New York | Victim of Coney Island Subway Immolation Is Identified by the Police
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Victim of Coney Island Subway Immolation Is Identified by the Police
Debrina Kawam of Toms River, N.J., was burned alive on Dec. 22 in a videotaped killing that shocked New York.
The attack took place on a stationary train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station, the end of the F line in Brooklyn. Credit… Dakota Santiago for The New York Times Published Dec. 31, 2024 Updated Jan. 1, 2025
Investigators have learned the name of a woman who was burned alive — and beyond recognition — aboard a Brooklyn train last week.
The police identified the woman as Debrina Kawam of Toms River, N.J. She was the victim of an apparently random attack captured in videos that showed her bracing herself against the doorway of an F train in Coney Island, her body engulfed by flames. Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, has been accused of setting fire to Ms. Kawam with a lighter and was charged with first-degree murder and arson.
Ms. Kawam’s identity was confirmed on Monday through fingerprint analysis, said Julie Bolcer, a spokeswoman for the city medical examiner’s office. Ms. Kawam was 57, though police officials initially had said she was 61.
Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference at City Hall on Tuesday that she briefly stayed in the city’s homeless shelter system. “No matter where she lived, that should not have happened,” Mr. Adams said.
“Just watching that tape — I couldn’t even watch it all the way through,” he added.
Investigators had used every means possible to identify the woman, the Brooklyn district attorney, Eric Gonzalez, said at a news conference last week. They took her fingerprints and collected DNA evidence. They gathered surveillance footage from the subways, hoping to find a clear image of the woman’s face before the fire.
The fragmentary traces Ms. Kawam left behind in yearbooks and public records sketch a troubled life.
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