The illegal Guatemalan migrant charged with torching a sleeping straphanger to death on a Brooklyn subway train was a heavy drinker who chain-smoked K2, pals at the homeless shelter where he was living told The Post.
Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, who was arraigned on first-degree murder charges Tuesday, started his Sunday calmly enough at the Samaritan Village Forbell men’s shelter in East New York, sharing a breakfast of French toast, sausage and grits at the facility with one of his roommates – before things took a gruesome turn.
“He said, ‘I’m going out to make my normal run,’ then the next thing I hear what he did on the news,” said Raymond Robinson, who slept next to Zapeta-Calil at the shelter.
Raymont Robinson painted a disturbing picture of Zapeta-Calil’s habitual use of synthetic drugs. Michael Nagle“He smoked K2, drank and bugged out,” Robinson said. “He would bug out and talk to himself when he was high, but he never harmed nobody or himself. When he wasn’t high he’d talk like we’re talking regular.”
But Robinson said his migrant pal smoked about $30 worth of the synthetic drug every day and lost it when he drank.
Zapeta was a regular drug user, his roommate at a homeless shelter said. PoolPolice said Zapeta-Calil told them he was so boozed up on Sunday morning when he allegedly set the unidentified woman on fire on an F train at the Coney Island station that he doesn’t remember what happened.
Follow the latest on the migrant accused of burning a woman to death on the subway:
- Horrific video shows suspect watching woman burn to death in F train car after he allegedly set her on fire
- Guatemalan migrant arrested for setting sleeping NYC subway rider on fire, watching her burn to death: cops
- Video shows moment cops swarm train to arrest migrant accused of setting subway rider on fire
- Fiend accused of burning woman to death on NYC subway is illegal migrant from Guatemala who sneaked into US after he was deported
The drug-addled migrant was ordered held without bail at his arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Tuesday, where he said nothing as he was hit with first- and second-degree murder and first-degree arson charges.
Assistant District Attorney Ari Rosenberg said Zapeta-Calil was seen on video footage fanning the flames and sitting down calmly on a bench while the victim burned inside the train.
Subway surveilance images show Sebasian Zapeta-Calil leaving the car as the woman burns to death.
“The defendant stated in sum and substance that he ‘drinks a lot of liquor’ and did not remember what happened, he said.
Robinson, an unemployed father of six who has lived at the Brooklyn shelter for about a year, said Zapeta-Calil was often inebriated.
“He spoke to imaginary people but he was harmless — well, I thought he was,” he told The Post.
“He was a nice guy, quiet, he kept to himself,” said Robinson, 54. “He was friendly. Say you just came in and needed some socks he’d help you out. He was very gentle, nice and spoke to you with good manners and respect.”
“That’s why this s–t f—ed my head up because I slept next to him and he was never like that,” he added. “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.”
Robinson said his former roommate lost it when he drank. Michael Nagle
Zapeta was arraigned on murder charges on Christmas Eve. PoolBut Robinson said Zapeta-Calil drank Voda vodka — “the cheapest s–t there is” — and was typical of other heavy-drinking migrants shacking up at the shelter.
“The migrants mainly get up in the morning, leave and come back drunk,” he said. “He would come back drunk most days.”
Juan Medrano, another resident of the shelter, said Zapeta-Calil “was in his own world” and was “kind of awkward.
“He didn’t work,” Medrano, 47, said. “Most people that live here don’t work, which is why they’re in the shelter. Some people will go to Home Depot and get picked up to do some laboring.
But Medrano added, “He was never in trouble at the shelter.”
