NEW YORK, Dec. 31 (Xinhua) -- U.S. investigators have learned the name of a woman who was burned alive and beyond recognizability aboard a Brooklyn train last week in New York City, reported The New York Times on Tuesday.
The police identified the woman as Debrina Kawam, 61, of Toms River, New Jersey. She was the victim of an apparently random attack captured in videos that showed her bracing herself against the doorway of an F train in Coney Island, her body engulfed by flames. Hours later, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, the 33-year-old man accused of attacking Kawam, was charged with first-degree murder and arson.
Investigators were using every means possible to identify the woman, Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, said at a news conference last week. They took her fingerprints and collected DNA evidence. They gathered surveillance footage from the subways, hoping to find a clear image of the woman's face before the fire.
"It's a priority for me, for my office, for the Police Department to identify this woman, so we can notify her family of what had happened to her," Gonzalez said.
