The Guatemalan migrant who shocked the world by lighting a sleeping woman on fire in a New York City subway chained smoked the synthetic drug K2, according to his homeless shelter roommate.
Sebastian Zapeta, 33, was arrested on Sunday after being spotted by high school students on the subway. He has been charged with first and second-degree murder, as well as arson.
Raymond Robinson, who slept next to Zapeta at the shelter, told the New York Post that the migrant was a heavy drinker who “bugged out” when smoking the K2.
“He said, ‘I’m going out to make my normal run,’ then the next thing I hear what he did on the news,” said Robinson.
Robinson said the accused murderer smoked about $30 worth of the drug per day.
“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.”
Zapeta told police that he was so drunk that he does not remember lighting the woman on fire.
“The migrants mainly get up in the morning, leave and come back drunk,” Robinson said. “He would come back drunk most days.”
The woman was asleep on the train as she was lit on fire by the suspect at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station around 7:30 a.m. on Sunday.
As she was engulfed in flames, Zapeta sat calmly on a bench and watched as she died.
Hellbound and Down 