Subway Burn Murder Victim - Debrina Kawam

amother

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 6:59 am

This is heartbreaking.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/0......html

Subway Victim’s Brutal End Stuns Friends From Her Happy Past

Before she was Debrina, she was Debbie.

In her town of Little Falls, N.J., Debbie Kawam was a girl people wanted to be around: the cheerleader with the inner glow, dispensing high-fives in the hallways of Passaic Valley Regional High School, cruising with friends, striking a pose against a backdrop of Led Zeppelin posters, welcoming diners at Perkins Pancake House in her hostess uniform.

Into her 20s, Ms. Kawam was the life of the party, flying off with girlfriends to Las Vegas and the Caribbean and living in the moment.

Later would come years of darkness, then decades. And on Dec. 22, Ms. Kawam was set afire on a subway train in Brooklyn in an apparently random attack captured on harrowing video. For nine days, the woman was anonymous in death. After her body was identified on Tuesday, the grieving could begin.

As the name she had adopted, Debrina, flashed across the news, classmates mustered memories to blot out the indelible image of a human figure outlined in flame.

“So sweet and kind,” said her onetime pancake-house colleague Diane Risoldi, 57, whom Ms. Kawam had helped get the job. “I can still see her in the black skirt and pink button-down. Always smiling.”

“She seemed like a girl who was going to have everything,” said Susan Fraser.

Ms. Kawam, 57, grew up in a small white house on a street dotted with modest single-family homes. Her father worked on the assembly line at the General Motors plant in Linden. Her mother worked in a bakery, said Malcolm Fraser, Susan’s husband and a childhood friend of Ms. Kawam. She had an older brother and sister.

Joe Rocco, who often walked home from school with Debbie, said that at recess, kids used to send kickballs flying in her direction just to have an excuse to be near her.

Mark Monteyne, 57, was the captain of the Passaic Valley Hornets football team in 1984, which meant he had a cheerleader personally paired with him: Debbie Kawam. “She was really that bright light,” he said. One of her tasks was to decorate his locker for game day. “Every game there was something special — balloons, stickers,” he remembered.

When Mr. Monteyne struggled in chemistry, Ms. Kawam shared her notes with him. “She was always helping me try to pass the class,” he said.

After graduation, Ms. Kawam took classes at Montclair State College, which was partly in Little Falls, and Mr. Monteyne saw her around campus the first semester. But she soon left, and they lost touch before he graduated.

Cindy Certosimo Bowie had known Ms. Kawam since third grade. In their 20s, they became fast friends and travel partners.

“We went to Jamaica, Cancun, Bahamas, Las Vegas,” Ms. Bowie said. “We’d go to clubs, lay out in the sun. When we went home we’d just book another trip. It was like a three-year stretch of going places.”

Ms. Kawam was always working, though seldom too long at any one place, Ms. Bowie said. “She kind of did the job shuffle for a while,” said Ms. Bowie, 56, who now manages a school cafeteria. Ms. Kawam worked at the headquarters of Sharp Electronics in Mahwah, among other jobs, Ms. Bowie recalled.

Ms. Bowie said that sometimes Ms. Kawam was at odds with her parents. “She was always going against the grind; they said white, she said black,” Ms. Bowie said. “Could have been the age.” Ms. Kawam’s family declined to be interviewed for this article.

But eventually Ms. Bowie settled down, and she, too, lost touch with her friend.

Details of Ms. Kawam’s life after that are harder to find. In her 30s, she worked for a couple of years at Merck, the pharmaceutical company, as a customer service representative. Around 2000, she embarked on a relationship with a man who worked for an electric utility. They lived in a house by the Passaic River down the street from her childhood home, according to the man’s ex-wife. In 2003, Ms. Kawam legally changed her first name to Debrina.

The couple split in 2008, around the time the house went into foreclosure. By then, Ms. Kawam had not worked for some time and had started having alcohol-fueled scrapes with the law. When she filed for bankruptcy that year, the whole of her assets consisted of a Dodge Neon valued at $800, a television and a futon worth $300 and some clothes.

Years after the Kawam family home in Little Falls was sold, Ms. Fraser and her husband said they ran into Ms. Kawam. She looked “distraught and high on something,” said Malcolm Fraser.

Ms. Kawam spent most of the last dozen years of her life in the southern part of the state. She lived with a man in Toms River for several years. The man later married someone else, and his widow said that he had described his previous relationship as chaos.

Ms. Kawam spent considerable time in Atlantic City, about an hour south, and court records show a string of summonses for public drinking from 2017 through last year.

Ms. Kawam’s mother also lived in Toms River. A neighbor said she did not know either woman, but someone Ms. Kawam’s age would come and go from the house. The older woman would lead the younger by the hand, as if she needed help getting around.

This past fall, Ms. Kawam came to New York, apparently with no place to stay. On Nov. 29, a homeless-outreach team encountered her at Grand Central Terminal. The next day, she checked into an intake shelter for women. Two days after that, she was assigned to a shelter in the Bronx. She never showed.

Early on the frigid morning of Dec. 22, as Ms. Kawam slept on a parked F train at the end of the line in Coney Island, a man approached her. Without so much as a word, he Messed a lighter at her. The man, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, then watched as she burned, the police said. He has been charged with murder.

The news of Ms. Kawam’s descent and unspeakable death left her classmates feeling devastated and empty and unfinished. “I honestly didn’t know her demons, the backdrop of what was going on,” said Mr. Monteyne, the former football player. “If we only knew.”

amother

Oatmeal ↓

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 7:38 am

This is heartbreaking at every level.

But I personally have a problem with the last four words "if only we knew".

Several years ago, a woman left her handicapped son in the woods with a blanket and a teddy bear. Although her motive was horrible, her desperation was real. Then too people came out of the woodworks saying "we would have helped her IF ONLY WE KNEW".

As someone who is struggling with a very difficult situation, those words hurt immensely.

Look around you. See if people need company
See if people need help. Pay attention. Give of your time. Don't say afterwards "if only we knew".

(Like in the thread of the young woman who sat Shiva and had no visitors who described her pain so poignantly, go the extra mile to be Menachem avel, pay attention to how you can alleviate someone's pain).

May we all know of no more tzaar.

amother

Garnet ↓

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 8:02 am

I am going through so so much. I feel like I’m shouting it from the roof tops so no one can ever say “If only we knew”. They know. I have put my shame and self respect away and have been airing my dirty laundry just trying to get someone to help.
I’m at the point that I am having SI not because I want to be dead but because I want help for my family and I feel that the only way someone will actually help them is if they don’t have a mother.

Petra ↓

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 8:05 am

I was just thinking of her the other day.
It is such a pure shame on so many levels.

I dont think this tragedy would have happened in Israel. I just cant imagine people on a train in Israel just standing around and doing nothing. My attempt to deflect the horror in some way, I guess.

↑ Petra

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 8:20 am

amother Garnet wrote:

Oy yoy yoy.
May Hashem send you a yeshua.

amother

↑ Oatmeal ↓

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 9:13 am

amother Garnet wrote:

Hugs! Have you reached out to organizations in your area? Is there any way WE can help you?

amother

Trillium

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 9:16 am

amother Garnet wrote:

Yea people know and it just turns them off and they don’t really help.

amother

↑ Garnet ↓

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 9:33 am

amother Oatmeal wrote:

Hugs! Have you reached out to organizations in your area? Is there any way WE can help you?

Thanks. Yea organizations like chai lifeline and Kochavim are so helpful. B’H for them. I can manage what life throws at me but I can’t take the added stress of the financial obligations that just accumulate faster than I can blink. I don’t know of any organizations that help monetarily.

tigerwife

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 9:45 am

Petra wrote:

Not too long ago, Daniel Penny was demonized and brought to trial for trying to protect his fellow subway riders from another potentially violent homeless man.

It’s horrific but not shocking that the bystanders pretended to ignore the whole thing. Even the police officer Sad

I kind of take issue with the “if only we knew statement”. It seems to indicate that the tragic demise was due to her homelessness and poverty. She was just another rider on the train- this could have happened to anyone!

amother

Winterberry

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 9:52 am

amother Garnet wrote:

This is what I did throughout my childhood: try to get my mother to see how much I needed help, including asking directly. I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t work, I was on my own for the most part.

OP, thanks so much for posting this. It affected me deeply. Hashem should give this woman a warm welcome home.

amother

↑ Garnet

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 9:56 am

amother Winterberry wrote:

This is what I did throughout my childhood: try to get my mother to see how much I needed help, including asking directly. I’ve come to the conclusion that it doesn’t work, we’re on our own for the most part.

I find it heartbreaking that the people that give us life sometimes are unwilling/unable to be there for us when we rely on them.

amother

Cyan

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 10:09 am

Sometimes people will hint and not say their struggles outright. They’re embarrassed about their situation. Don’t brush it off. Be understanding. Offer help if and when you can.

We’re going through financial difficulties now. Chanukah teachers collections were $50 per teacher. DH hasn’t been paid in several months from his government job. I lost my job so I’m trying to build up a part time side business I was working on before.

When I gave $5, the parents that accepted graciously was greatly appreciated. The ones that said it’s too little so you can’t join the class gift, just rubs our situation in more.
Class Bas Mitzvah gift, thank you to the mom who said I can pay towards the end of the year, and my child will still get their Bas Mitzvah gift.

To the woman who offered to pay for a mani and makeup because “you shouldn’t do it yourself for your own simcha”, that hurt. I blamed it on past negative experiences and you understood the truth but the way you said it rubbed it in more. I obviously refused your offer.

Pay attention to what your peers are saying. They may be hinting at their hardships in their life. Don’t jump to conclusions but don’t brush it off. Listen out for more hints they may give.
How you offer help makes the world of a difference. It can bring the person closer and be a help, or it can push them further down.

amother

Jetblack

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 10:15 am

Petra wrote:

Maybe not but people are found dead in their apartments when neighbors smell a terrible smell, yes sadly there have been many stories like this in Israel.

SYA

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 11:38 am

amother Jetblack wrote:

Maybe not but people are found dead in their apartments when neighbors smell a terrible smell, yes sadly there have been many stories like this in Israel.

As a child I had a neighbor in NY. He was Jewish but didn’t know much about yiddishkeit. He was around 60. Never had kids but did have a nephew who had a lot of children. They never visited him. He screamed at the kids on the street every day when he passed by and dressed unkempt. He was a war veteran and never recovered from what he went through.

He wasn’t seen for 3 days so the kids mentioned to their parents that it was quiet for a few days. One went to check and saw him through his window on the floor. Unfortunately he wasn’t alive at that point.
He didn’t allow anyone to help him and his nephew didn’t know how bad the situation had been.

Eta his only relative was this nephew who lived across the world. Had a large family and was just making ends meet. Did not have money to fly for visits. But did call him

sequoia

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 11:48 am

This article is ridiculous. The psycho didn’t attack her *because* she had mental health struggles. It could have been anyone on the train.

amother

Caramel

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 11:49 am

sequoia wrote:

This article is ridiculous. The psycho didn’t attack her *because* she had mental health struggles. It could have been anyone on the train.

I don’t think the article is saying it’s her fault. It’s humanizing her and telling us about her to make the tragedy more real.

amother

Impatiens

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 11:56 am

amother Oatmeal wrote:

I’m sorry you are going through such a hard time, but I am a little concerned that you seem to be giving understanding towards a mother who abandoned and murdered her child?

amother

Dill

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 12:07 pm

The man saying if only we knew means her school friends who loved her and had lost touch would have wanted to help her not fall from so high a place in life into this spiral of doom. He is expressing sadness and affection and horror by saying that.

People with problems are very embarrassed and do their best to not let the shame show and if they tell are not necessarily (fully) believed. People sometimes help after complete destruction. Not in advance of it. And even sometimes not after. Lots of "its a shame, terrible, not my problem , I got reasons I can't ". When people tell & ask get lots of judgment and what abouts.

ora_43

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 3:42 pm

I think that generally when people say "if only we'd known" they don't mean "if only we knew things were hard, we would have provided serious, sustained help." They mean more like, "if only we'd known there was an immediate, life-threatening crisis, we would have dropped everything to help (for that one day)."

Eg people know it's hard to raise a severely handicapped kid, but realistically most people can't provide significant long-term help in that situation. OTOH the average person would run to help if they knew someone had been abandoned in the woods.

We all prioritize the needs of those around us, consciously or not. If only we knew the full truth, we'd probably prioritize a bit differently. I think "don't wait for people to reach out, notice them first" is a good lesson in general, but I don't think it's a full fix to 'if only we knew.' There will always be a lot of unknowns.

amother

↑ Oatmeal

Tue, Jan 07 2025, 4:03 pm

amother Impatiens wrote:

I’m sorry you are going through such a hard time, but I am a little concerned that you seem to be giving understanding towards a mother who abandoned and murdered her child?

I don't know how you came to that conclusion. The child wasn't murdered. He was abandoned and that was terrible. I specifically said her motive was horrible.
What I brought out of that story which you failed to understand, was that people came forward and said they would have helped give this mother some respite. Oh really? So why didn't they?
And I suggested that people look around and see if they can offer that help, that money, that break, that listening ear, that emotional support to someone they know who needs it.
Don't come when they break down and say "we would have helped if we only knew".