Woman set on fire on New York City subway ID’d by police
(NEW YORK) — A woman who died after being set on fire on a New York City subway train this month has been identified, according to police.
The woman was identified as 61-year-old Debrina Kawam of Toms River, New Jersey, according to the New York Police Department.
Kawam was sleeping on a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn on Dec. 23 when she was set on fire allegedly by a 33-year-old Guatemalan citizen who entered the U.S. illegally, according to police.
The suspect, Sebastian Zapeta, has been charged with murder and arson. He has yet to enter a plea.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Prosecutors leading the case against Bryan Kohberger are pushing back against his attorneys’ claims that investigators improperly obtained potentially key evidence — and are asking the judge to deny requests to exclude that evidence from trial.
In a series of highly-technical filings posted late Thursday, prosecutors said that the searches of Kohberger’s person and belongings, including his car, phone records, Apple accounts and homes, were appropriate. They noted the “burden of proof is on the defendant to show that the search was invalid.”
Kohberger, a former criminology Ph.D. student at Washington State University, was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of burglary, in connection with the fatal stabbing of four University of Idaho students — Kaylee Goncalves, 21, Madison Mogen, 21, Xana Kernodle, 20, and Ethan Chapin, 20 — in an off-campus house in the early hours of Nov. 13, 2022.
A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf. The trial is scheduled for August 2025.
Lawyers for Kohberger have accused investigators of an overbroad attempt to build their case, arguing their search warrants cast too wide a net. But prosecutors, responding on Thursday to the defense’s lengthy series of motions posted Nov. 15, contend that taken together with other elements of the case, their probe for evidence was “sufficiently particular and valid” and “considering the information available” at the time, the Moscow detective seeking the information “could not reasonably narrow the scope further.”
The “warrant must allow the searcher to reasonably ascertain and identify the things which are authorized to be seized,” wrote Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Ashley Jennings, citing legal precedent. She added, “broad language may be permissible where the warrant constrains the search to evidence of a specific crime.”
“The rationale is that ‘criminals don’t advertise where they keep evidence,'” prosecutors wrote. And since the potential evidence they sought “could be located in multiple formats and areas,” particularly electronic data, prosecutors here said, a wide enough investigative aperture is necessary.
“Applied to electronic devices ‘criminals can — and often do — hide, mislabel, or manipulate files to conceal criminal activity [such that] a broad, expansive search of the [device] may be required,'” prosecutors wrote, again citing legal precedent.
Jennings said the “seizure of items was limited to” the crime Kohberger is accused of committing — the killings of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin in their off-campus home.
And though Kohberger has a right to privacy, that right does not shield criminal conduct, prosecutors said. In fact, it is because he had that right that they sought, and obtained, search warrants, they said.
Though the man accused of stabbing to death four college students in Nov. 2022 indeed “had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his vehicle located at his parents’ residence,” there was “substantial probable cause” to search it, prosecutors said. And Kohberger also had a “privacy interest” in his AT&T account and phone records — and “as such, the State sought and was granted a search warrant to review those records.”
The Thursday filings were accompanied by a series of requests to seal corresponding exhibits meant to bolster prosecutors’ argument.
Prosecutors didn’t include in Thursday’s filings an extensive address of Kohberger’s challenge to DNA evidence, or the search of his Amazon account.
Judge Steven Hippler, who is now overseeing the case in Boise, has not yet scheduled a public hearing on the matter.
David DePape in Berkeley, Calif., Dec. 13, 2013. Michael Short/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
(SAN FRANCISCO) — David DePape was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the state trial over the hammer attack against Paul Pelosi.
A jury found DePape guilty in June of false imprisonment of an elder by violence or menace, residential burglary, threatening a family member of a public official, dissuading a witness by force or threat and aggravated kidnapping.
Before the sentencing, DePape’s attorneys asked for a new trial. That motion was denied.
DePape was also sentenced to 30 years in prison in May in the federal case, in which he was convicted of seeking to hold former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hostage and attacking her husband with a hammer.
DePape had broken into the Pelosi home in San Francisco looking for Nancy Pelosi, who was not home at the time.
Following the guilty verdict in the state case, San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said the conviction ensures that DePape “will face consequences for his heinous crimes against the Pelosi family and our democracy.”
DePape’s public defender, Adam Lipson, said at the time they were disappointed by the verdict.
“I don’t believe that this was a kidnapping for ransom, I think that it’s really unfortunate that he was charged this way,” Lipson told reporters, adding that his client had lived a “very isolated” life and had gotten “wrapped up in a lot of conspiracy theory-type situations.”
DePape did not testify during the three-week state trial. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Paul Pelosi testified that on the night of the attack, DePape woke him by asking, “Are you Paul Pelosi?” and had a hammer and zip ties, according to San Francisco ABC station KGO.
“He seemed very intent on what he was going to do,” Paul Pelosi said, according to KGO.
DePape apologized for the attack during his sentencing hearing in the federal case.
“I’m sorry for what I did, especially what I did to Paul Pelosi,” he said during the resentencing hearing, according to KGO. “I should have just left the house when I realized Nancy Pelosi wasn’t home.”
A federal jury found DePape guilty in November 2023 of attempted kidnapping of a federal officer or employee, and assault of an immediate family member of a federal official.
After a judge sentenced DePape to 30 years in federal prison in May, the sentencing was reopened when prosecutors noted that the defendant was never formally given the opportunity to address the court during his sentencing. He was again sentenced to 30 years in prison at a subsequent hearing.
DePape admitted during the federal trial that he was looking for Nancy Pelosi to question her about Russian influence on the 2016 election and planned to hold her hostage, but only Paul Pelosi was at their San Francisco home when he broke in on Oct. 28, 2022.
Paul Pelosi said on the stand during the federal trial that DePape repeatedly asked him, “Where is Nancy?”
DePape hit Paul Pelosi, then 82 years old, with a hammer, causing major injuries, including a skull fracture, but told the court that Paul Pelosi was “never my target.”
“I’m sorry that he got hurt,” DePape said during the federal trial. “I reacted because my plan was basically ruined.”
The incident was captured on police body camera video by officers who responded to the scene.
Paul Pelosi was hospitalized for six days following the attack and underwent surgery to repair the skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm and hands.
(BUTLER COUNTY, Pa.) — More than a dozen 911 calls from the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump on July 13 in Butler County, Pennsylvania, were released on Wednesday, reflecting moments of fear and confusion after a gunman opened fire at the outdoor rally.
“They just tried to kill President Trump,” a 911 caller reported.
“We have an emergency. We’re at the Trump rally,” another caller said.
The 15 recordings, some of which capture the sounds of chaos in the background, were released by Butler County.
The first call came in at 6:12 p.m., about a minute after shots rang out. Trump was eight minutes into his speech when the shooting began, according to officials.
“We’re at the Trump rally — gunshots,” a woman shouts above loud crowds.
“Yep, the police are on their way,” the dispatcher responds.
“You better get over here quick!” the woman says.
The gunfire killed Corey Comperatore, 50, and critically injured two other attendees, Jim Copenhaver and David Dutch.
“I have a woman on the line, her husband was shot at the Trump rally,” a dispatcher from neighboring Allegheny County reported.
Another call came from a woman who was trying to locate her husband, who, she told the call taker, had been shot and taken by paramedics.
Trump was left with a bloodied ear before a Secret Service sharpshooter killed the suspected gunman, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks.
The bipartisan House task force investigating the assassination attempt outlined the security failures of the U.S. Secret Service and lack of coordination with local law enforcement in an interim report released earlier this week.
The report revealed that there was “inadequate planning and coordination by the Secret Service with state and local law enforcement before and during the July 13 rally.”
The preliminary findings are based on 23 transcribed interviews with local law enforcement officials, thousands of pages of documents from local, state and federal authorities as well as testimony from a public hearing on Sept. 26, according to the task force.
The task force concluded that the attempt on Trump’s life was “preventable.”
Trump returned to the Butler site earlier this month for a rally marked by enhanced security measures around the fairground, during which he thanked the first responders and the community that rallied behind him in the wake of the assassination attempt.
ABC News’ Lauren Peller contributed to this report.
