Dec. 31 (UPI) — Police have identified the woman who earlier this month was set on fire in a subway car in New York City, according to several news reports.
Multiple news outlets are giving conflicting reports, saying Debrina Kawam of Toms River, N.J., was either 57 or 61 years old.
She was sleeping on a stationary subway train F at the Stillwell Avenue station on Dec. 22 when authorities say Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, set Kawam’s clothing on fire with a lighter that later was found on him.
Kawam, who was homeless, died at the scene.
“It was just a bad incident and impacts how New Yorkers feel,” Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday. “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.”
Medical examiners struggled to ascertain Kawam’s identity because her body was so severely burned and only was eventually identified by her fingerprints, the New York Post reported.
“No matter where she lived, this shouldn’t have happened,” Adams said.
Zapeta-Calil, a citizen of Guatemala who reportedly entered the United States illegally, was indicted Friday on four counts of murder and one count of arson.
Kawam was living at Big Apple shelters since Sept. 9 and had a bed on Nov. 30 at Franklin Williams Women’s Shelter in the Bronx but left weeks ago on Dec. 2.
According to law enforcement, she had three known prior incidents including a transit bust with alcohol in April, a 2010 disorderly conduct charge in Maryland and a New Jersey prostitution bust in 1994.
Zapeta-Calil is facing the possibility of life in prison without the possibility of parole after a grand jury in Brooklyn returned a first-degree murder and three second-degree murder counts along with his first-degree arson charge.
He has yet to enter a plea, according to reports.
