Colorado arsonist sentenced to 60 years in prison

Kevin Bui, a 20-year-old second-generation Vietnamese immigrant from Colorado, has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for committing arson in 2020. Bui pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in court, reducing charges in a plea deal, CBS reports.

Bui was one of three people who intentionally set fire to a home on Truckee Street in Green Valley Ranch causing the death of five Senegalese immigrants. Two of them were young children.

CBS reports that the trio dressed in masks and hoodies to break in at night and start the fire, using gasoline to spread it. Bui told investigators he had been robbed of his phone, money and shoes, and tracked his phone’s location to locate the house it was in. However, due to a GPS error, he and his accomplices had accidentally targeted the wrong home.

According to a press release from the Denver District Attorney’s Office, Seymour, one of the accomplices, was sentenced to 40 years in prison back in March after pleading guilty. The other accomplice, Dillion Siebert, was given seven years in the Youthful Offender System and three years in the Division of Youth Services after pleading guilty.

All three men were teenagers at the time of the fire. Bui and Seymour were charged as adults and Siebert was charged as a juvenile.

“We’ve been waiting for this day for a very long time. We’ve been grieving, still grieving, and this is a just a step towards the closure,” Ousman Ba said, according to CBS.

“It killed my wife and my daughter, my brother, sister and niece,” said Beye.

In response, Bui stated, “I was an ignorant knucklehead… I have no excuses… I do hate that we’re here, but life goes on… For everybody else I let down, I’m sorry.”