Vigil honors woman burned to death on NYC subway train

BROOKLYN – A vigil was held for the woman who was burned to death inside a NYC subway train.

The vigil started at 16 at the Stillwell Avenue Train Station (F Line) in Coney Island.

The woman’s identity is still unknown. FOX 5 NY was told they did DNA testing, but they still can’t identify the victim. All FOX 5 NY knows is that she was homeless.

Civil rights leader Rev. Kevin McCall, Rev. Sharmine Bryd of Mt. Carmel Baptist Church and Bishop Alfred Phillips of the Coney Island Patrol are just a few people who will host the vigil.

Faith leaders on duty said this should not have happened and the system failed her.

“We’re calling the police commissioner, the governor and the mayor. The slogan in this town is if you see something, say something. But nobody said anything. Nobody did anything,” McCall said. “They just saw this young lady burn alive. Homeless lives matter. She was burned so badly the police couldn’t even identify who she is.”

Timeline of Events: What Happened on Sunday?

According to police, the victim, as well as the suspect, both rode the F train just before 7:30 a.m. to the Stillwell Avenue Subway station in Coney Island on Sunday, December 22.

Police do not believe the two knew each other.

When the train stopped at the end of the line, police said the suspect calmly walked up to the seated woman and set her on fire with his lighter. The woman’s clothing “was completely engulfed in a matter of seconds,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a Sunday news conference.

“The officers who were on patrol on an upper level of that station smelled and saw smoke and went to investigate. What they saw was a person standing inside the train car completely engulfed in flames,” said Tisch.

The woman, who has not been identified, was pronounced dead at the scene.

“With the help of an MTA employee and a fire extinguisher, the flames were extinguished. Unfortunately, it was too late,” Tisch said.

Transit police apprehended the suspect after receiving a report from three high school students who had recognized him. They had seen images of the man taken from surveillance and police body camera video and distributed widely by police.

“New Yorkers came through again,” Tisch said, describing the case as “one of the most depraved crimes a person could possibly commit against another human being.”

Unbeknownst to the officers, the suspect had remained at the scene, sitting on a bench on the subway platform just outside the train car, Tisch said. Body cameras worn by the officers captured a “very clear, detailed look” at the suspect, and those images were publicly disseminated.

After later receiving a 911 call from the teenagers, other transit officers identified the suspect on another subway train and radioed to the next station, where several officers held the train’s doors closed, searched each car and eventually apprehended him without incident, the Chief said of Transit Joseph Gulotta. The suspect had a lighter in his pocket when he was arrested, Tisch said.

Who is the suspect?

Police identified the suspect as 33-year-old Sebastian Zapeta-Calil. Among other things, he was charged with murder.

Zapeta-Calil was arrested by the Border Patrol on June 1, 2018, after he illegally crossed into Sonoita, Arizona. He was deported by the Trump administration a few days later on June 7, ICE spokeswoman Marie Ferguson said FOX News.

“Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, is an unlawfully present Guatemalan citizen who entered the United States without entry by an immigration officer,” a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman said.

Ferguson added that Zapeta then entered the United States illegally “at an unknown date and place.”

Crime and Public SafetyBrooklynNYC Subway