DENVER — More than a dozen members of Colorado’s Senegalese community listened in silence inside a Denver courtroom Tuesday morning, waiting for their final chance to be heard as nearly four years of police investigation and court proceedings finally came to a close.

They bowed their heads, closed their eyes and gripped each other’s hands as the final arsonist responsible for a horrific Green Valley Ranch house fire that killed five people faced sentencing. A handful more who tuned in from western Africa sat in a digital waiting room or on speakerphone.

“Kevin Bui, this is all I have left of Djibril,” family friend Lamine Kane said, holding up a pair of white and blue sneakers at the podium. “You destroyed a whole community. ... Did you know right from wrong that night? When you bought the masks? When you planned the trip?”

After 1,427 days, Kevin Bui — the last of three teen arsonists who soaked the inside of a Truckee Street home with gas and ignited the blaze that killed three Senegalese adults and two children — was sentenced to 60 years in prison by Denver District Court Judge Karen Brody.

“The sentencing of Kevin Bui marks the end of one of the darkest chapters in Denver’s history,” Deputy District Attorney Courtney Johnston said during the hearing. “This was no accident. This was not impulsive, it was not careless, it was not reckless. It was by design. It was the goal to burn the house down and kill everyone in it.”

Johnston said it was fitting to end the legal chapter of this case with Bui’s sentencing, given that his plan caused it all to happen in the early morning hours of Aug. 5, 2020.

Djibril Diol, 29, his wife, Adja Diol, 23, and their daughter, Khadija Diol, 1, died in the house fire, along with Djibril’s sister, Hassan Diol, 25, and her 6-month-old daughter, Hawa Baye.

Bui, now 20, and two other then-teens — Gavin Seymour and Dillon Siebert — planned the fire for weeks. They set the house ablaze because Bui mistakenly believed someone who had stolen his phone lived there and he wanted revenge, according to court testimony.

A security camera captured a ghostly image of the three teens wearing masks and hoodies near the site of the fire.

“As homicide detectives, we see death every day and usually learn to live with it,” said Neil Baker, a Denver police detective. “This is one of the cases in my 33 years of law enforcement that I’ll take with me forever. This is by far one of the most senseless murders we’ve ever investigated.”

...continued

©2024 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at denverpost.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.