A woman dies after man set her ablaze on New York subway train, police say

A man has been arrested in New York in connection with the death of a woman who was set on fire aboard a subway train in Brooklyn early Sunday.

According to authorities, the woman was sitting on the train when the man approached her and used a lighter to ignite her clothes.

Authorities smelled smoke and went to the scene, where they used a fire extinguisher to put out the flames.

“Unfortunately, it was too late, and the victim was pronounced [dead] on the scene,” New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a news conference Sunday evening.

While police and a transit officer were responding, the suspect was on a bench outside the train, authorities said at the news conference. No one had linked him to the fire at that point.

Tisch and Metro Transit Authority Security Chief Michael Kemper credited subway cameras and three high-school-age students for finding the man, whom they noticed after seeing images that were disseminated later in the morning.

Kemper urged “strong, swift consequences” for the person who started the fire.

The suspect has been identified as an immigrant from Guatemala who entered the United States in 2018, though authorities did not name him during the news conference. NYPD Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta said he did not know the man’s immigration status.

Gulotta said there was “no interaction” between the suspect and the victim, and that the woman was “motionless” before the attack. Police said the two probably did not know each other. It was not clear why the woman was set on fire, authorities said, and they did not know her identity.

On Monday, the NYPD’s public information office, in an unsigned email, declined to confirm additional details about the suspect as investigators gathered information for formal charges.

Helen Peterson, a spokeswoman for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, said he is expected to be arraigned Tuesday.

In a statement, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez (D) called the depravity of the crime “beyond comprehension” and vowed to aggressively prosecute the “gruesome and senseless act of violence against a vulnerable woman.”