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.
Fox News quotes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson Marie Ferguson who identifies the suspect as 33-year-old Sebastian Zapeta. She says Zapeta illegally entered the U.S. from Guatemala during Trump's first term in 2018. He was deported almost immediately but re-entered the country at some later date.
“New Yorkers came through again,” said New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch on Sunday. She described the case as “one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit against another human being.”
Tisch said the suspect and the woman had been riding a subway train without any interaction between them to the end of the line in Brooklyn at around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday.
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.
