proceed to trial, unless the defendant waives that requirement.

The lawyer representing Zapeta declined to comment.

Authorities say Zapeta approached the woman, who was motionless and believed to be asleep, at the Coney Island station stop, and set her clothes on fire with a lighter Sunday morning. He waved a shirt at her to fan the fire, causing the woman to become engulfed in flames, authorities said.

Later, Zapeta sat on a bench on the platform and watched as she burned, prosecutors said. The woman was pronounced dead at the scene. Police later detained Zapeta while he was traveling on a train on the same line.

Gonzalez told reporters Friday that police and medical examiners are working to identify the woman using fingerprints and advanced DNA techniques, while tracing her steps before the murder.

Zapeta’s Brooklyn address, released by police after his arrest, is a shelter that provides housing and support for people suffering from substance abuse.

Federal immigration authorities said he was deported in 2018, but returned to the United States illegally sometime after that date.

The terrible episode has renewed concerns about safety in the country’s largest public transportation system.

In general, crime on the subway is relatively unusual, and the trains and platforms are generally as safe as any other public place in New York City. Police data shows that major crimes decreased this year until November, compared to the same period in 2023.

But homicides increased, with nine murders recorded through November compared to five during the same period last year. That figure does not include the woman who was burned to death or the man who was fatally stabbed in a Queens subway station on the same day.

High-profile attacks, such as stabbings and violent shoving, also make many commuters nervous in a city where millions of people use the subway every day.

“When these incidents occur, success is overshadowed and it affects the psyche of New Yorkers,” New York Mayor Eric Adams said in a televised interview earlier this week, noting that in many high-profile incidents repercussion people with mental health problems are involved.

Adams, who is a Democrat, has ordered police to collaborate with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigative team to study the possibility of filing criminal charges against Zapeta under the legislation. federal law on arson, according to a spokesman for the mayor’s office.

Gonzalez told reporters Friday that the charges brought by his office could lead to a harsher sentence, with the possibility that Zapeta could be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

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