A 33-year-old illegal migrant who set a stranger on fire on a New York City subway train told officers he was drunk at the time and had no memory of it.
Sebastian Zapeta-Calil has been charged with first-degree murder and arson after the woman, who has not yet been named, was burned to death on the F train in Brooklyn on Sunday morning.
Police said Zapeta-Calil set the unnamed passenger on fire while she slept boarded the train before sitting back to watch her burn as she leaned against the carriage door, dying.
Law enforcement sources report this The New York Post that he was arrested a short time later with a lighter in his pocket and that he told investigators that he was drunk and did not remember it happening.
He was photographed as the perpetrator left the NYPD 60th Precinct building in Coney Island on Monday afternoon. The victim has not yet been identified.
Chilling footage showed the moment a man in a hoodie sat on the platform at Stillwell Avenue in Coney Island and watched as the woman was engulfed in flames.
In one clip, Zapeta-Calil can even be seen fanning the flames as other New Yorkers filmed the horror on their phones and police walked by.
Anonymous sources also told the Post that Zapeta-Calil was in the country illegally after previously being deported at the Arizona border in June 2018. It is unclear how he got back to the US.
Sebastian Zapeta-Calil has been charged with murder and arson after a woman was burned to death on the F train in Brooklyn just before 7:30 a.m. Sunday, police told DailyMail.com
Train surveillance cameras captured the man setting the homeless woman on fire and then watching as she suffered in pain
Zapeta-Calil appeared stone-faced as officers escorted him from the Coney Island police station on Monday. He focused his eyes on the ground while wearing a police-issued white jumpsuit.
The chilling videos of the subway arson caused an uproar online over the way police appear to have responded to the scene.
As the woman burns and the suspect sits on a nearby bench, an NYPD officer can be seen walking around the scene waving his hand in annoyance. He does not intervene to arrest the suspect or help the victim.
NYPD Police Chief Jessica Tisch told a news conference that responding officers were unaware the suspect was on the scene at the time.
Shocked social media users have slammed the police response, describing the behavior of police officers caught on camera as “cowardly” and “shameful” as they call for them to be appointed or fired.
‘Policeman walks by. Doesn’t take off his coat to put out the flames. Not his problem. I don’t think he gets paid too much. Can we find out who he is? His behavior is shameful,” someone wrote on X.
‘I don’t know what’s wilder. The fact that she’s on fire and just standing there, or the guy who did it and is just watching, the guy recording or the cop who just walked by, like everything was normal,” said another.
“A lot of people freeze in these situations, and some are just afraid of getting hurt. The police, on the other hand, are there to protect and preserve lives,” someone else chimed in.
‘They stood there and did nothing. In fact, one of them was so fed up with the situation that he waved his hands as if to say, ‘I don’t care about this anymore’ and stormed off, as if a dying innocent woman would bother him.”
‘The officer has to go to prison because he doesn’t help. This is the oath they take. Coward,” said one, while another agreed, “that cop should be fired.”
Sebastian Zapeta-Calil sits on a bench in the subway and watches the woman he set on fire burn alive. Standing in front of him is an NYPD officer who walked past him, unaware that he was responsible for the sickening crime
The sick killer even got up at one point to fan the flames that burned the woman alive
Zapeta-Calil eventually boarded the F train again, and he was flagged down by high school students at York Street Station in downtown Brooklyn, who recognized him from police photos distributed Sunday.
NYPD officers alerted MTA, which stopped the train eight stops north of the sighting at Herald Square in Midtown Manhattan. Police boarded the subway and arrested Zapeta-Calil as he sat in a crowded carriage, as captured in dramatic videos shared online.
Police Commissioner Tisch praised the police response to the horrific incident during a press conference on Sunday evening as “an example of great technology and even greater old-fashioned police work.”
She added that detectives do not believe Zapeta-Calil and the victim knew each other, as she provided more details about the “depraved crime.”
“The suspect walked calmly towards the victim, who was sitting at the end of a subway train,” she said. “The suspect used what we believe was a lighter to ignite the victim’s clothing, which was completely engulfed within seconds.
“Officers patrolling an upper floor of that station smelled and saw smoke and went to investigate. What they saw was a person standing in a train car, completely engulfed in flames.
Pictured: Detectives from the NYPD 60th Precinct walk accused firebug Zapeta-Calil out of the building
Zapeta-Calil was later caught on camera at the station sitting on a bench and watching the woman go up in flames – but he was not arrested until seven hours later.
“With the assistance of an MTA employee and a fire extinguisher, the flames were extinguished. Unfortunately, it was too late and the victim was pronounced (dead) on the spot.
“Unbeknownst to the responding officers, the suspect had remained at the scene and was sitting on a bench on a platform just outside the train car.
“The responding officers’ body-worn cameras provided a very clear, detailed image of the killer.”
Zapeta-Calil was wearing the same “gray hoodie, distinctive wool hat, paint-splattered pants and tan boots” when officers tracked him down, and he also had a lighter in his pocket, the NYPD said.
Fox News described him as a Guatemalan migrant. This has not been confirmed by the police.