Police in New York City have arrested a man they say set a woman on fire while she was sleeping on a subway train early Sunday morning, killing her.
According to the New York Police Department, the unidentified victim was sitting motionless on a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue subway station in Brooklyn around 7:30 a.m.
An unidentified person approached her quietly and set her clothes on fire using a lighter, police said.
Police also said there was no communication between the two prior to the attack and indicated they do not believe the men knew each other.
The man got out of the train car as police officers on patrol at the subway station approached the fire.
“What they saw was a man standing inside a train car completely engulfed in flames,” New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a press conference.
Cellphone video posted on social media by a horrified onlooker shows a man sitting on a bench on the platform a few steps away from the burning woman, wearing a gray hoodie that Sunday was found to be worn by a suspect who was later arrested.
Asked if the man watching from the bench was the attacker, police said responding officers had no reason to think he was a suspect when they arrived to help the woman.
Officers used fire extinguishers to extinguish the fire and emergency responders pronounced the woman dead at the scene, police said.
Police arrested a suspect, who has not been publicly identified, after he boarded the subway later Sunday.
Police said they are still investigating the identity of the victim and the motive behind the attack.
About four million trips are made each weekday on the city’s subway, where violent crime is relatively low. As of November, nine homicides were reported on the subway in 2024, compared with five in the same period in 2023, according to police data.
Earlier this month, a jury acquitted Daniel Penny of criminally negligent homicide in the death of Jordan Neely, a homeless former Michael Jackson impersonator, on a city subway.
Nelly was screaming angrily at the passengers on the subway train when Penny grabbed her from behind and held her by the throat for several minutes.