A teenage arsonist burned down a Colorado home after he tracked his stolen iPhone to the location… It was the wrong house.
Teen arsonist set family home on fire
Kevin Bui was 16-years-old when he committed a grievous crime that took the lives of two babies and three adults in August 2020.
Bui’s iPhone was stolen over the summer and he used the “Find My iPhone” app to track the Apple product to a the general area of a home in Denver.
According to WKRC, the teenage arsonist was the “ringleader” of his group of friends, including Gavin Seymour, then 16, and Dillon Siebert, 14 at the time, who he allegedly convinced to help him get revenge on the person who jacked his phone.
The trio of teen boys reportedly spent weeks planning to break into and burn down the home.
The young men even purchased hockey masks reminiscent of “Friday the 13th” villain Jason Voorhees, which they wore as they broke into the back door of a Green Valley Ranch home and splashed the walls with gasoline before setting it on fire.
Rather than torching the home of the phone thief, the teenage boys set the residence of an innocent Senegalese family of eight fatally on fire.
Three adults were able to escape the blaze by leaping out of a second-story window, but those who remained, three adults, and two babies under the age of two, perished inside.
When police arrived on scene, officer Gordon King tried rescuing those inside the house by kicking in the front door, but they had already succumbed to their injuries by the time he reached them.
King was forced out of the home by the extreme heat, and the bodies of the five victims, Hassan Djibril, his wife, Adja Diol, their 22-month-old daughter Khadija, along with Adja’s sister, Hassan Diol, and six-month-old daughter Hawa, were all found near the front door of the home when firefighters arrived.
Investigators had limited leads until they requested Google to provide data on anyone who had searched for the address in the two weeks leading up to the fire.
The data led them to Bui, Seymour, and Siebert, who were seen buying the masks on a store’s security camera, and were also caught committing the crime by a neighbor’s doorbell camera.
All three teenagers were arrested in January 2021 and charged with multiple crimes, including first-degree murder with extreme indifference, attempted murder with extreme indifference, burglary, and assault with a deadly weapon.
First teenage arsonist sentenced
In February 2023, Siebert received a ten-year prison sentence for his role in the crime.
Seymour, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in March, was sentenced to 40 years in prison followed by five years of mandatory parole.
At the time, Seymour told the court that he would “go back and prevent all of this” if he could.
“There is not a moment that goes by that I don’t feel extreme guilt and remorse for my actions,” Seymour added.
“I want to say how truly sorry I am to the family members and community for all the harm I’ve done.”
At the time, Hassan’s husband, Amadou Beye, was not impressed with the arsonist’s sentence for the slaying of his wife and daughter.
“This is not justice,” he remarked. “If I could get death penalty or life sentence that is what would be justice.”
“I hope when you die you will die slow and hard,” he told Seymour during a victim impact statement.
“And you will die young,” he said during his address. “And when you die, I hope you will feel all the pain they did feel when they were dying. And you will feel all the pain that we feel right now.”
On Friday, Bui, now 20, took a plea deal that will see him serve a 60 year sentence in prison. He is scheduled to return to court for formal sentencing on July 2.
