An illegal Guatemalan immigrant was charged with first-degree murder Monday in the gruesome burning death of a sleeping Brooklyn straphanger — but told police he was so drunk he couldn’t even remember doing it .
Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, a 33-year-old immigrant who returned to the US after being deported in 2018 and was living in Big Apple shelters, was caught by the NYPD after the horrific murder at a Manhattan subway station. Coney Island on Sunday morning.
But when questioned by police he claimed he was drunk and did not remember setting the victim on fire – although surveillance footage shows him literally fanning the flames.
The hair-raising video also shows Zepeta-Calil admiring the fire inside the train.
“The brutality of this horrific crime is beyond comprehension and my office is committed to bringing the perpetrator to justice,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement Monday.
“This horrific and senseless act of violence against a vulnerable woman will have the most serious consequences,” Gonzalez said. “Every New Yorker deserves to feel safe on our subways and we will do everything in our power to ensure accountability in this case.”
Police said Zapeta-Calil opened fire on the unidentified woman inside an F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station about 7:30 a.m. Sunday — then sat down on a bench and watched.
According to authorities, he casually left the scene after police arrived, but was later exposed when he got off the subway at the 34th Street-Herald Square station in Manhattan.
Police charged him with first- and second-degree murder and arson, law enforcement sources said, with Brooklyn prosecutors also filing charges after the autopsy was completed — which was delayed due to the horrific condition of the victim’s body.
Check out the latest on the migrant accused of burning a woman to death in the metro:
Federal immigration officials said Zapeta-Calil was caught in Arizona after illegally crossing the U.S. border on June 1, 2018, and deported six days later, a spokeswoman said Monday.
But he managed to sneak back in at some point and, in March 2023, was living in a city-run shelter — the first of several shelters in Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan where he slept before the fire.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Monday they will place Japeta-Calil under a detainer while he is being held on murder charges pending deportation proceedings.
If the migrant is convicted the proceedings will follow any jail sentence.
Meanwhile, questions have emerged as to why bystanders failed to intervene during Sunday’s incident.
Video footage from the scene shows at least three people on the stage, including one person filming it on his phone, while an NYPD policeman walks by the open door.
Guardian Angels founder and community activist Curtis Sliwa told The Post that he blames the “Daniel Penny effect” — a reference to the subway vigilante who was accused of beating a dangerous vagrant to death on a subway train last year. He was later charged with murder in Manhattan.
Although Penny was ultimately acquitted, Sliwa said the legal ordeal the ex-Marine had to go through is deterring other future Metro Good Samaritans from getting involved.
“This is absolutely a turning point. “The burning of a woman in the subway is a turning point,” he said. “There’s no doubt that people don’t want to get involved in this. It’s the Daniel Penny factor. These are frozen people.
“They’re saying to themselves, ‘I don’t want to be stuck like Penny,'” Sliwa said. “They could have easily told the police, ‘That guy is right here.’ It’s the code of omerta.”
Additional reporting by Jenny Tarr
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