{UAH} THE AMERICAN TORCHED TO DEATH BY AN ILLEGAL OUT OF GUATEMALLA HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED

Cops identify NJ woman as mystery straphanger torched to death in horrific NYC subway attack

By Joe Marino and

 

Jorge Fitz-Gibbon

Published Dec. 31, 2024, 10:47 a.m. ET

The straphanger who was burned to death on a Brooklyn F train in a horrific attack has been identified as a 57-year-old New Jersey woman, police announced Tuesday.

Debrina Kawam of Toms River was sleeping on the train at the Stillwell Avenue-Coney Island station 7:30 a.m. on Dec. 22 when she was set on fire — with illegal Guatemalan immigrant Sebastian Zapeta-Calil now facing first-degree murder charges in the sick attack.

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The victim of the horrifying Dec. 22 subway arson attack was so badly burned that she initially remained unidentified.Gregory P. Mango

Horrifying video footage shows the accused killer fanning the flames as Kawam was consumed by the flames — and calmly watching the scorched victim from a bench on the platform.AD

The Coalition for the Homeless described her as homeless.

Kawam was identified through fingerprints, sources said. 

The sources said Kawam had been living in Big Apple shelters since at least Sept. 9, and had been given a bed at the Franklin Williams Women’s Shelter in the Bronx on Nov. 30, but left on Dec. 2.

She had at least three prior scrapes with the police — a transit bust for alcohol on April 28, a 2010 disorderly conduct charge in Maryland in 2010, and a New Jersey prostitution bust in 1994, according to law enforcement sources.

“She resided in New Jersey and had a brief stint in our shelter system,” Mayor Eric Adams said 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 said. “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.”

A source also told The Post she was alive when she was set on fire, with a walker and several bags nearby.

The city medical examiner struggled to identify the body because it was so severely burned in the attack, sources previously said.

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Guatemalan immigrant Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, allegedly watched the woman burn in the Dec. 22 attack.

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According to police, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil left the Brooklyn station but was nabbed by NYPD cops in Manhattan.Obtained by the Post

Zapeta-Calil, who was arraigned on first- and second-degree murder and arson charges, is being held at Rikers Island without bail.

Federal immigration officials said he entered the US illegally in 2018 but was deported less than a week later — only to find his way back into the country and to the Big Apple.

By March 2023, he was living in the New York City shelter system.

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Sebastian Zapeta-Calil is charged with first-degree murder in the sick Brooklyn subway arson attack on Dec. 22.Gregory P. Mango

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A pal at the Brooklyn facility where he last shacked up told The Post the migrant was addicted to smoking the synthetic drug K2 and drank heavily on a daily basis.

The accused killer allegedly told cops he was so high, he didn’t remember lighting the fire.

“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.

Robinson said Zapeta-Calil liked to drink Voda vodka, “the cheapest s–t there is.”

Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy