Woman Set on Fire in NYC Subway, Suspect Charged with Murder 

United States: Sebastian Zapeta, 33, was arrested on Monday for murder and arson after a woman was set on fire inside a subway train. Police are still not revealing the victim’s name. Zapeta was seen in a white jumpsuit being taken out of a Brooklyn police station, but he hadn’t yet appeared in front of a judge by Tuesday afternoon. 

Police say the man was the man seen on surveillance footage walking up to the woman riding on a stationary F train in the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn Sunday morning and setting her on fire. 

As reported by the Associate Press, the case was ‘one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit against another human being,’ New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Sunday recalling the incident in which her clothing appears to have been ‘fully engulfed in a matter of seconds.’ 

Officer and a bus transit worker then extinguished flames, police said, and the man sat on a nearby bench outside the train car and watched. 

So what do we know about the suspect? 

Hours after police released images of the suspect in the woman’s death, Zapeta was taken into custody Sunday. The man was then found on another subway train — with the same gray hoodie, wool hat, paint splattered pants and tan boots — three high schoolers had called 911 after they realized he was in the image, police said. 

Guatemalan citizen Zepeda entered the U.S. illegally after he had been deported to Guatemala in 2018, and he was previously deported in 2017 from the U.S., U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Jeff Carter said. 

Why he re-entered the U.S. and when and where are unclear, Carter said. 

The Brooklyn address police released for Zapeta matches a service center for Samaritan Daytop Village, the area’s leading housing and substance abuse support provider. According to the organization, it did not immediately return a request for comment. 

And Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez told CNN in a statement, “We will do everything we can to bring accountability in this case.” 

But what do we know about the victim? 

As of Tuesday, the victim had actually not been publicly identified and also earlier in the day, an NYPD spokesperson said that an identification of the victim was still ‘pending at this time.’