- A Colorado man pleaded guilty to killing a family by setting their home on fire in 2020.
- He wanted revenge after his iPhone was stolen but targeted the wrong house, investigators said.
A Colorado man set a house in Denver on fire in 2020, thinking he was avenging the theft of his iPhone. But he targeted the wrong house.
He pleaded guilty last week to killing an uninvolved family who lived there.
Kevin Bui, 20, pleaded guilty Friday to two counts of second-degree murder, Denver's district attorney's office said in a post on X.
Bui, who was 16 at the time of the fire on August 5, 2020, was prosecuted as an adult.
An arrest affidavit said Bui's iPhone was stolen during a drug deal.
Investigators said in the affidavit that Bui intended to set fire to the house of those who robbed him.
According to testimony in the trial, NBC News reported, Bui had used an app to track his stolen iPhone.
However, investigators said in the affidavit that Bui somehow identified the wrong property and instead set alight the home of a Senegalese immigrant family.
The fire resulted in the deaths of five people, including a 21-month-old child and a 6-month-old baby.
NBC News reported that as part of a plea deal, Bui had 60 other charges against him, including first-degree murder and arson, dropped.
He faces 60 years in prison, Denver's district attorney's office said, with sentencing scheduled for July 2.
Bui is the last of three people to enter a plea in connection to the fire.
Dillon Siebert, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder under a plea deal, was sentenced last year to three years in juvenile detention and seven years in a state prison program for young inmates.
Gavin Seymour was sentenced to 40 years in prison after pleading guilty in March to a count of second-degree murder, The Denver Post reported.
The Washington Post reported last year that while apps such as Find My can be incredibly accurate, they're not entirely reliable.
In 2022, a SWAT team in Denver wrongly raided the home of a 77-year-old woman while searching for a truck with stolen guns and an iPhone.
According to The Washington Post, a lawyer for the woman said that police relied on the Find My app, which ultimately led them to the wrong address.
In March, the woman was awarded $3.76 million by a jury for the bungled raid.