New York Subway Burning Highlights Difficulty of Identifying Homeless Victims

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.

The attack, which seemed to contribute to fears among some New Yorkers that the transit system is not safe, took place while the subway train was stationary at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station.

The authorities said that Mr. Zapeta-Calil, who has been charged with first-degree murder and arson, is expected to plead not guilty in the coming weeks. His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The woman did not seem to know Mr. Zapeta-Calil, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Mr. Giffen, of the homeless coalition, said that both the woman’s death and the trouble in identifying her reflected how people who are homeless often “fall through the cracks.” He said it also underscored people’s broader lack of interaction with, and empathy toward, those who are homeless.

“It’s OK to ask somebody their name,” he said, adding that “we can’t forget our humanity as a city.”

“The fact that nobody knows who this woman is,” he said, “is the saddest story I can imagine during the holidays.”