Several times a day, Hassan Diol would contact her husband in between shifts at Amazon to earn money to bring home to her relatives in Senegal, where she worked opposite her sister-in-law’s shift to take care of each other’s children.
While still in Senegal, Amadou Beye was attempting to obtain a visa in order to enter the United States. Every day, his wife and their young daughter would participate in video calls. Amadou Beye was eager to see his wife and child again.
He never did get the chance, though.
In 2020, a Denver home fire claimed the lives of Diol, their little daughter Hawa, and three other members of their extended family. According to the authorities, the youths had set the fire in the middle of the night as an act of misguided retaliation.
During a hearing on Tuesday, the final suspect in the three could be sentenced to 60 years in jail after entering a plea agreement pledging guilty to lesser counts.
The 20-year-old Kevin Bui is considered a “terrorist” by Beye for having abducted five people from one family, including the engineer brother of his wife, Djibril Diol, his wife Adja Diol, and their 22-month-old baby.
They appeared to have attempted to flee the fire because their remains were discovered on the first floor of the house close to the front entrance. Another family who occupied the house also succeeded in escaping.
According to prior testimony from friends and family, Djibril Diol dreamed about going back to Senegal to build roads when he was slain. He was working on a major reconstruction of Interstate 70 in Denver at the time.
Beye works as a mover and tries to avoid being alone in the evenings to avoid thinking about what he has lost. After the fire, he was given an emergency visa. His roommate works nights as an Uber driver, so in the late hours of the night, he either phones his family and friends back home or goes to the gym.
According to the prosecution, Bui was the group’s ringleader when the fire was lit. Born to Vietnamese immigrants, he had been assisting his elder sister Tanya Bui in delivering drugs that she was selling at the time of the fire on August 5, 2020, according to federal court records.
According to lead detective Neil Baker’s evidence in court, Bui claimed investigators he had been robbed of his phone, money, and shoes while attempting to purchase a gun after being arrested in connection with the fire.
During a 2021 hearing on the evidence in the case, Baker stated that Bui used an app to track his phone and claimed to have discovered it was in the residence. Despite not doing any research on the residents of the place, he felt the guys who robbed him lived there.
According to Baker, Bui acknowledged starting the fire but discovered the next day from news reports that the victims had not been the ones who had robbed him. Bui’s phone was never mentioned by the investigators’ exact location.
The sister is presently serving a nearly 11-year federal prison sentence after her business was unintentionally found when authorities investigated their suburban Denver house as part of the fire investigation.
Bui entered a guilty plea to two counts of second-degree murder in May following an unsuccessful attempt to refute important pieces of evidence in the case.
Prosecutors dismissed sixty additional allegations against Bui, including attempted murder, first-degree murder, arson, and burglary. They suggested that Bui receive a 60-year jail sentence.
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Should Judge Karen L. Brody reject the proposed agreement, the parties involved would need to negotiate a new agreement or proceed with a trial.
The agreement is mainly supported by relatives, not because they think it represents true justice but more because they think it is the wisest course of action to wrap up the criminal case almost four years after the fire.
Dillon Siebert, who was 14 years old when the fire happened, received a sentence last year that included three years in juvenile detention and seven years in a state prison program specifically for young offenders. Gavin Seymour, 19, admitted guilt to one count of second-degree murder in March and was given a 40-year jail sentence.
The search of Google users’ keyword history was upheld by the Colorado Supreme Court in October. Critics have referred to this practice as a digital dragnet that jeopardizes people’s privacy and their constitutional rights against arbitrary searches and seizures.
The court stressed that it was making a decision based only on the facts of this particular case and warned that it was not issuing a “broad proclamation” regarding the legitimacy of such search warrants.
