U.S.! burglary, murder, homelessness, illegal immigration, substance abuse 2024.12.24-12.25

It can be challenging to identify the bodies of people who were homeless when they died. For a woman killed Sunday on an F train, the circumstances of her death could make it even harder.

More than three days after a woman was fatally burned by another passenger inside a subway train on Coney Island, officials have not yet been able to confirm her identity.

The police have charged a man, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, with murder in the Sunday morning attack. They believe he set the woman’s clothing on fire while she was sleeping on the train and she died from the burns and smoke inhalation, in a gruesome incident caught on cellphone video.

The struggle to identify the woman, whom the authorities believe was homeless, underscores how difficult it can be to gather information about people who may not have permanent addresses or personal documents. But in this case, there is an added complication: The horrific way the woman was attacked may be making her identification even harder.

“It just adds another level to a tragedy,” said David Giffen, the executive director of the Coalition for the Homeless. “At this point, we still don’t even know who she was and she can’t be mourned.”

The medical examiner’s office confirmed on Wednesday that the woman had not yet been identified and that the investigation was continuing. The Brooklyn district attorney’s office, which is investigating the case, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday.

Joseph Giacalone, a retired New York police sergeant and an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said that burns can make simple methods of identification — using facial features, or fingerprints — difficult or impossible. That means investigators have to rely on dental and DNA analysis, or see if the victim had any surgeries that match known medical records.

People who are homeless might not carry wallets, pocketbooks or documents with clear identifying information, Mr. Giacalone said. Even if there was some documentation available, investigators would need to try to verify that it was accurate, he said.

People without steady homes may also be transient and have lived in other states. Even if the woman was a local, she could be from anywhere in the city: The train she was found on — the F train — runs from Coney Island, at the southern tip of Brooklyn, up through Manhattan and then east into outer Queens.

Finding people in the homeless community who might have known her would be difficult across such a vast geography, he said. They might have had negative interactions with the authorities in the past, and they could be reluctant to help with the investigation, he added.

Finally, Mr. Giacalone said, even after the authorities think they have confirmed the woman’s identity, they would need to find a way to contact relatives to notify them of her death before publicly identifying her.

“This could go on for quite a while,” he said.

Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, the 33-year-old undocumented migrant accused of setting fire to a woman who was asleep while riding a New York City train, was arraigned Tuesday on charges of first- and second-degree murder and arson, according to a complaint released by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.

The New York City Office of the Medical Examiner determined the victim – who remains unidentified – died by homicide, the cause of her death was determined to be the result of “thermal injuries” and “smoke inhalation,” according to the complaint filed in Brooklyn Criminal Court.

Zapeta-Calil allegedly set fire to the victim’s clothing Sunday morning and “fanned the flames” by waving a shirt around her, causing her to become engulfed in flames, according to testimony from police officers on the scene, which is outlined in the document.

The incident has intensified existing fears about safety and disorder on the subway, given a troubling trend of recent random attacks, and put a spotlight on several issues major cities such as New York have been grappling with for years, such as homelessness, illegal immigration and substance abuse.

Police said Zapeta-Calil approached the victim silently before igniting her clothing, causing flames to engulf her “in a matter of seconds.” Surveillance video showed the suspect watching the victim burn from a bench outside the subway car.

He did not enter a plea during his arraignment on Tuesday. CNN has reached out to Zapeta-Calil’s attorney for comment.

Zapeta-Calil claimed he didn’t know what happened and noted that he consumes alcohol, the prosecutor said, according to reporting from the Associated Press about his arraignment. He also identified himself in images of the attack, according to Assistant District Attorney Ari Rottenberg, the Associated Press reported.

Here’s what we know about an act authorities have described as a “brutal murder” and indicative of “depraved behavior.”

The suspect

Zapeta-Calil, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, had been deported in 2018 and subsequently returned to the US illegally, according to federal immigration authorities. His most recent address in an arrest report was listed as a homeless shelter in Brooklyn for men struggling with substance abuse, the New York City Police Department said.

In response to a question about Zapeta-Calil’s current address and whether it’s at a homeless shelter, a New York City Department of Social Services spokesperson said, “We cannot disclose any case information about individual social service recipients and cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.”

The US Border Patrol encountered Zapeta-Calil in Sonoita, Arizona, on June 1, 2018, issuing him an expedited removal order. He was sent back to Guatemala six days later, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson Jeff Carter. Zapeta-Calil later reentered the US unlawfully at an unknown date and location, officials said.

“It appears as though he was a migrant that was removed from the country and then came back into the country,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams said on Fox 5 New York. “This is a country of immigrants … But those who violate that pursuit, we need to immediately remove them from our country.”

Zapeta-Calil was hospitalized Monday night, according to Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office Deputy Director of Communications Helen Peterson and released early Tuesday afternoon, delaying his arraignment hearing for several hours. He is expected to appear in court again Friday, the district attorney’s office said.

How the incident unfolded

The attack occurred around 7:30 a.m. Sunday on an F train approaching Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn.

Investigators initially suspected the fire was accidental after finding liquor bottles near the victim, sources said. After reviewing surveillance footage from the subway car, police observed Zapeta-Calil sitting across from the sleeping victim — with only the two of them in the car. Zapeta-Calil then got up and ignited her clothes and the blanket she was using, police said.

Zapeta-Calil is seen leaving the train and sitting on a platform bench, observing as the woman burned, according to surveillance footage. Sources indicate she remained unresponsive until fully engulfed in flames.

The victim appeared to have mobility issues as indicated by a walker found at the scene, sources say, and was dressed in multiple layers, which officials suspect likely accelerated the fire’s spread.

The NYPD has confirmed the woman involved in the incident is an adult, over the age of 18. While she has not yet been identified, she appeared to be homeless, a law enforcement official told The New York Times.

No other passengers or first responders were injured.

About eight hours later, after images from surveillance and police body cameras were released, three high school students recognized the suspect on a subway train in Manhattan, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Sunday.

Officers stopped the train at Herald Square, searching each car to apprehend Zapeta-Calil, who was found with a lighter in his pocket, NYPD Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta said.

The woman, who has not been identified, died after a man set her on fire on an F train on Sunday morning. The police have charged a man from Guatemala with murder and arson.

The man charged with murder and arson in the killing of a woman inside a subway car in Coney Island was arraigned on Tuesday and ordered to be held in custody.

The authorities said the man, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, lit a homeless woman on fire inside a parked F train on Sunday and then watched from a nearby bench as flames consumed her. The police have not identified the woman, but a complaint lodged in Brooklyn criminal court indicated that she died of “thermal injuries and smoke inhalation.”

Mr. Zapeta-Calil, 33, is expected to plead not guilty when he is arraigned on a formal indictment in the coming weeks, a spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office said. The shocking, apparently random attack has shaken New Yorkers and contributed to persistent worries about safety in the city’s public transit system.

Here is what we know about what unfolded on the F train:

Who is the man charged with murder?

Sebastian Zapeta-Calil is an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who was deported in 2018 and returned illegally to the United States after that, according to federal immigration officials. It remains unclear when and where he entered the country. His last known address was listed as a Brooklyn homeless shelter for men with substance abuse and mental health problems.

He was charged on Monday with first-degree murder and arson. His lawyer, Andrew Friedman, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said that the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations unit would file an immigration detainer for Mr. Zapeta-Calil with New York authorities. The detainer is a notice that immigration officers intend to take a person into custody if he is released by local law enforcement.

The portrait of Mr. Zapeta-Calil painted by friends and acquaintances at the homeless shelter where he had lived for a couple of months was largely at odds with the monstrous crime he is accused of committing.

José Acosta, who slept in the bed beside him, said Mr. Zapeta-Calil worked in construction and sent money home to Guatemala every week to support his wife and two young daughters.

He would leave the Samaritan Village shelter in East New York early in the morning and not return home until late at night, sometimes carrying his hard hat, Mr. Acosta said. When Mr. Zapeta-Calil got to his bunk, he would often call his family.

Others offered different views. Luis Caraballo, 27, said that Mr. Zapeta-Calil kept his head down and rarely talked to anyone, and would sometimes get so drunk he would vomit in the sink and not clean it up.

But none of the half-dozen people interviewed on Tuesday afternoon said he had ever seemed aggressive, let alone capable of brutally murdering a stranger.

Ivan Goden, another shelter resident, said Mr. Zapeta-Calil usually got regular haircuts and stayed freshly shaved, but in the last couple of weeks he had looked more untidy. Mr. Acosta said that he had not seen his roommate in the few days before the killing and had no idea where he had gone.

“I can’t get over it,” Mr. Acosta said, shaking his head. “It makes me sad.”

Who was the victim?

The police and medical examiner’s office have not publicly identified the victim. It appears she was homeless and had been sleeping on the train before the attack, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said the victim did not seem to know Mr. Zapeta-Calil. She was already on the F train before he boarded it in Queens, and they both rode toward the end of the line in Coney Island, the official added.

What happened that morning?

The attack occurred early on a cold Sunday morning. While the train was stationary at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station, Mr. Zapeta-Calil calmly walked through the car and approached a woman who was sitting silently, according to the police.

Then, apparently without a word, he pulled out a lighter and set the woman’s clothes on fire, the police said, noting that she was engulfed in flames within seconds.

A video published by The New York Post shows a man who appears to be Mr. Zapeta-Calil sitting on a bench on the subway platform, watching the woman burn in the doorway of the subway car. People scream in the background, and a police officer walks by. (When asked at a news conference why the officer did not try to help her, Joseph Gulotta, the chief of transit for the Police Department, said the officer was securing the crime scene.)

Other video footage also shows the man on the bench suddenly rise and approach the woman while holding some kind of clothing or fabric. He then “fanned the flames by waving a shirt up and around” the woman, according to the criminal complaint against Mr. Zapeta-Calil.

The fire continued burning until police officers and transit workers doused the woman with a fire extinguisher. She was pronounced dead at the scene at 7:48 a.m.

How was the suspect apprehended?

The police circulated photos of the suspect immediately after the killing. They arrested Mr. Zapeta-Calil after a group of teenagers reported seeing a man who looked like the suspect riding another Brooklyn train.

When he was arrested on that train, the suspect was wearing the same clothes as the man shown in videos of the attack, and he had a lighter in his pocket, the police said.