NEW YORK >> Investigators have learned the name of a woman who was burned alive — and beyond recognizability — aboard a Brooklyn train last week.

Police identified the woman as Debrina Kawam of Toms River, New Jersey. She was the victim of an apparently random attack captured in videos that showed her bracing herself against the doorway of an F train in Coney Island, her body engulfed by flames. Hours later, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, the 33-year-old man accused of attacking Kawam, was charged with first-degree murder and arson.

Kawam’s identity was confirmed on Monday through fingerprint analysis, said Julie Bolcer, a spokesperson for the city medical examiner’s office. Kawam was 57, though police officials initially had said she was 61.

Mayor Eric Adams said at a news conference at City Hall today that she briefly stayed in the city’s homeless shelter system. “No matter where she lived, that should not have happened,” Adams said.

“Just watching that tape — I couldn’t even watch it all the way through,” he added.

Investigators had used every means possible to identify the woman, the Brooklyn district attorney, Eric Gonzalez, said at a news conference last week. They took her fingerprints and collected DNA evidence. They gathered surveillance footage from the subways, hoping to find a clear image of the woman’s face before the fire.

On Dec. 22, around 7:30 a.m., Kawam had been sitting motionless, apparently asleep, when Zapeta-Calil walked up, took out a lighter and set her on fire, according to prosecutors and police. He then stepped out of the train and sat on a bench on the subway platform, staring as the smoke and flames overwhelmed Kawam, police said.

Then, video of the incident shows a man who appears to be Zapeta-Calil rising and approaching Kawam. Instead of trying to douse the blaze, he waves a shirt at her, appearing to fan the flames. At least one police officer can be seen walking by her as people on the platform scream.

The smell of smoke had drifted to the upper level of the station, where officers were on patrol, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference later that day. They went downstairs and, with help from a Metropolitan Transportation Authority employee, they extinguished the fire.

The officers did not appear to focus on Zapeta-Calil sitting on the bench as they tended to Kawam. But their body cameras had captured him and the clothes he wore: a gray, hooded sweatshirt; a wool hat; tan boots; and paint-splattered pants.

The Police Department released the photos publicly and soon after, three teenagers called 911. They said they had recognized Zapeta-Calil from the photos and that he was aboard another train in Brooklyn. Police ordered the train stopped, and arrested him.

Authorities do not believe Kawam and Zapeta-Calil knew each other. She was already on the train when he boarded it in Queens, and they both rode to the end of the line in Coney Island, the official added, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity. People often sleep on subway trains in cold weather; the outside temperature on the morning Kawam was killed was 16 degrees.

Public records seem to sketch a troubled life for Kawam. A search of New Jersey municipal court records going back 20 years found dozens of minor cases against a Debrina Kawam in 14 cities and towns, up and down the Jersey Shore, in Jersey City and in the suburbs of New York. They include more than 30 citations for public drinking and 10 for trespassing or disorderly conduct, as well as one for theft in Toms River in 2012 and one for passing a bad check in Clifton in 2008. The most recent offense, in July, was for public alcohol consumption in Atlantic City.

Kawam appeared to have graduated from Passaic Valley Regional High School in Little Falls, New Jersey. Her yearbook entry from 1985 — illustrated with a photo of her with long, feathered hair — mentioned memories of freshman and sophomore cheerleading and trips to the shore. It listed her ambition as airline stewardess and her “secret ambition” was “to party forever.” In a senior poll, she was one of three girls voted “most punk.”

In 2007, two Atlantic City casinos — the Showboat and the Trump Taj Mahal — won judgments against her totaling more than $10,000. In a 2008 bankruptcy filing, she wrote that she had not worked “due to illness.” After her father, William Kawam, died in 2009, she posted on a tribute page for him that he was the best father a daughter could have had and that “I will always regret that it took me later in life to figure that out.”

As for Zapeta-Calil, he is an immigrant from Guatemala who was deported in 2018 only to illegally return to the United States, according to federal immigration officials.

The suspect had been living for the past couple of months at a shelter in Brooklyn for men with drug and alcohol problems, according to police and residents of the shelter. A grand jury indicted him last week on first-degree murder, second-degree murder and arson charges.

After Zapeta-Calil’s arrest, federal officials issued two immigration detainers, according to Jeffrey Carter, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Detainers are requests to police and the city Department of Correction that they notify the federal agency before Zapeta-Calil’s court case is done and he is released from jail.

City sanctuary laws prevent city agencies from sharing immigration information about defendants with federal officials, including when they will be released from police custody or from jail. However, the laws let the agencies tell ICE about noncitizens who have been convicted of any of 177 serious offenses, including rape and felony assault.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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