Illegal immigrant faces murder rap for allegedly burning woman to death on NYC subway as DA promises ‘most serious consequences’
An illegal Guatemalan immigrant was charged with first-degree murder Monday in the gruesome torching death of a sleeping Brooklyn straphanger — but told cops he was too boozed up to remember doing it.
Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, a 33-year-old migrant who snuck back into the US and was shacking up in Big Apple shelters after being deported in 2018, was nabbed by the NYPD at a Manhattan subway station after skipping out on the horrific slaying on Coney Island on Sunday morning.
But he claimed while being grilled by cops that he was drunk out of his mind and didn’t remember lighting the victim on fire — even though surveillance footage shows him literally fanning the flames.
The chilling videos also appear to capture Zapeta-Calil inside the train admiring the blaze.
“The depravity of this horrific crime is beyond comprehension, and my office is committed to bringing the perpetrator to justice,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement Monday.
“This gruesome and senseless act of violence against a vulnerable woman will be met with the most serious consequences,” Gonzalez said. “Every New Yorker deserves to feel safe on our subways and we will do everything in our power to ensure accountability in this case.”
Police said Zapeta-Calil lit the unidentified woman on fire inside an F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday — then sat on a bench and watched.
He casually walked away from the scene after cops arrived, but was busted later when he stepped off the subway at the 34th Street-Herald Square station in Manhattan, according to officials.
Police charged him with first- and second-degree murder and arson, with Brooklyn prosecutors due to also file charges following completion of an autopsy — which was delayed due to the horrific condition of the victim’s body, law enforcement sources said.
Federal immigration officials said Zapeta-Calil was nabbed in Arizona after crossing the US border illegally on June 1, 2018, and was deported six days later, a spokesperson said Monday.
But he managed to sneak back in at some point and, in March 2023, was living in a city-run shelter — the first of several in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan where he would bed down before the fire.
Officials at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Monday that they would put a detainer on Zapeta-Calil while he is held on the murder charges pending deportation proceedings.
The proceedings would take place after any prison sentence if the migrant is convicted.
Meanwhile, questions surfaced over why bystanders failed to intervene during Sunday’s incident.
Video footage at the scene shows at least three people on the platform watching, including one man seen filming it on his phone, while an NYPD cop walks past the open door.
Guardian Angels founder and community activist Curtis Sliwa told The Post that he blames “the Daniel Penny effect” — a reference to the subway vigilante who was charged with murder in Manhattan after choking a menacing vagrant to death on a subway train last year.
Although Penny was ultimately acquitted, Sliwa maintained that the legal ordeal the ex-Marine was put through is giving other would-be subway good Samaritans pause to get involved.
“This is absolutely a turning point. The torching of a woman in the subway is a turning point,” he said. “There’s no doubt that people don’t want to get involved. It’s the Daniel Penny factor. It’s frozen people.
“They’re saying to themselves, `I don’t want to get jammed up like Penny,” Sliwa added. “They could have easily told the cops, `It’s that guy right there.’ It’s the code of omerta.”
Additional reporting by Jennie Taer
