NEW YORK CITY — Debrina Kawam, a 61-year-old resident of Toms River, New Jersey, was identified this week as the victim of a gruesome attack in which she was burned to death aboard an F train in Brooklyn on Dec. 22, police said.
Authorities reported that Kawam, of Toms River, whose family resides in the Little Falls and Totowa area, was asleep on a stationary subway car at the Stillwell Avenue station in Coney Island when she was set on fire. Emergency responders pronounced her dead at the scene.
Security camera footage shows the illegal migrant suspect setting her on fire, then calmly watching her burn to death inside the subway car as people fled the scene in panic.
Sebastian Zapeta, a 33-year-old Guatemalan national who had previously been deported from the United States, was arrested and later indicted for first-degree murder, multiple counts of second-degree murder, and arson in connection with the crime. Officials have not provided information about Zapeta’s motive or mental state.
Toms River Mayor Dan Rodrick expressed outrage over the crime, calling for a reinstatement of the death penalty in New York and New Jersey. “The states of New York and New Jersey need to bring back the death penalty,” Rodrick said. “We should at least be able to have the death penalty for those who are caught on video committing these heinous murders. People like that cannot be rehabilitated.”
“People convicted of such heinous crimes, caught on video like this, should be put down like a rabid animal once convicted,” Rodrick said. “Why should society pay potentially millions of dollars to keep people like this alive? There is no room in our civilized society for behavior like this.”