An illegal Guatemalan immigrant who set a woman on fire on a Brooklyn subway train was so drunk that he was shocked when police showed him a video of the sickening attack he carried out. “Oh damn, that’s me!” 33-year-old Sebastian Zapeta-Calil told NYPD detectives on being shown footage of the December 22 attack, New York Post reported.
Zapeta-Calil set a sleeping woman, 57-year-old Debrina Kawam of New Jersey, on fire as she slept. He was later seen in a chilling video sitting calmly on a bench and watching the victim burn to death.
“No, the truth is I don’t remember,” he said. “Oh my goodness!”
‘I don’t know what happened’
Zapeta-Calil appeared disgusted at the images, and wiped his eyes and put his head down on the table, a transcript of the interview unsealed in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Tuesday, January 7, revealed. The stationhouse interview was conducted just shortly after he carried out the attack.
Zapeta-Calil has been arraigned on murder and arson charges. He admitted that he entered the country illegally, and would typically be drunk. “Sometimes when I drink and erase the memory, and I don’t know, right?” he told cops hours after the attack.
“When I wake up, I’m already in the house, already sleeping. I wake up when I’m already home, or there are times when I wake up and I’m already at the train station,” he added. “I was drunk. I drink in the afternoons.”
{{/usCountry}}“When I wake up, I’m already in the house, already sleeping. I wake up when I’m already home, or there are times when I wake up and I’m already at the train station,” he added. “I was drunk. I drink in the afternoons.”
{{/usCountry}}Describing the events that led up to the attack, Zapeta-Calil told cops he got off work that day and made a beeline for a Queens bar, drinking tequila and beer. He then picked up more beer and kept drinking and hopped on the F train in the morning after a night of boozing. He told Brooklyn detectives he worked as a roofer with “a Mexican.”
“Then, being about 8 or 9 in the morning, I stayed on 18th Avenue,” Zapeta-Calil said. “I really don’t remember how I got on this F train. When I reacted, I was already on it. When I woke up, I was already on the F train.”
Zapeta-Calil then got off at the Stillwell Avenue-Coney Island station and set Kawam ablaze as she slept. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges. “I am very sorry,” Zapeta-Calil, who is due back in court in March, reportedly told NYPD detectives. “I didn’t mean to. But I really don’t know. I don’t know what happened, but I’m very sorry for that woman.”