In a failed attempt to get back at the thief, a man in Colorado set fire to a house and killed five Senegalese immigrants. He was given 60 years in prison for this crime.
A plea deal saw Kevin Bui, now 20 years old, admit to two counts of second-degree murder. He is thought to have been the mastermind behind the plan. As part of the deal, sixty other charges were dropped, including one for first-degree murder.
Investigators learned that Bui was robbed while trying to buy a gun a month before the fire. Court records show that he said he used an app to track his iPhone to the house. He told cops that he started the fire and that he learned the next day from the news that the people who died were not the thieves.
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The fire seemed to be an act of payback for the stolen cellphone that was mistakenly linked to the house.
Someone named Djibril Diol, 29, his wife Adja Diol, 23, and their 22-month-old daughter Khadija were all killed in the fire. So were Djibril Diol’s sister Hassan Diol, 25, and her 7-month-old daughter Hawa.
Hamady Diol, the father of Djibril and Hassan Diol, spoke to the court from Senegal over the phone with the help of a translator. He talked about how he needs pills to sleep now that his loved ones have died.
He told The Associated Press, “I’m a dead person that hasn’t been buried yet.”
Amadou Beye, Hassan’s husband, was still in Senegal at the time of the fire. He was trying to get a visa to come to the U.S. to be with his family.
Beye called Bui a “big terrorist” in court and said that he didn’t deserve to eat, sleep, or talk to his family while he was in jail. Getting straight to Bui, he told him, “Because of you, we can’t be normal.”
The DA for Denver, Beth McCann, said she hopes Bui’s term will help his family and friends feel better.
“Kevin Bui truly deserved the harshest sentence of the three defendants in this case because he was the mastermind behind this horrifying and pointless crime.” Five completely innocent people would still be alive today if not for what he did. “I hope that his sentence will give the families and friends of the victims some comfort and a sense of justice,” McCann said.
In his speech to the court, Bui said that he was an “ignorant knucklehead” when the fire happened. It was said that he was a monster or a terrorist, but he said, “My heart beats the same as yours.”
“I have no excuses and nobody to blame but myself,” he said.
As Bui’s lawyer put it, he did not start the fire himself, but rather the youngest of the three friends who are being charged in the case. According to The Associated Press, police said that wasn’t true and said Bui admitted to starting the fire himself and getting burned in the process.
Bui is the last person charged in the case to be given a term.
Gavin Seymour, who is now 19 years old, admitted to second-degree murder and was given a 40-year prison term. At the time of the fire, Dillon Siebert was 14 years old. He was given a sentence of three years in youth detention and seven years in a state prison program for young inmates.
Seymour had said before, “If I could go back and stop all this, I would.” “I feel terrible guilt and regret for everything I did all the time.” … I want to say I’m truly sorry for all the hurt I’ve caused to your family and the community.
Before the fire on August 5, 2020, three people wearing full-face masks and dark hoodies were seen on surveillance video outside the house.
Police did something risky when they asked Google to show them which IP addresses had looked for the house’s address in the 15 days before the fire. They were able to figure out that Bui, Seymour, and Siebert were likely guilty in the end.
In October, the Colorado Supreme Court supported the search of Google users’ keyword history. This method has been called a “digital dragnet” by critics, who say it could violate people’s privacy and constitutional rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. The court made it clear that it was not making a “broad proclamation” about whether these kinds of search warrants were legal, and it stressed that it was only deciding on the facts of this one case.