3 Teens Helped NYPD Bust Suspected Subway Firebug Killer

The NYPD arrested a person of interest suspected of lighting a woman on fire in a Brooklyn subway car after three high school-aged New Yorkers identified him.

The horrific scene unfolded around 7:30 a.m. on an F train stopped at the Coney Island-Stillwell Ave. stop in south Brooklyn.

“As the train pulled into the station, the suspect calmly walked up to the victim, who was in a seated position at the end of a subway car,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said. “The suspect used what we believe to be a lighter to ignite the victim’s clothing, which became fully engulfed in a matter of seconds.”

Patrol officers at the station saw smoke and rushed to the scene.

“What they saw is a person standing inside the train car, fully engulfed in flames,” Tisch said. The woman, who has not been identified, was pronounced dead on the subway platform.

The suspected firebug stayed at the scene watching officers and an MTA employee put out the flames from a nearby bench, the commissioner said.

Eventually, three “high school-aged New Yorkers” called 911 after recognizing the suspect on another F train at the Jay and York Street station in Brooklyn, thanks to photos authorities released earlier the same day.

He was eventually nabbed by police in Manhattan, after police stopped the train at Herald Square and walked car-to-car until they located him.

Law enforcement did not identify the suspect or the victim, citing an ongoing “active investigation.”

NYPD Chief of Transit Joe Gulotta said he arrived from Guatemala in 2018. Tisch said that he was carrying a lighter in his pocket when he was arrested in Manhattan.

Investigators currently do not believe the suspect had any earlier interaction with the victim. “We don’t believe they knew each other,” Gulotta told reporters on Sunday.