Amadou Sow awoke to the piercing sound of smoke alarms at approximately 2:30 AM on August 5, 2020. His home in Denver, Colorado, was engulfed in flames. Attempting to escape, Sow was forced back by the heat and smoke, leading him to the rear window. With desperation, he broke the screen and jumped, fracturing his left foot. His wife, Hawa Ka, managed to get their daughter, Adama, to safety by pushing her out of the window. Adama miraculously landed unharmed, but when Hawa jumped, she landed on her back and suffered severe spinal injuries. In the chaos, Sow worried for their 22-year-old son, Oumar, who was not present during the fire.
The fire department responded promptly, but the situation was dire. Inside the house were several members of the Diol family, who had sought refuge with the Sows. Tragically, five individuals, including Hawa’s sister, Hassan, and her infant daughter, lost their lives due to smoke inhalation.
Detective Neil Baker of the Denver Police Department received the call early that morning and arrived at the scene shortly thereafter. Upon reviewing footage from a neighbor’s security camera, Baker saw three masked individuals enter the property just before the fire erupted. Their identity, however, remained unknown.
Meanwhile, 16-year-old Kevin Bui was determined to seek revenge on the family he believed had robbed him weeks prior. After being humiliated by a group who stole from him in a gun deal gone wrong, he hatched a plan to go after their home. He enlisted two friends, Gavin Seymour and Dillon Siebert, to assist him, and they began researching the address of the Truckee Street family.
On the night of the fire, the trio arrived at the house in Bui’s car and found the back door unlocked. They doused the interior with gasoline. The fire started quickly, and within moments, the house was engulfed in flames as they fled the scene.
As the investigation proceeded, Detective Baker turned to digital forensics, utilizing search warrant logs and reverse keyword warrants to uncover online searches related to the Truckee property. After analyzing thousands of records, investigators pinpointed three devices that had searched for the address multiple times before the fire—two belonged to minors, Bui and Seymour.
In January 2021, police arrested the teens, and while Bui confessed, Seymour and Siebert denied involvement. Their case took nearly two years to move through the courts, with additional legal battles revolving around the constitutionality of the search warrant used to obtain their online records.
In January 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court agreed to hear Seymour’s appeal against the keyword search warrant, sparking national interest about the implications of such policing techniques influencing digital privacy rights. Following months of deliberation, the court ruled in October 2023, stating that while the use of the keyword warrant was legal, it lacked the necessary individualized probable cause and, thus, was constitutionally defective.
Ultimately, the three teenagers accepted plea deals. While Bui received the harshest sentence of 60 years in adult prison due to his role as the planner, the victims’ families continued to mourn their losses, highlighting the tragic consequences arising from a moment of vengeance that spiraled into devastation.
