Bright Light. Big Smile. Her Name Was Debrina Kawam.

Atop an article that ran in The New York Times on Jan. 4, there’s an old photo of a young woman named Debbie Kawam. 

She’s pictured sitting in a sun-dappled patch of grass on what looks to be a summer’s day. One leg is stretched out in front of her; an elbow is propped up on the other leg. She’s dressed in high-waisted shorts and a white T-shirt. Her white ankle socks and deck shoes complete the look. She’s smiling—her eyes coyly gazing at the camera from beneath honey-blond bangs framing her face.

That picture was likely taken several decades ago when Kawam’s life held all the promise in the world. She was—as several news outlets have mentioned—the life of every party. The New York Times described her as “the cheerleader with the inner glow, dispensing high-fives in the hallways of Passaic Valley Regional High School” in New Jersey. She lived in the moment—whether she was traveling with girlfriends to Las Vegas or waiting on hungry patrons at Perkins Pancake House.

And then, at some point, things changed. 

According to The Times, Kawam started accumulating debt in the early 2000s. Over the course of several years in the mid-2010s, she was served dozens of summonses related to both drinking and disorderly conduct. 

By last autumn, Kawam—who at some point had officially changed her name to Debrina—was, reportedly, homeless. An outreach team in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal apparently helped her to enter the city’s shelter system and assigned her to a facility in the Bronx. But Kawam never showed up. 

And then, in the early hours of Dec. 22, 2024—a Sunday—Kawam, while she slept on a stopped train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn, became the victim of what the New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch described as “one of the most depraved crimes one person could possibly commit against another human being.”

Footage recorded on bystanders’ mobile phones shows a man, later identified as a 33-year old named Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, calmly approaching Kawam who is sitting at the end of the carriage. He ignites a lighter, setting her clothes ablaze, and then seems to fan the flames. He exits the train and watches from a bench on the platform as Kawam endures injuries that would kill her. She was 57 years old.

Later that Sunday, Zapeta-Calil was taken into custody. According to the Associated Press, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Jeff Carter identified him as a Guatemalan citizen who entered the U.S. illegally after previously being deported in 2018.

No One Knew Her Name

What happened on that F train just before Christmas is a sick tragedy almost beyond the scope of comprehension. It casts a harsh and necessary light on so many ways in which the city of New York (and the U.S.) is failing the humans who call it home. 

The shelter system is inadequate. The healthcare system is broken. Social Security for so many falls so short. Immigration problems are getting worse, not better. And that’s true of huge swaths of the U.S.—from east to west and north to south, and beyond America’s borders, too. 

The situation may be one of government failure, but the story is one of human life. So often, that’s the part that seems to be forgotten.

Frequently, when horrendous tragedies like this occur, “they are used for political purposes,” Dave Giffen, executive director for the Coalition for the Homeless, the U.S.’s oldest homeless advocacy and service organization, told CNN. Rarely, are they a catalyst for actual action that will really change human lives. 

Kawam’s death should remind us that behind the headlines and the crime statistics there are real people with rich and full lives. Yes, their stories may be complicated, but their memories and histories, relationships and romances are no less real for it. There are enduring hopes for better times.

Kawam was the victim of a heinous crime that made headlines around the world. But for more than seven days, no one even knew her name. 

The Lived Experience 

Last Friday, the U.S.’s Department of Housing and Urban Development released a report showing the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2024 across the country was the highest ever recorded: 770,000. The number of known homeless people has soared in other countries too. 

Men still consistently outnumber women when it comes to those with no permanent home, but gender dramatically determines the lived experience that comes with being homeless. One obvious example: Women experiencing homelessness are much more likely than men to become the victims of sexual violence. They’re also more likely to find themselves forced into sex work. 

According to Street Sheet, a publication of the Coalition on Homelessness, an advocacy group based in San Francisco, mental illness affects approximately 65% of homeless women, and almost half of all women who are homeless have a major depressive disorder, which is twice the rate of women in the general population. Women are also more likely than men to experience other trauma and PTSD when they do not have stable housing.

These details are frequently lost in mainstream news coverage. Homeless or not—woman or not—suffering is individual and should be recognized and acknowledged as that.

More Than a Statistic

As we settle into a new year and a fresh news cycle, headlines about Kawam’s attack are already starting to fade. A presidential inauguration is around the corner. Wars are raging. Clips from the Golden Globes are more palatable than clips focused on human depravity.

Because of the sheer brutality of what was done to Kawam, I expect her story will continue to resurface over the years. It will be used to hold power to account or to demonstrate the incompetencies of governmental leadership.

But as it is told and told again, my hope is that Kawam’s demise won’t be weaponized in an ego-fueled jostle for political power. This we owe to ourselves. This we owe to each other. And this we most certainly owe to the smiling woman in that photograph taken all those years ago.