Torch victim Kawam was identified through fingerprints. Accused high on K2 and vodka doesn't remember starting fire.

Crispy fingerprints?

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Cops identify NJ woman as mystery straphanger torched to death in horrific NYC subway attack

By Joe Marino and

Jorge Fitz-Gibbon

Published Dec. 31, 2024, 10:47 a.m. ET

…The Coalition for the Homeless described her as homeless.

Kawam was identified through fingerprints, sources said.

…

…A pal at the Brooklyn facility where [the accused] last shacked up told The Post the migrant wasaddicted to smoking the synthetic drug K2 and drank heavily on a daily basis.

The accused killer allegedlytold cops he was so high, he didn’t remember lighting the fire.

“He smoked K2, drank and bugged out,” said shelter resident Raymond Robinson, who slept on a cot at the facility next to Zapeta-Calil until his arrest.

"He would bug out and talk to himself when he was high, but never harmed nobody but himself,” Robinson said. “That’s why this s–t f–ked my head up because I slept next to him and he was never like that. I wouldn’t leave my daughter with anybody but he was the type of dude I could trust.

“As long as he wasn’t high,” he added.

Robinson said Zapeta-Calil liked to drink Voda vodka, “the cheapest s–t there is.”

https://nypost.com/2024/12/31/us-news/mystery-woman-torched-to-death-in-horrific-nyc-subway-attack-finally-identified-by-cops-sources/

NY Subway torch victim reportedly homeless for some time, multiple arrests since 1994 (including Maryland and NJ)

>>22264380

"No matter where she lived this shouldn’t have happened.”

A source also told The Post she was alive when she was set on fire, with a walker and several bags nearby.

The city medical examiner struggled to identify the body because it was so severely burned in the attack, sources previously said.

The sources said Kawam had been living in Big Apple shelters since at least Sept. 9, and had been given a bed at the Franklin Williams Women’s Shelter in the Bronx on Nov. 30, but left on Dec. 2.

She had at least three prior scrapes with the police — a transit bust for alcohol on April 28, a 2010 disorderly conduct charge in Maryland in 2010, and a New Jersey prostitution bust in 1994, according to law enforcement sources.

“She resided in New Jersey and had a brief stint in our shelter system,” Mayor Eric Adams said Tuesday. “Our hearts go out to the family for this horrific incident.

“It was just a bad incident and impacts how New Yorkers feel,” the mayor said. “But it really reinforces what I’ve been saying, people should not be living on our subway system. They should be in a place of care.

https://nypost.com/2024/12/31/us-news/mystery-woman-torched-to-death-in-horrific-nyc-subway-attack-finally-identified-by-cops-sources/

there seem to be a number of people named Debrina Kawambeing associated with this victim - the Merck / Lily one and this one.