DENVER, July 3, (AP): A Colorado man was sentenced to 60 years in prison Tuesday for killing five members of an extended Senegalese family in a house fire, a crime which the victims’ friends and relatives say has forever changed their lives and their community, both in the US and in the west African nation.
Kevin Bui, now 20, was the last of three teens charged in the Aug 5, 2020, fire to be sentenced after pleading guilty to reduced charges in a plea deal. Authorities say Bui, who had recently been robbed while trying to buy a gun, mistakenly thought he had tracked down his stolen iPhone to the home and carefully plotted his retribution. But he neglected to make sure he was targeting the actual thief.
Instead, sleeping inside the home in the middle of the night were members of three immigrant families who were working to support their families back home and had nothing to do with the robbery. The family that owned the house managed to escape but all the members of two linked families renting from them were killed - Djibril Diol, 29; his 23-year-old wife, Adja Diol; and their 22-month-old daughter, Khadija, as well as Djibril Diol's sister, Hassan Diol, 25, and her 7-month-old daughter, Hawa.
Hamady Diol, the father of Djibril and Hassan Diol, spoke during the sentencing hearing by phone from Senegal about how he needs pills to sleep after losing five members of his family.
"I'm a dead person that's not buried yet,” he said in Pulaar through a translator.
The bodies of the victims were found on the first floor of the home near the front door, having apparently tried to escape the flames. One of the homeowners who escaped heard Djibril Diol yelling to direct people out of the house. He was an engineer who was working on a large rebuilding of Interstate 70 in Denver and was well-loved for helping fellow immigrants.
Adja Diol and her sister-in-law, Hassan Diol, both worked opposite shifts at Amazon so they could care for each other's children and continue to send support to their families in Senegal. They dreamed of going to school to become nurses.
At the time of the fire, Hassan Diol's husband, Amadou Beye, was in Senegal awaiting a visa to join his wife and meet his baby, who was born in the US.