Mom Cathy Zapata was allegedly blowtorched by her husband but fought the pain to call and protect her children
Even before calling 911, Cathy Zapata phoned the baby-sitter to warn that husband Carlos Diaz might be on the way

By Shayna Jacobs , Joseph Stepansky AND Ginger Adams Otis / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Published: Thursday, January 17, 2013, 10:08 PM

Carlos Diaz is arraigned Thursday on charges he burned his estranged wife.
Susan Watts/Daily News

Carlos Diaz is arraigned Thursday on charges he burned his estranged wife with a blowtorch.

A Bronx mom set ablaze with a blowtorch by her estranged husband was so worried he’d go after her kids
next she called her baby-sitter before 911 — even as her face and neck still sizzled from the horrific burns.

From her bed in the burn unit of Harlem Hospital, Cathy Zapata, 38, told the Daily News she ran into her
psycho ex after she dropped off their 5-year-old son at his school early Wednesday morning.

The husband was at that same corner, a block away from the school, that he’d been staking out for months.

W.D. Auto repair boss Gerson Marchena, who previously knew Carlos Diaz when he rented a small space,
was inches away from being set on fire until the latter's cigarette lighter malfunctioned.

This time, the demonic 35-year-old — Carlos Diaz — said he had something to give her from the truck
he’d been living in since she kicked him out in 2010 after three years of marriage.

So she drove them to the lot, in an industrial corner of Inwood at Ninth Ave. and 207th St.

Diaz urged her to get in his truck, but alarm bells went off. Then he doused her with an accelerant and
started blasting her face with a blowtorch, according to the criminal complaint.

“The flame came out of nowhere. I just saw it burning and then it was on my face,” Zapata told The News.
“I remember seeing his eyes, looking at me steady. He didn’t say anything.”

Frantic, Zapata did whatever she could to douse the flames.

“It was a rainy day and there was a lot of water, so I threw myself into a puddle. I burned my hands
pretty bad but it saved my face,” she said.

Carlos Diaz previously leased out small space inside the auto shop two years ago.

Zapata said her face, neck and hands were raw and bloody with second-degree burns; and her eyebrows,
eyelashes and half her hair singed away — but she dialed her baby-sitter and family members to warn
them.

Then she called 911.

Diaz jumped into his truck and zoomed from the lot, trying to run her over on the way, she said.

But he wasn’t heading for her kids, as she feared. His next stop was the auto-body shop around the corner,
according to the criminal complaint.

Manager Gerson Marchena said Diaz had leased out a small space there before he was booted two years ago,
after he started “acting crazy.”

But Marchena said Diaz kept finding excuses to come back.

Wednesday, at around 8 a.m., Marchena said he burst in screaming, “I’m gonna set fire to the place,”
then doused the office with gasoline — even soaking a customer.

“He took a lighter from his pocket,” Marchena told The News.

But the lighter malfunctioned, Marchena said. Diaz then pulled a knife but ran away when an employee
grabbed a bat.

“Thank you Jesus, because the cigarette lighter never worked. If it worked, I’m not here,” said Marchena.

Expressionless in gray sweatpants and galoshes, the vicious firebug was arraigned Thursday and charged
with attempted murder, assault and attempted assault. He was denied bail.

Assistant District Attorney Scott Leet said Diaz “planned the whole thing out the night before.”

Leet said Diaz “had in his mind a plan” to set Zapata and his ex-boss on fire at the auto shop, but when
his plan went awry, he set her on fire in the parking lot and “left her there” to die.

gotis@nydailynews.com

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