Earlier than she was Debrina, she was Debbie.
In her city of Little Falls, N.J., Debbie Kawam was a woman folks wished to be round: the cheerleader with the interior glow, shelling out high-fives within the hallways of Passaic Valley Regional Excessive Faculty, cruising with pals, hanging a pose towards a backdrop of Led Zeppelin posters, welcoming diners at Perkins Pancake Home in her hostess uniform.
Into her 20s, Ms. Kawam was the lifetime of the social gathering, flying off with girlfriends to Las Vegas and the Caribbean and dwelling within the second.
Later would come years of darkness, then a long time. And on Dec. 22, Ms. Kawam was set afire on a subway practice in Brooklyn in an apparently random assault captured on harrowing video. For 9 days, the girl was nameless in demise. After her physique was recognized on Tuesday, the grieving might start.
Because the identify she had adopted, Debrina, flashed throughout the information, classmates mustered recollections to blot out the indelible picture of a human determine outlined in flame.
“So candy and sort,” stated her onetime pancake-house colleague Diane Risoldi, 57, whom Ms. Kawam had helped get the job. “I can nonetheless see her within the black skirt and pink button-down. All the time smiling.”
“She appeared like a woman who was going to have every part,” stated Susan Fraser.
Ms. Kawam, 57, grew up in a small white home on a avenue dotted with modest single-family properties. Her father labored on the meeting line on the Normal Motors plant in Linden. Her mom labored in a bakery, stated Malcolm Fraser, Susan’s husband and a childhood buddy of Ms. Kawam. She had an older brother and sister.
Joe Rocco, who usually walked dwelling from faculty with Debbie, stated that at recess, children used to ship kickballs flying in her path simply to have an excuse to be close to her.
Mark Monteyne, 57, was the captain of the Passaic Valley Hornets soccer crew in 1984, which meant he had a cheerleader personally paired with him: Debbie Kawam. “She was actually that brilliant gentle,” he stated. One among her duties was to brighten his locker for sport day. “Each sport there was one thing particular — balloons, stickers,” he remembered.
When Mr. Monteyne struggled in chemistry, Ms. Kawam shared her notes with him. “She was at all times serving to me attempt to cross the category,” he stated.
After commencement, Ms. Kawam took lessons at Montclair State Faculty a couple of cities away, and Mr. Monteyne noticed her round campus the primary semester. However she quickly left, and so they misplaced contact earlier than he graduated.
Cindy Certosimo Bowie had identified Ms. Kawam since third grade. Of their 20s, they turned quick pals and journey companions.
“We went to Jamaica, Cancun, Bahamas, Las Vegas,” Ms. Bowie stated. “We’d go to golf equipment, lay out within the solar. After we went dwelling we’d simply e-book one other journey. It was like a three-year stretch of going locations.”
Ms. Kawam was at all times working, although seldom too lengthy at anyone place, Ms. Bowie stated. “She sort of did the job shuffle for some time,” stated Ms. Bowie, 56, who now manages a college cafeteria. Ms. Kawam labored on the headquarters of Sharp Electronics in Mahwah, amongst different jobs, Ms. Bowie recalled.
Ms. Bowie stated that typically Ms. Kawam was at odds together with her mother and father. “She was at all times going towards the grind; they stated white, she stated black,” Ms. Bowie stated. “Might have been the age.” Ms. Kawam’s household declined to be interviewed for this text.
However finally Ms. Bowie settled down, and he or she, too, misplaced contact together with her buddy.
Particulars of Ms. Kawam’s life after which can be more durable to seek out. In her 30s, she labored for a few years at Merck, the pharmaceutical firm, as a customer support consultant. Round 2000, she launched into a relationship with a person who labored for an electrical utility. They lived in a home by the Passaic River down the road from her childhood dwelling, in accordance with the person’s ex-wife. In 2003, Ms. Kawam legally modified her first identify to Debrina.
The couple break up in 2008, across the time the home went into foreclosures. By then, Ms. Kawam had not labored for a while and had began having alcohol-fueled scrapes with the regulation. When she filed for chapter that yr, the entire of her belongings consisted of a Dodge Neon valued at $800, a tv and a futon price $300 and a few garments.
Years after the Kawam household dwelling in Little Falls was offered, Ms. Fraser and her husband stated they bumped into Ms. Kawam. She seemed “distraught and excessive on one thing,” stated Malcolm Fraser.
Ms. Kawam spent many of the final dozen years of her life within the southern a part of the state. She lived with a person in Toms River for a number of years. The person later married another person, and his widow stated that he had described his earlier relationship as chaos.
Ms. Kawam spent appreciable time in Atlantic Metropolis, about an hour south, and court docket data present a string of summonses for public ingesting from 2017 via final yr.
Ms. Kawam’s mom additionally lived in Toms River. A neighbor stated she didn’t know both lady, however somebody Ms. Kawam’s age would come and go from the home. The older lady would lead the youthful by the hand, as if she wanted assist getting round.
This previous fall, Ms. Kawam got here to New York, apparently with no place to remain. On Nov. 29, a homeless-outreach crew encountered her at Grand Central Terminal. The subsequent day, she checked into an consumption shelter for ladies. Two days after that, she was assigned to a shelter within the Bronx. She by no means confirmed.
Early on the frigid morning of Dec. 22, as Ms. Kawam slept on a parked F practice on the finish of the road in Coney Island, a person approached her. With out a lot as a phrase, he flicked a lighter at her. The person, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, then watched as she burned, the police stated. He has been charged with homicide.
The information of Ms. Kawam’s descent and unspeakable demise left her classmates feeling devastated and empty and unfinished. “I truthfully didn’t know her demons, the backdrop of what was happening,” stated Mr. Monteyne, the previous soccer participant. “If we solely knew.”
