A Colorado teen is sentenced to 40 years in prison for killing five in arsonist fire. Gavin Seymour (19) pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in a deadly arson attack on Truckee Street in the Denver Green Valley Ranch neighborhood. The house caught on fire on August 5th, 2020 killing Djibril Diol (29), his wife Adja (23), and their 1-year-old daughter, along with Hassan Diol (25), and her infant daughter Hawa Beye (6 months). Three people escaped by jumping from the windows. The motive was revenge over something that had been stolen from another of the alleged killers. The killers were Kevin Bui, (Bui hasn’t been tried in the case and has an arraignment scheduled for March 21) and Dillion Siebert (14 at the time). Dillion Siebert was sentenced to seven years in district court and three more in juvenile court as a youth offender after pleading guilty to a second-degree murder charge less than a year ago. Kevin Bui will face first-degree murder charges along with dozens of other potential charges.
They admitted to seeking revenge for a stolen cellphone, which had been tracked with an app to the wrong address, where victims had no connection to the stolen cell phone or Bui. The three suspects who were dressed in masks and hoodies broke into the home and spread gasoline before lighting the fire. The investigation dragged on for months without any leads or witnesses. The authorities feared that the fire had been a hate crime, which led many Senegalese immigrants to install security cameras at their homes in case they would also be targeted.
The three boys were identified as suspects after the police obtained a search warrant asking Google for every account that had searched the home’s address within 15 days of the fire. Bui told investigators during an interview that he “had been robbed the month before the fire while trying to buy a gun and had traced his iPhone to the home using an app”, court records stated. He admitted to setting the house on fire, only to find out the next day through the news that the victims were not the people who robbed him. In a court statement, Kevin Seymour apologized for his role in the fire, “If I could go back and prevent all this I would. There is not a moment that goes by that I don’t feel extreme guilt and remorse for my actions… I want to say how truly sorry I am to the family members and community for all the harm I’ve done.” The victims’ relatives and friends are requesting the murders be given the full sentence for what they have done. Hanady Diol, the father of Djibril and daughter of Hassan, stated that “his children were his hope and life and that he has contemplated dying by suicide after their loss”. Investigators stated that “this was the most senseless murder they have ever investigated, I can’t think of any other one that is more deserving of a maximum sentence allowed. There are five victims. Two were babies.”
