She was set on fire and no one knows her name. How homelessness, crime and a broken immigration system met in a subway car

By Gloria Pazmino and Sabrina Shulman, CNN

(CNN) — It’s been a week since a woman died in a New York City subway car, allegedly set on fire by a homeless, undocumented man. She has yet to be identified and the man charged with her murder says he doesn’t even remember being there.

The crime has renewed focus on a set of multilayered and inextricable issues felt almost daily in America’s biggest city: homelessness, crime and the nation’s broken immigration system.

The killing’s gruesome details and videos from the scene spread quickly on social media, leaving lawmakers in New York to highlight the city’s failure to provide housing, address the ongoing mental health crisis and improve public safety.

Riding the F train for shelter

Both suspect and victim rode the F train to the end of the line in Brooklyn last Sunday, a frequent practice by homeless people seeking to take shelter from the cold at night. Once the train arrived at the station, authorities said the suspect, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, walked over to the victim and using a lighter to set her ablaze.

As the woman burned alive, Zapeta-Calil appeared to watch from a platform bench while bystanders recorded video and police struggled to put out the flames.

Zapeta-Calil, who arrived in the United States from Guatemala in 2018, had also recently checked in and out of homeless shelters across the city. Zapeta-Calil’s last recorded residence, according to police, was a shelter in Brooklyn which offers help to people with substance abuse disorders.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced a grand jury indictment against Zapeta-Calil on Friday, charging him with first- and second-degree murder and arson. Gonzalez said investigators in his office, the New York City Police Department and the city’s medical examiner’s office are still working to identify the victim.

“Just because someone appears to have been living in a situation of homelessness does not mean that there is not going to be family devastated by the tragic way she lost her life,” Gonzalez said.

Brooklyn Councilman Justin Brannan, a Democrat who represents parts of Coney Island, said homeless people routinely ride the subways to the end of the line stations to seek shelter from the elements and during the overnight hours. They are usually met by outreach workers who try to coax them into accepting city services and shelter, but the offers are often rejected.

Brannan, whose district includes two end-of-line stations, said the constant presence of homeless individuals and their frequent refusal of city services is evidence the city’s approach to the homelessness crisis is not working.

“The fact that so many people seek refuge in our subway system is a testament to how bad the shelter situation is,” Brannan told CNN. “Someone would rather spend the day riding the subways back and forth instead of accepting shelter – that is an indictment on the entire system.”

Crime beneath the streets

Crime rates in the city’s subway system have decreased by 10% since New York Gov. Kathy Hochul rolled out a subway safety initiative in March, according to data provided by Hochul’s office. The plan included additional resources for mental health services, a plan to install surveillance cameras across the entire train system and the deployment of National Guard officers. Overall, crime has declined by 42% since January 2021.

Still, multiple high-profile incidents involving homeless individuals and other passengers – including some which have resulted in fatalities – have continued to feed anxiety among city residents and commuters about the safety of the system.

“Our subways have become this de facto mental health facility,” Brannan said. The subway might look different for people depending on what hour they ride the trains, which run 24 hours, nonstop every day of the year.

“The reality on the subways is very different from the rush hour commute and the off hours. Someone who commutes after 11 p.m. or before 5 or 6 a.m. is seeing a very different reality while they’re on that train,” he said.

The struggle to house migrants

More than 225,000 migrants have come through New York City since the spring of 2022, according to numbers provided by City Hall. Since then, Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has spent more than $6 billion to meet the city’s housing obligation, struggling to provide shelter to every migrant who arrived in the city.

As a right-to-shelter jurisdiction, New York City is legally mandated to provide shelter to any homeless person in the city who needs it. The legal requirement has forced the city to look beyond its typical shelter options – resorting to hotels, park fields and a web of shelter providers.

Zapeta-Calil had recently bounced around the city’s shelter system, according to senior law enforcement officials briefed on the investigation. The multiple shelter stays likely reflect the city’s 60-day rule for single migrant men. The policy allows men to stay in a shelter for a maximum of 60 days before needing to reapply or leave the shelter system altogether.

‘They are being used’

While much of the focus has been on Zapeta-Calil’s immigration status and the graphic nature of the crime, homelessness advocates said the case also highlights the struggle by state and local government to provide housing and services to people in dire need of them.

Dave Giffen, executive director for the Coalition for the Homeless, the country’s oldest homeless advocacy and service organization, told CNN the attack underscores how deeply entrenched the issue is in the city.

“What is frustrating about all this is that when these horrible incidents happen and homeless people are victimized or in the rare instance that they are the perpetrator, they are used for political purposes rather than doing something to provide permanent housing and services,” Giffen said.

Further proof of the acute nature of the nation’s homelessness crisis was outlined in a Department of Housing and Urban Development report released Friday, showing the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2024 as the highest ever recorded.

The data show more than 770,000 people experienced homelessness on a single night across the country in 2024. The number represents an increase of 18% over the last year and the largest annual increase since the count began in 2007.

Roughly 23 of every 10,000 people in the United States “experienced homelessness in an emergency shelter, safe haven, transitional housing program, or in unsheltered locations across the country,” the report said.

Homelessness increased significantly across many of America’s biggest cities, driven by the affordable housing crisis, rising inflation and increased numbers of immigrants to the United States. Natural disasters also contributed, as well as the end of pandemic era homelessness prevention programs.

According to the New York City Department of Homeless Services’ daily census, more than 86,000 people in New York City were housed in the shelter system as of Friday, including more than 32,000 children.

A face in the crowd

The nature of the injuries suffered by the still unidentified victim has made the identification process extremely difficult, but investigators with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office are working to trace the steps the woman took that day before she ended up sleeping inside the train. Gonzalez said they are also using advanced DNA and fingerprinting technology.

“We’re working on trying to go back and trace when she entered the subway system and exactly – if there’s a clear shot of her face,” Gonzalez said Friday.

Giffen told CNN the difficulty in identifying the victim so far underscores how homeless people become invisible to everyone around them. He said homeless people typically have a hard time holding on to important documents and identification because they are always moving from place to place and their belongings are often stolen.

“Especially around the holiday season it just underscores what a tragedy this is – we have become so used to seeing human beings sleeping in public spaces that it’s not surprising we have forgotten who they are,” Giffen said.

“The level of dehumanization is tragic and it’s something that likely happened long before this tragic act of violence.”

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