According to recently revealed court papers, the illegal immigrant accused of torching a lady to death on a Brooklyn subway train was so intoxicated that he was taken aback when authorities showed him video of the horrific incident.
“Oh damn, that’s me!” Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, of Guatemala, allegedly informed NYPD detectives when he saw film of the Dec. 22 attack at the Brooklyn F train stop.
“No, the truth is I don’t remember,” he claimed. “Oh my goodness!”
According to a transcript of the interview unsealed in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Tuesday, Zapeta-Calil appeared sickened by the photos, wiping his eyes and lowering his head to a table.
The stationhouse interview came just hours after detectives say the intoxicated alleged killer lit a lighter on a F train and set fire to a sleeping Debrina Kawam, 57, of Toms River, NJ, before fanning the flames and watching her burn.
The hard-drinking migrant was arraigned on murder and arson charges on Tuesday, wearing an orange jumpsuit and jacket. He admitted to entering the country illegally five years ago and was habitually inebriated.
“Sometimes when I drink and erase the memory, and I don’t know, right?” Zapeta-Calil allegedly informed detectives barely hours after the horrifying, videotaped attack.
“When I wake up, I am already in the house and sleeping. “I wake up when I’m already at home, or sometimes when I’m already at the train station,” he explained. “I was inebriated. “I drink in the afternoon.”
Zapeta-Calil was initially sent away at the border in 2018, but he got back into the nation and was living with family before entering the Big Apple shelter system, according to authorities.
According to a transcript of the interview, he told Brooklyn investigators that he worked as a roofer with “a Mexican” and got off work and went straight to a Queens pub, where he drank beer and tequila before picking up more beer and continuing to drink.
After a night of partying, Zapeta-Calil told investigators he boarded the F train early the morning of the attack.
“Then, around 8 or 9 a.m., I stayed on 18th Avenue,” he allegedly stated. “I honestly don’t remember how I got on this F train. When I responded, I was already on it. “When I awoke, I was already on the F train.”
The migrant allegedly got off at the Stillwell Avenue-Coney Island station and set fire to Kawan while she slept, before being apprehended by police near Columbus Circle later that day.
In court on Tuesday, the migrant’s lawyer requested that he be kept under medical monitoring while being imprisoned without bail.
Zapeta-Calil has pleaded not guilty to the accusations and is due back in court in March.
“I am very sorry,” he allegedly told the NYPD detectives. “I did not mean to. But I honestly don’t know. I’m not sure what happened, but I’m deeply sorry for that woman.”