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New York|Man Charged in Subway Burning Says He Was Drunk and Remembers Nothing
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/nyregion/subway-burning-defendant-questioning.html
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Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, confronted with video of the immolation of Debrina Kawam, told detectives he was blackout drunk at the time. He pleaded not guilty to murder on Tuesday.
Jan. 7, 2025, 3:28 p.m. ET
The man charged with burning a woman to death on the New York City subway last month told investigators that he did not remember the incident because he was blackout drunk at the time, according to a transcript of his interrogation released by prosecutors on Tuesday.
The man, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, pleaded not guilty to five counts, including first- and second-degree murder, in a five-minute hearing on Tuesday morning in Kings County Supreme Criminal Court.
During his interrogation, which was conducted on the day of the attack, he described an all-night bender that ended in a blackout and then his arrest the next day in the death of the woman, Debrina Kawam of Toms River, N.J.
“I am very sorry,” Mr. Zapeta-Calil said, according to the transcript, which was translated from Spanish. “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.”
Ms. Kawam, 57, was asleep on an F train parked at the end of the line in Coney Island early on the morning of Dec. 22 when Mr. Zapeta-Calil walked up, pulled out a lighter and set her on fire, the police said.
The violence of Ms. Kawam’s death and the video that captured the scene horrified many New Yorkers who have grown concerned in recent months about the safety of the subway system, despite assurances from the police that crime there has fallen overall.
