A man is facing up to 60 years in prison for allegedly setting fire to the wrong home in a Denver, Colorado, neighborhood, killing an entire family in August 2020.
Among the suspects in the case is Kevin Bui, who was 16 at the time but is now 20 years old, the New York Post reported Tuesday, noting he recently pleaded guilty in the case.
Images show Bui and the family who died in the fire:
The fire was allegedly part of the young man’s “barbaric revenge plot” to find his stolen iPhone. He reportedly used the “Find my iPhone” app to locate it in that area.
Bui has been accused of leading a group of three friends to ignite the blaze that killed a Senegalese family, which included two babies.
In 2021, a Denver 7 video showed the fire at the home and a photo of what appeared to be the three suspects, wearing hoodies and masks:
A first responder told the outlet that crews found five people dead inside the lower portion of the building that night.
The Post article said, “Djibril Diol, 29, Adja Diol, 23, and their 22-month-old daughter, Khadija Diol, as well as their relative Hassan Diol, 25, and her 6-month-old daughter, Hawa Beye, were all killed in the blaze,” adding that three others suffered broken bones when they leaped from the second floor to escape:
Dillon Siebert, who was 14 at the time, was sentenced last year to three years in juvenile detention and seven years in a state prison program for young inmates after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.
Meanwhile, Gavin Seymour, 19, was sentenced to 40 years in prison in March after pleading guilty to one count of second-degree murder.
Authorities prosecuted Bui as an adult, and he pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder. The young man had faced 60 other charges, but those were dropped due to a plea deal that proposes keeping him behind bars for 60 years.
He is scheduled for sentencing in early July.
In November 2021, CBS Colorado reported Bui had been robbed of his phone and other items in a Denver park. He later told police the alleged arson attack was “part of a plan to get even,” a reporter for the outlet said:
Although the app located the phone at the home, the family who lived there reportedly had no connection to the device.
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