NYC Subway Fire: What We Know About the Fatal Burning of a Woman

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.

Chelsia Rose Marcius and Andy Newman contributed reporting.