A Guatemalan migrant has been arrested for allegedly lighting a woman on fire while she was asleep in a subway car in Brooklyn.
This is Sebastian Zapeta.
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) December 23, 2024
He is an illegal Guatemalan migrant, who is accused of setting a woman on fire on the NYC subway.
He was deported under Trump's first admin in 2018 but invaded the US again at an unknown date and stayed in the NYC taxpayer-funded shelter system. pic.twitter.com/uAawMjLGvu
A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed that the migrant suspect is Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, a 33-year-old foreign national living in the U.S. unlawfully.
“Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, is an unlawfully present Guatemalan citizen who entered the United States without admission by an immigration official,” ICE spokesperson Jeff Carter said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“U.S. Border Patrol in Sonoita, Arizona, encountered Zapeta June 1, 2018, and served him with an order of expedited removal and Enforcement and Removal Operations removed Zapeta from the U.S. to Guatemala June 7, 2018.”
The victim burned to her death while the suspect allegedly sat on a bench “calmly” watching the fire consume her body.
The New York Post reports the disturbing crime was one of the most savage to take an innocent life in the city of New York.
The immigrants are evil people with no civilization?
— 𝗦𝗜𝗟𝗘𝗡𝗧 𝗚𝗨𝗔𝗥𝗗𝗜𝗔𝗡 (@Censored_Locks) December 23, 2024
While this women slowly burned down to a painful death as fellow Americans were busy recording videos in Coney Island Brooklyn at NewYork Subway#NewYork #ConeyIsland #Subway#Guatemala #Train #Fire #NYC pic.twitter.com/ccpE4PcMbX
As AP reports, Transit police apprehended the suspect after receiving a report from three high school students who had recognized the man.
They had seen images of the suspect taken from surveillance and police body cam video and widely distributed by police.
“New Yorkers came through again,” said New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who described the case as “one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit against another human being.”
After the train came to a stop, surveillance video from the subway car showed the man “calmly” walk up to the victim, who was seated motionless, possibly sleeping, and set her clothing on fire with what appeared to be a lighter.
The woman’s clothing then “became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds,” Tisch said.
Unbeknownst to the officers, the suspect had remained at the scene and was seated on a bench on the subway platform, just outside the train car, Tisch said.
Body cameras worn by the officers caught a “very clear, detailed look” at the suspect and those images were publicly disseminated.
Officials said the 33-year-old suspect came to the US in 2018 from Guatemala.
He was detained by border patrol agents in Arizona in June of that year, sources said. His legal status wasn’t immediately clear Sunday night.
He received a transit summons in May 2023, but his criminal record in New York City was largely clean otherwise, sources said. He was living at a shelter on Randall’s Island at the time of the infraction.
The police reportedly do not believe the migrant and the victim he burned to death knew each other before the disturbing killing. The woman had not yet been identified as of Sunday night.
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