Almost 10 days after a woman was torched in a subway car in New York City, the NYPD could finally identify the woman as New Jersey’s Debrina Kawam, a 61-year-old homeless person. Kawam was sleeping on the train at the Stillwell Avenue-Coney Island station 7.30 AM on December 22 when illegal Guatemalan immigrant Sebastian Zapeta-Calil set her on fire.
What took so long to identify the victim?
The incident sent a shockwave across the country as shocking visuals of the incident surfaced on social media.In those visuals, the woman was seen standing in the fire inside the train while people were recording her footage and exclaiming — instead of throwing a blanket on her. An NYPD officer was also seen walking by in a viral footage.
Initially, the NYPD only revealed that the victim was an adult woman and probably had some mobility issue which prohibited her from running away from the fire. Wrapped in a blanket and under many layers of clothes, she was sleeping inside the train, when Zapeta-Calil approached her and set her blanket on fire. Zapeta also fanned a shirt near her so that the fire spread. The woman remained immobile while Zapeta walked out of the train and saw the woman burning inside. The woman stood up when she was completely gutted.
The woman was charred beyond recognition and there was no easy way to establish the identity of the woman. Police found a walker at the site which indicated that she had some mobility issues.
Police also concluded that she was a homeless person as no relatives filed any missing complaint either.
The identity could finally be established through fingerprints, the New York Post reported.
Who is Debrina Kawam? What we know about her
Little is known about the 61-year-old homeless victim of the horrific incident. Police confirmed that she was homeless and she had a walker and several bags nearby.
Social media users dug up a Facebook profile by the name of Debrina Kawam and claimed that she was a former business and marketing manager at a pharmacy. But it is not confirmed whether the profile actually belonged to the victim.
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