Man Charged in NYC Subway Burning Pleads Not Guilty and Says He Was Drunk

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.

In the video, which spread widely on social media, Ms. Kawam is seen standing in the doorway of a subway car as flames engulf her body and people scream in terror just out of frame.

A police officer strolls by, appearing not to react, although law enforcement officials have said he was securing the crime scene.

The video then shows a man rising from a subway bench holding a shirt. But instead of smothering the flames, he appears to fan them by waving the garment at Ms. Kawam.

She was burned so badly that it took the medical examiner’s office more than a week to identify her remains.

In his interrogation, Mr. Zapeta-Calil said he did not remember any of that.

He said he began drinking shortly after he left his job as a construction laborer the night before the killing. He had no memory of seeing Ms. Kawam, no memory of the attack and no memory of when or how he boarded the train, he said.

“Sometimes when I drink and erase the memory and I don’t know,” he told investigators. “When I wake up, I’m already in the house, already sleeping. I wake up when I’m already at home. Or there are times when I wake up and I’m already at the train station.”

Federal immigration officials said Mr. Zapeta-Calil is an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who had been deported in 2018. He later returned illegally to the United States and was living in a homeless shelter in Brooklyn for men with drug problems, according to the address he gave the police after his arrest.

Immediately after the attack, the Police Department circulated images of the assailant. The department quickly received a tip from a group of teenagers who believed they had seen the man on another train in Brooklyn.

Soon after, police officers boarded that train and detained Mr. Zapeta-Calil at the Herald Square station in Manhattan. As his interrogation wound down later that day, investigators at the 60th Precinct station house in Brooklyn showed him the grisly video of Ms. Kawam’s death.

They asked him: Did he recognize the man setting her on fire?

“Oh, damn,” Mr. Zapeta-Calil replied. “That’s me.”

Andy Newman and Sean Piccoli contributed reporting.