NEW YORK — A 33-year-old man has been charged within the demise of a lady who died after being deliberately set on hearth inside a stationary subway prepare in New York Metropolis over the weekend.
Officers stated Monday Sebastian Zapeta has been charged with first diploma homicide and arson after allegedly setting the sufferer on hearth and watching her burn.
In keeping with a spokesperson for ICE, Zapeta is an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala. He final lived in a homeless shelter in East New York, Brooklyn.
ICE officers stated in an announcement that Zapeta was detained and deported shortly after crossing the border in Arizona in 2018. Sooner or later, he snuck again within the U.S. and has been within the nation for an unknown time frame.
New York Metropolis Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch stated the suspect and the lady had been using an F prepare with none interplay between them to the top of the road in Brooklyn at round 7:30 a.m. on Sunday.
After the prepare got here to a cease, surveillance video from the subway automobile confirmed the person “calmly” stroll as much as the sufferer, who was seated immobile, probably sleeping, and set her clothes on hearth with what seemed to be a lighter. The girl’s clothes then “grew to become totally engulfed in a matter of seconds,” Tisch stated.
Police don’t imagine the 2 knew each other.
Officers on a routine patrol on the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station smelled and noticed smoke and found the lady on hearth, standing in the midst of the subway automobile. After the hearth was extinguished, emergency medical personnel declared the lady lifeless on the scene.
Unbeknownst to the officers, the suspect had remained on the scene and was seated on a bench on the subway platform, simply outdoors the prepare automobile, Tisch stated. Physique cameras worn by the officers caught a “very clear, detailed look” on the suspect and people photos had been publicly disseminated.
After later receiving a 911 name from the youngsters, different transit officers recognized the person on one other subway prepare and radioed forward to the following station, the place extra officers saved the prepare doorways closed, searched every automobile and in the end apprehended him with out incident, Gulotta stated. The person had a lighter in his pocket when he was taken into custody, Tisch stated.
The Brooklyn District Lawyer’s Workplace launched the next assertion:
“The depravity of this horrific crime is past comprehension, and my workplace is dedicated to bringing the perpetrator to justice. This grotesque and mindless act of violence towards a weak girl shall be met with probably the most severe penalties. Each New Yorker deserves to really feel protected on our subways, and we’ll do all the things in our energy to make sure accountability on this case. I commend the NYPD for his or her swift work in apprehending the suspect.”
The case marked the second fatality on a New York subway Sunday.
At 12:35 a.m., police responded to an emergency name for an assault in progress on the 61st Avenue-Woodside Station in Queens and located a 37-year-old man with a stab wound to his torso and a 26-year-old man with a number of slashes all through his physique. The older man was pronounced lifeless at a close-by hospital whereas the youthful man was in steady situation, police stated.
A 69-year-old man who stabbed two males trying to rob him seems to have been performing in self-defense and was not charged.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul this yr has despatched New York Nationwide Guard members to town’s subway system to assist police conduct random searches of riders’ baggage for weapons following a sequence of high-profile crimes on metropolis trains. Hochul lately deployed extra members to assist patrol through the vacation season.
A couple of yr in the past, Hochul supported funding to put in video cameras on each prepare automobile within the New York subway system, stated Michael Kemper, chief safety officer for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He and different officers on Sunday credited the cameras with serving to to trace down the suspect so rapidly.
Police say Zapeta shall be transferred to federal custody and can face elimination proceedings
(The Related Press contributed to this report.)
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