Tracked by technology: Colorado iPhone vendetta leads to death in Senegal

A person from Colorado must now face the implications of against the law he committed as a teen to take revenge for a stolen iPhone.

Kevin Bui, now 20, pleaded guilty to committing arson in a Denver neighborhood in August 2020 after using the Find My iPhone app to track a stolen device, i.e. reports.

Bui, who was 16 on the time of the crime, was described because the leader of three friends who hatched a plot to burn down the house of a Senegalese family. Three adults, aged 23, 25 and 29, in addition to two children, a 22-month-old girl and a 6-month-old girl, died on the scene of the fireplace. Three people managed to escape with broken bones after jumping from the second floor of the home in the nighttime.

Through video surveillance, police identified Bui and two friends who were seen setting the home on fire while wearing dark hoodies and full-face masks.

Moreover, Bui and his friends became immediate suspects in the case after police obtained a search warrant from Google to check the IP addresses accountable for searching the home’s address inside 15 days of the fireplace. About five months later, the teenagers were arrested.

Dillon Siebert, who was 14 on the time, was sentenced to three years in juvenile detention and 7 years in a state youth prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in 2023. Gavin Seymour, 19, received a 40-year sentence prison in March 2024 after pleading guilty to one count of second-degree murder.

Bui, who was prosecuted as an adult, faces 60 charges, including first-degree murder, attempted murder, arson and burglary. All were dropped by prosecutors as a part of his plea deal. After pleading guilty to two counts of second-degree murder, the deal proposed that Bui serve a 60-year prison sentence, 30 years on each count.

The verdict is scheduled for July 2.