Police in New York City have named the woman who was set on fire and burned on a Brooklyn subway train.

On Tuesday, authorities identified 57-year-old Debrina Kawam of New Jersey as the victim of the seemingly random Dec. 22 attack in which her body was burned beyond recognition.

Sebastian Zapeta, 33, is accused of starting the fire with a lighter while Ms Kawam was sleeping. He is said to have fanned the flames with a shirt and then watched from a bench in front of the subway car as the fire grew larger.

Last week, a grand jury indicted Mr. Zapeta, who claimed to have no memory of the incident, on four counts of murder and one count of arson.

Julie Bolcer, a spokeswoman for New York’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner, said the death was ruled a homicide and was due to “thermal and inhalation injuries.” She made the ID public on Tuesday.

“The identity was confirmed by the coroner yesterday through fingerprint analysis, following a multi-agency effort with our law enforcement partners,” she said.

It took authorities more than a week to identify Ms. Kawam’s body.

Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, said at a news conference early in the investigation that authorities had been working to collect DNA evidence and fingerprints from Ms. Kawam’s remains.

“It is a priority for me, my office and the police to identify this woman so we can notify her family,” Mr. Gonzalez said.

During the authorities’ work, false and unverified information about her circulated online, including a fake AI-generated image.

There has also been an outpouring of support, including a vigil for the then-unidentified victim last week.

According to police, Ms. Kawam was motionless and apparently asleep on a stationary subway train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn early on December 22 when Mr. Zapeta allegedly approached her with a lighter.

The two never had contact with each other and the police assume that they did not know each other.

The video appears to show the suspect waving a shirt at her, apparently trying to fan the flames rather than put them out. He then gets out of the subway car and watches the fire from a bench on the platform.

New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said the smell of smoke attracted police officers and Metropolitan Transit Authority employees to the fire, where they extinguished the flames.

“Unbeknownst to the officers who responded, the suspect remained at the scene, sitting on a bench on the platform directly in front of the train car,” Ms. Tisch said.

Authorities pronounced Ms. Kawam dead at the scene.

Ms Tisch described the incident as “one of the most depraved crimes a person can commit against another human being”.

In a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, prosecutor Ari Rottenberg said Mr. Zapeta told investigators he had been drinking and did not remember the incident, but identified himself in photos and surveillance video that showed the fire being lit.

Mr. Zapeta, originally from Guatemala, was deported from the United States in 2018 and later re-entered the country illegally, immigration authorities said.

He is scheduled to appear in court again on January 7, according to prosecutors.

Despite a decline in crime rates on the New York City subway, the incident is one of a series of attacks that is raising concerns among riders on the nation’s largest transit system.

According to the New York Police Department, subway safety problems arose again on Tuesday afternoon when someone was pushed onto the tracks in the Chelsea district of Manhattan.

The unidentified male victim was hospitalized with a head injury, authorities said.

A photo of the suspect was captured on camera, but he was still at large late Tuesday afternoon.