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The illegal immigrant charged with the horrific torching death of a New Jersey woman on a Brooklyn subway train told cops he was so inebriated after a night of drinking that he blacked out before the sick attack, newly released court records reveal.
Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, wore an orange jumpsuit and orange jacket as he was arraigned in Brooklyn Supreme Court on murder and arson charges Tuesday, with prosecutors revealing the Guatemalan native’s troubling interview with detectives after the Dec. 22 attack.
“Sometimes when I drink and erase the memory, and I don’t know, right?” Zapeta-Calil allegedly told cops, according to a criminal complaint. “When I wake up I’m already in the house, already sleeping. I wake up when I’m already home, or there are times when I wake up and I’m already at the train station.”
Follow the latest on the migrant accused of burning a woman to death on the subway:
“I was drunk,” he allegedly said. “I drink in the afternoons.”
Zapeta-Calil, who entered the US five years ago after being turned away at the border in 2018, said he worked as a roofer, and made a beeline for a Queens bar after getting off the job the night before – drinking beer and tequila well into the morning.
Authorities said that early on Dec. 22 the drunken accused killer flicked a lighter on an F train at a sleeping Debrina Kawam, a 57-year-old Toms River resident, and set her on fire – then fanned the flames and watched her burn.
In court Tuesday, the migrant’s lawyer asked that he remain under medical supervision while he is held without bail.
Zapeta-Calil pleaded not guilty to the charges and is due back in court in March.
“I am very sorry,” he allegedly told NYPD detectives. “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.”
