351: Teen Revenge Kills Over Being “Disrespected” ?! | The Diol-Beye Family

In the early morning hours of August 5, 2020, a quiet Denver neighborhood was jolted awake by an inferno so intense it could be seen from blocks away. Inside the burning home were two Senegalese immigrant families who were hard-working, close-knit, and building new lives in America. As firefighters worked frantically and investigators sifted through the aftermath, it became clear this was no accident. Three masked figures had been seen fleeing the scene in the darkness, leaving behind a tragedy that stunned an entire community…. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow the show for weekly deep dives into the darkest true crime cases! To watch the video version of this episode, head over to youtube.com/@annieelise. .🔎Join Our True Crime Club & Get Exclusive Content & Perks..🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to both of my weekly true crime series 10 to Life & Serialously with Annie Elise wherever you get your podcasts on the Annie Elise Channel!🍎 Apple Podcasts | Where you can also unlock access to 100+ and growing extra exclusive deep dives.💚 Spotify🔴 YouTube🎙️ All Other Platforms.📸 Follow Annie on Socials Instagram: @_annieeliseTikTok: @_annieeliseSubstack: @annieeliseFacebook: @10toLife.👗 Shop Annie’s Must-Haves! ShopMY: bit.ly/AnnieElise_ShopMy Amazon: bit.ly/AnnieElise_Amazon.🫵🏻 Get Involved or Recommend a CaseAbout Annie: www.annieelise.comFor Business Inquiries: [email protected].📚 Episode Sources 9News | CBS Colorado | CBS News | Change.org | Colorado State University | Colorado Sun | Denver7 | HubPages | Justice For Diole Family (Facebook) | Next 9News | Wikipedia | WIRED••••••••••••••••••🚨Disclaimers1️⃣ Some links may be affiliate links, they do not cost you anything, but I make a small percentage from the sale. Thank you so much for watching and supporting me. 2️⃣ Sources used to collect this information include various public news sites, interviews, court documents, FB groups dedicated to the case, and various news channel segments. When quoting statements made by others, they are strictly alleged until confirmed otherwise. Please remember my videos are my independent opinion and to always do your own research. 3️⃣ The views and opinions expressed in this video are personal and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis are not reflective of the position of any entity other than the creator(s). These views are subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time and are not to be held in perpetuity. We make no representations as to the accuracy, completeness, correctness, suitability, or validity of any information on this video and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis. It is the reader’s responsibility to verify their own facts.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 1:00Speaker 02

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• 1:30Speaker 03

  They're getting louder tonight. For investigators to look into this deadly fire is a possible hate crime. Five members of a family died early Wednesday morning. He had a smile that you'll never forget, really firm handshake, and just an all-around incredible person.

• 1:44Speaker 04

  He is a way better man than I will ever be. It does not matter, you know, how long they stay behind bars. The people that we lost, we lost five people. We will never see them again.

• 1:58Annie Elise?

  Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serial Asleep.

• 2:21Annie Elise?

  Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistically. With me, Annie Elise, your true crime bestie, here to break down another case. Now, I gotta say, I gotta be real with you. This case is savage and like, I don't even know if that's the right word to say. I feel like it is, but I feel like it's not strong enough for what really went down here and just how quickly it escalated. And honestly, like what an overreaction it all was. I feel like that's why I feel like it's so savage because it was such an overreaction. And it's just so gnarly to try to wrap your head around this. So I'm going to try to break it down for you as best as I can, but I want to warn you.

• 3:04Annie Elise?

  Wherever you're listening or watching this right now, whether you're driving to work, whether you are cleaning your house, maybe you're working out, maybe you're at work right now and you're listening with your work bestie. Cause you know, I know a lot of you do that. I met a lot of you on tour and I know some work friends listen to this instead of really working, which I don't hate it. I don't hate it. But wherever you are, I want you to just take a moment, get right in your mind. Cause this one is gonna, you're definitely going to be on a journey with me today. Okay. So it was the early morning hours of August 5th, 2020. A police officer in the Green Valley Ranch neighborhood of Denver, Colorado, had spotted some very concerning smoke that was coming from a relatively typically quiet and uneventful neighborhood.

• 3:48Annie Elise?

  And as this officer got closer, he saw that this thick black smoke was coming from a house, one of the two-story homes at the 5312 North Truckee Street. Now here's where it gets pretty wild. It was 2:40 in the morning. So literally the middle of the night, which house fires are scary and concerning even in broad daylight, but in the middle of the night, that's always really extra scary because you're thinking, how did this fire get started? Are there people sleeping inside the home? Do they know that the house is on fire? It's just very, very eerie. Now, as far as this officer Or new, it didn't seem like anybody had called 911 yet. The street was completely quiet, it was bare.

• 4:29Annie Elise?

  Everything almost looked peaceful, which again is kind of like a scary and ominous sign. So right away, he called the local fire department. The officer also tried going to the front door of this house to see what he could do, or if he could help out at all, you know, if there was any way that he could get inside of the home to maybe check for people. But pretty much as soon as he got in front of the house, he could feel the extreme heat that was coming off of it. He knew that he would never be able to get inside the home without risking his own life in the process. He just didn't have any of the necessary tools, equipment, possibly even training. He needed to wait for the fire department. So he waited for these fire crews, really fearing the worst the whole time he waited. The fire trucks quickly came, they were speeding down the street, coming as fast

• 5:14Annie Elise?

  as they possibly could. But by the time they arrived, the entire house, it was just completely up in flames. And this didn't seem like some small, isolated fire, or something that was only in the garage, or only in the back bedroom, or somewhere like that. It seemed like the entire literal house was burning and engulfed in flames before anyone even noticed. Now, as you can imagine, pretty soon, things around the neighborhood were total chaos. I mean, fire trucks were coming in, firefighters were everywhere, there were the sirens, neighbors were starting to come outside, looking to see what was happening and what was going on. But the first responders were focused on one thing and one thing only. Getting into that house and checking for anyone inside, hoping to be able to get them out safely.

• 5:59Annie Elise?

  Meanwhile, though, something was happening. It seemed like the family who was living inside this home, they had woken up in time, in time to find their home completely up in smoke, and they had miraculously taken things into their own hands before these firefighters even arrived. So as all of these first responders were arriving on the scene, there were these cries and these shouts for help coming from the side of the house. And sure enough, that is where they found a family of three people just safely outside of the home. There was 46-year-old Amaduso, his wife Hawaka, and their 10-year-old daughter, Adama.

• 6:39Annie Elise?

  Now, all three of them had jumped out of the second-story window to safety. Now luckily, Amadou so had only fractured his left foot when jumping out of this window. However, his wife, Hawaka, had way more intense injuries. She had shattered her spine in two places and was just in very, very rough shape. Luckily, their daughter was completely fine. And given the situation that they were even alive to like tell and share their story, that was nothing short of a miracle. Intense injuries or not, you're alive and you're able to get medical attention and hopefully, you know, recover fully. So that was a huge blessing here. Now, of course, the home was still on fire, but there was now at least this slight sigh

• 7:22Annie Elise?

  of relief from the first responders because it seemed like the family had made it out of the house and they weren't going to be dealing with any casualties, right? They're not going to be opening this door to this home and finding an entire family who was asleep, dead and burned and perished, which would be great, right? That's what anybody would hope for. Well, in short, the answer was no, that's not what happened because it wasn't just Amadou, Hawaka and Adama who were living in that home. In fact, they were only three out of nine people in that house. There was Amadou's family, the Sos, and then there was a whole other family, the Deals. Now, when the firefighters learned that there was this whole other entire family still

• 8:06Annie Elise?

  inside the house, they immediately jumped into action. The fire had already gotten completely out of control and the smoke, I mean, it was super thick in the air. They knew they needed to act fast and it really didn't take very long to find the other people living in the home. Firefighters broke down the front door and they were immediately met with flames and smoke pouring out of the house. And once some of that smoke had cleared the front door area, that's when they saw one-year-old Kadija. Then, a few feet behind her was 29-year-old Jabril. And his 23-year-old wife, Ajah. But it didn't end there. Because not too far away from Ajah was her sister-in-law Hassan, who was only 25 years old.

• 8:47Annie Elise?

  And still wrapped inside Hassan's arms was her seven-month-old daughter Hawa. And none of them were conscious. Now, if you're doing the math, you know that that's five people. We also know that nine people in total lived inside that house. There were then, of course, the three who had jumped out of the window. So where was this ninth person? Well, the final person living in this home was the 22-year-old son of Amadou and Hawa, the couple who had jumped out of the window. His name was Umar, and luckily, he was working a night shift at 7-Eleven. So he was out of the house by the time this fire had started. Very quickly, the firefighters pulled everybody out of this home. Again, hoping for the best, but, truthfully, preparing themselves for the worst.

• 9:30Annie Elise?

  And sadly, every single person that they pulled from the home. Five people in total, including those two children under two years old, one only seven months old, were all dead. Each of them had died from smoke inhalation. Now, these exact details wouldn't be known until later, but the medical examiner described each of their lungs as being coated in soot. On top of that, their internal organs and muscles were literally, quote, "cherry red from the heat of the flames." Can you imagine? And I think that the most heartbreaking realization in this case is that every single one of them was awake before succumbing to the smoke. They all knew that this house was on fire. They were trying to escape. They were running for help.

• 10:15Annie Elise?

  This mother was shielding her seven-month-old in her arms, trying to take her family to safety. And they were all so close, too. They were literally just steps from the front door when they ultimately collapsed. Little Kajah had made it the farthest. She was the little one-year-old, and she was literally right there at the front door. She was only two months away from her second birthday. And in a moment like that, when there's fear, panic... Terror, of course she wouldn't be able to open the door and escape on her own. Which, when you really think about that, the whole thing, it makes me sick to my stomach. It is such a nightmare. As a hu- as a parent, of course, yes, but just as a human being. And there is no arguing that this was just a complete tragedy.

• 10:59Annie Elise?

  Which every deadly fire that first responders encounter is, yes. But ultimately, after looking into what had started the fire itself, it was clear that these deaths, they were way more than just a tragedy or a freak accident. This was a calculated murder. Now, let's talk about the fire itself for a moment. Because after a fire is completely extinguished, it's a common practice for a fire investigator or a fire marshal to be called. These people will come in, they will investigate the remnants to get a solid idea of what started the fire. Whether it was electrical, maybe a lit candle that somebody forgot about, a cigarette, a stove top left on, you know? I mean, it's very important information to know. And at first, the investigators didn't really think that their job was going to be all that difficult.

• 11:44Annie Elise?

  I mean, before they even looked into things, they figured, okay, it's probably faulty wiring. That's what would catch the whole house on fire. And I don't know the exact statistics, but I would imagine that that's a pretty common cause of house fires out there. However, before they could even get inside to take a look at the damage, a man just walked right up to the investigators. He told them that his name was Noe Reza Jr. and he lived right next door to the family. And he looked clearly upset, almost panicked in a way, just very jolted by everything that was going on. He told the investigators that he had something that they needed to see. And at this point, the investigators, they kind of side-eyed one another, being like, okay, what is this guy about to show us? Like, what does he need us to see?

• 12:26Annie Elise?

  Then, before even thinking twice, Noe grabbed his phone out of his pocket. While the investigators were watching, he unlocked his phone, went to the home screen, and pulled up a very familiar app. A security camera app. He then showed the investigators what he had found, and it was so much worse than what they could have imagined. At 2:26 a.m., clear as day, his security camera footage caught three separate hooded figures walking through the side yard of this home. Now, at this point, there was no fire. Everything was calm. Everything was quiet. Remember, it wasn't until about 15 minutes later that the officer had seen that the house was on fire. And in a very eerie detail,

• 13:08Annie Elise?

  these three hooded figures actually faced the camera at one point, but they all had masks on. And their outfits were honestly like something out of a horror movie. The masks were all white. They had these thin little holes cut out around the eyes, just so enough for them to see out of, almost like some sort of creepy Halloween mask. And in the security camera footage, you can't even make out their eyes because that's how small these holes are. It looks like just these creepy, dark, black holes. And there was just something so eerie about these bright white masks up against their all-black clothing and then these dark, black eyes. I mean, truly nightmare. And it wasn't just the image of these three figures sneakily walking through the yard that caught everybody by surprise,

• 13:53Annie Elise?

  but it was the fact that they were all carrying gas cans. And even if you had no idea what happened that night, you would be able to put two and two together, right? These people had a very specific mission that they had set out to do. So as they're watching this, the figures looked like they were sneaking toward the side of the house. Then one of them pointed to the backyard, where the other two then followed suit. Then they just kind of like disappeared into the night. And everything seemed like it was normal, only it wasn't. Approximately 12 minutes after the camera first caught those figures, they were all seen running from the back of the house toward the street. Then again, they ran off out of frame and you couldn't see them. But then just moments later,

• 14:36Annie Elise?

  you can see the flames bursting through the windows on the lower floor of the home. There was even a scream that was caught on camera. So this fire investigator knew that without a doubt, he had just watched both of these families, their home, their safe haven, purposefully being set on fire by these three masked hooded figures.

• 15:03Annie Elise?

  Alright, I feel like we need to just have an honest conversation here in the circle of trust. Can we talk about how literally everything seems to be getting more expensive? Groceries, gas, rent, you name it. And apparently, your wireless bill wants to join in on that party too. But here's the thing, it doesn't have to. Mint Mobile is making it so much easier to stop overpaying for wireless, with plans starting at just 15 bucks a month. And you're not sacrificing quality either. All plans include high-speed data, unlimited talk and text, and access to the nation's largest 5G network. You can also use your current phone and your current phone number. You just sign up online and you are good to go. Now, I changed carriers probably a year and a half ago at this point to Mint

• 15:48Annie Elise?

  Mobile. And when I tell you, not only was it the best decision of my life, I now have like service in places my husband doesn't even have service, but it was so easy. It took me 15 minutes, kept my phone, kept my phone number, it was the best. So for a new wireless plan starting at 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com/ae. That's mintmobile.com/ae. $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

• 16:26Annie Elise?

  Unfortunately, with their hoods and their masks, there was nothing about these three figures in the security footage that could give away who they might be. But of course, this was very serious. This wasn't just arson, which is, yes, awful enough in and of itself, but five people had died, children included. Right away, the media began calling this fire a potential hate crime, which I have to say, the investigators seemed totally against. Now, for me to really explain this motive, I do have to tell you more about the families who were living in the home. Everyone living in the home was Senegalese. They had all immigrated at one point or another from Senegal in Africa, hoping for a better life and better opportunity in the United States. Amadou bought the house on Truckee Street back in 2000.

• 17:10Annie Elise?

  And it was one of the biggest purchases that he had ever made. He took a lot of pride in that, too, a lot of pride in the fact that all of his hard work doing the night shift at Walmart had really paid off. It was spacious, it was a beautiful four-bedroom home, and it was relatively a new build. The best part of it is that it was close enough to everything in the city, but still far enough away that they were able to feel like they were living this more slow-paced, quiet life. The neighbors were all friendly and welcoming, and Amadou pretty much knew from the very start that his family of four was going to thrive there. His wife was so excited for what this new chapter in their lives would bring, too. She had always dreamed of one day going to nursing school, building a life with her family, and she felt like maybe once they were more settled in,

• 17:54Annie Elise?

  that dream could potentially become a reality. Not to mention, I mean, it just made her happy that her children could be in this beautiful, charming house, this nice neighborhood, safe. As a mom, the goal is always to make sure that your kids have a better life than you did, and I think that she was finally realizing that that was what was happening right before her very eyes. The dream was becoming a reality. Not too long after purchasing the home and settling in, the two of them decided to open up their home to Amadou's old family friend, the Diol family. Now, they had always been close family friends, so that was one of the contributing factors into letting them move in, but it was also a little bit more than that. It seemed like Amadou kind of saw himself and his family as part of the Diols family.

• 18:37Annie Elise?

  Jabril was much younger, but he was incredibly smart and very hardworking. It was clear that he was going to go very far in life. He was only 29 years old, but he had successfully become a civil engineer, which is no easy task. He had immigrated to America 10 years before, and over the years, he had obtained his degree at Colorado State University. After he graduated, he was able to become a citizen, which allowed his wife and their daughter to then move to the United States to finally be with him. And that was the main goal that he had worked so hard for. And eventually, he had achieved it. He, his wife, and his daughter were finally able to be together. And then, just three months before the fires, his younger sister Hassan and her four-month-old daughter Hawa, they moved into the home as well. Again, Amadou

• 19:20Annie Elise?

  knew them very well. She was like family too, so it made sense. But it was just Hassan and Hawa in the States. Hassan's husband was still back in their home country. His name was actually Amadou too, and he was working on getting a visa, which we know isn't always a very seamless or quick process. But for the time being, it was just the two of them in the States. In fact, it had been such a long process of him trying to get his visa that by the time of the fires, he hadn't even met his seven-month-old daughter yet. Hassan would video call him every day and they would talk for what seemed like hours, but of course, the goal was to get there and be in person, be with his daughter, be with his wife. Now Hassan was working at Amazon, but she was essentially a single mom.

• 20:03Annie Elise?

  And the only way that she was even able to go into work was when somebody could come over and watch her baby. So it made sense for her to move in, at least until her husband could be there in the States with them as well. Then they could go off and get their own place. But the point is, every single one of them was working toward the futures that they had all hoped for and dreamed of. All meanwhile, while sending money back to their families in their home country. They were incredibly driven and none of them had it easy. Yet it was everything that they could have wished for and more. That is until before the fire destroyed their families and ultimately took many of their lives. Now, in addition to immigrating to America, the families were also Muslim. So all to say, their origin stories and their religious beliefs,

• 20:45Annie Elise?

  it definitely played into this theory of this being a potential hate crime. So an investigation began. And the detectives started by interviewing all of the family, friends and coworkers of everybody who was living in that house. I guess the hope was that somebody would immediately know of a person or persons who maybe didn't like one of the family members or who had given them crap in the past for whatever reason. But these interviews turned out to be pretty fruitless. Everyone basically said the same thing. None of these family members were complainers. They never went around whining about someone being rude to them at work, complaining about anything. They just minded their own business, kept to themselves and woke up every day doing what needed to be done. They also didn't really go out anywhere besides work and to their mosques.

• 21:30Annie Elise?

  So their social circles were very small. And it seemed as if there really wasn't anybody who stood out as being particularly suspicious, which that of course wasn't making the detectives' jobs any easier. And other than that short security camera clip, Nobody in the neighborhood had seen anything. Remember, it was also the middle of the night. Everybody was asleep, so this now meant that there were no potential witnesses. The one video clip that they did have was obviously helpful in putting three perpetrators at the house, but other than that, it didn't really help with much. Still, after learning that he had caught something on his camera, the surrounding neighbors then decided they should start combing through their footage too, hoping that maybe different houses at different angles could have caught something worthwhile, something that would crack this case open.

• 22:15Annie Elise?

  And eventually, they did catch something. Now, it wasn't just one clip, but rather multiple clips that were pieced together. And on these clips was what they believed to be the car that the suspects were driving. It was a dark four-door sedan. And there were two reasons that they believed that it was the suspect's car. One, because it was unfamiliar to the people who lived in the neighborhood. And two, leading up to the fire, it was seen driving around very slowly and very suspiciously. At some point, you could also tell the driver had made a wrong turn and was turning around and driving in all sorts of different directions, almost like they weren't familiar with the area. What you might be thinking, okay, an unfamiliar car in an area doesn't really mean anything. It doesn't mean that it's the perpetrator's car. It could be a DoorDash delivery. It could be anything.

• 23:00Annie Elise?

  Could be late-night pizza, who knows? But here's the thing, that same car was then seen speeding off after the fires were set. And not just speeding off, I am talking running over curbs to get the hell out of there. It was like they were recklessly driving away from a crime, which they likely were. Which you would think, okay, this is good, right? Authorities would be able to look up the car and who it was registered to. They could solve the crime, easy peasy, done. It's, you know, that's a wrap. But to put it bluntly, no. That's not how it went down here. You see, the cameras in the neighborhood were just your standard Ring cameras, and obviously, it was very dark out. So even though they could tell that there was a car that was driving around the neighborhood with a driver behind the wheel, who, by the way, was acting very oddly, the police couldn't

• 23:44Annie Elise?

  make anything useful out of it. No license plate, no make and model of the car, nothing. Just that it was a dark color and seemed to be a four-door sedan, which... Hello, I'm sure a lot of people own a car like that in Denver. So now they were back to square one. Yes, with a few video clips that gave them a broader idea of what they were looking for, but by no means were they going to be able to solve this crime. And a lot of people in the area and even people online started to get angry with local law enforcement. The images of the car ended up being released to the public on August 18th, so almost two full weeks after the fire had happened. And because of that, people felt like the detectives just weren't even trying or putting

• 24:24Annie Elise?

  their best efforts forward to solve this case, especially since their two best tips, and really their only tips, had come from outside sources, them coming to the table with this information, not the detectives figuring it out for themselves. And there was enough uproar that a petition was actually created that quickly racked up 24,000 signatures. A portion of the petition said, "We are demanding the Denver Police Department increase their focus on this case and that they do not let up until their killer has been arrested, charged, and convicted. The continued trend of police departments undervaluing the lives of Black Indigenous people of color individuals and failing to hold their murderers accountable must end now." Now, I wasn't in Denver.

• 25:07Annie Elise?

  I wasn't a part of the investigation, so I can't act like I know what was going on behind the scenes. But all I know is that the people who loved these families the most really wanted answers, and I totally understand that and appreciate that. We would all feel the exact same way. The investigators, however, kept reassuring the public that getting justice for this family was, in fact, their top priority.

• 25:29Speaker 06

  We cannot forget this beautiful family that has been taken from us and in just such a horrible way. This case is one of many that I will carry with me throughout my life.

• 25:44Annie Elise?

  Now, as all of this was going on, people who didn't even know the family began fearing for their lives. There were a lot of other immigrants in the area who were terrified that they could be targeted next. They didn't want to go outside. They were fearful. They were scared that whoever had started these fires was driving around, maybe scoping out their next victims. But they also didn't want to stay inside their homes. out of fear that they would end up trapped inside. So the investigators were really feeling the pressure. And to be honest, they were kind of stumped. They didn't really have any real leads. They weren't sure how they were going to even move this case forward. One minute, the case was fresh. It was on the investigators' minds and at the top of their priority list. But the next thing they knew, one month had passed, then two. And they still didn't have any real answers.

• 26:29Annie Elise?

  Now, this case is actually infamous for two reasons. First, there's this cold-blooded indifference to human life. This ruthless brutality behind recklessly just targeting people while they were asleep inside the place that they feel the safest. But second, for the incredible and shocking investigation that took place afterwards. Now, so far, I get it. It doesn't seem all that impressive. But in order to find those answers that everyone wanted, the investigators had to do some things that ended up being pretty controversial. And I'm honestly really curious to hear where you guys stand once I start explaining everything.

• 27:12Annie Elise?

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• 27:57Annie Elise?

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• 28:16Annie Elise?

  Without anything else to go on, just the footage of these three figures and their car, the thought process behind the investigation kind of went a little like this. We have three perpetrators. The odds are that at least one of them, if not all three of them, probably had a phone with them at the crime, or in the car at the very least. So the investigators filed for something called a tower dump warrant. And basically, this tower dump would require all the major cellphone networks, Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T, you name them, to provide the cellphone numbers of every single person near the home address of the fire that night. It's a very complex process. Usually, these dumps end up producing hundreds, if not thousands,

• 28:59Annie Elise?

  of different phone numbers that all have to be sorted through one by one. And that really was no difference in this case. There were thousands, yes, thousands, plural, thousands of phone numbers that they had to check that came back. Now, the man in charge of sorting through these numbers was named Mark Sonnendecker. He was an agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, specializing in digital forensics. Now, could Mark have gone through every single number, one by one? Yes, sure, it would probably take some time. But instead, he made a very interesting call. With his knowledge and prior experience with these kinds of things taken into consideration, he decided to only look at the T-Mobile phone

• 29:40Annie Elise?

  numbers in the area. Which, why? Well, it's a very good question. But Mark claimed that he had noticed something about the suspects that he had dealt with in a variety of previous cases. That a high percentage of them had the same phone carrier, and that carrier was T-Mobile. Now, if you're wondering, like, what on earth are you even talking about, Annie? This makes no sense. Don't worry. It threw me for a loop, too. Especially because I've had T-Mobile in the past, before I switched over to Mint Mobile, which, I'm not, that's not an ad, I'm not shouting it out, but you get it. I did have T-Mobile. And I don't know if it's true, or what the actual statistics are, but this is what Mark was saying in my research. So, don't shoot the messenger, but it seems like he was doing some sort of, like, profiling of what kind of people...

• 30:25Annie Elise?

  Have T-Mobile service rather than Verizon or AT&T, which are traditionally the more expensive services. Again, don't shoot the messenger. I'm just relaying what he said and I don't agree with it. You don't have to either, but like, this was his mentality. I told you, very controversial. So now narrowing down the search to only T-Mobile numbers, it did make a significant difference, but it still left them with nearly 1,500 phone numbers to go through. Which, yes, better than double or triple that, but it was still gonna take a minute. So they started working on narrowing the numbers yet again. This time, they narrowed it down to just the 100 phone numbers that were geographically closest to the house on the night of the fire.

• 31:07Annie Elise?

  Then they cross-referenced the numbers to see which ones got any hits. Now, they did that by going back to the neighborhood on a random evening with a cell phone tower simulator, which I didn't even know that that was a thing. It's also a mouthful. But apparently, it worked just as well. And it showed every number in the neighborhood surrounding this home. So basically, what they were trying to do is say, "Okay, out of all these numbers, let's see which ones are still active. This much must mean these are the residents. So anything that's not active, we can pull them out as people who visited that night." That kind of thought process. Now, 67 out of those 100 numbers belonged to phones that were still physically in the neighborhood when they did this test. They then likely, of course, belonged to people who were living there.

• 31:48Annie Elise?

  So then that narrowed it down to only go through about 33 phone numbers. Now, the reason this is key is remember, in that footage with the car, this person was making all sorts of U-turns. They did not seem familiar with the area. So, more than likely, whoever's phone numbers were in the area that night, but aren't there now, are people who were from out of area. And I have to say, going from thousands to 33, that is pretty impressive, you've got to admit. Now, the more frustrating thing is that the investigators did all of this work, but then just seemingly stopped. And the reason is, they claimed that they didn't want to bring those 33 people in for questioning because they were worried about the perpetrators fleeing the country. Which...

• 32:32Annie Elise?

  Okay, I can get, I get that to some extent. You don't want to spook the real people and tip them off as to what you're doing. But instead of finding ways around it, like thoroughly looking into each person, seeing whether or not these people had friends, jobs, or family living in the area, or worked jobs like DoorDash that would require them to be on delivery late night, they just seemingly did nothing. They just sat on those 33 names and numbers, and they hoped that some sort of tip or clue would come in, and then it would, you know, retroactively fit those numbers, almost like the missing puzzle piece would come to them. I guess that they felt like if they brought in all 33 people, the actual arsonist might get spooked and panicked and then flee. Flee the city, or even the country.

• 33:17Annie Elise?

  Which, is that possible? I mean, yes, sure, anything is possible. But again, I can see where a lot of people started to get very frustrated with this case. Because to them, it was like the investigators finally had found something that might be worth looking into, but then they just sat back and were hoping that something better would come along. What, like so many other tips in this case? Literally, everything else has been brought to you. Like, what's happening here? What happened to good old investigation work? And sure enough, when it came to tips, there were plenty that came in. Some psychics even started jumping in on the case. Some of the tips led nowhere, while some seemed more promising. But in fact, one tip came in that had investigators convinced that they were about to wrap up the case.

• 33:59Annie Elise?

  Three people in Gypsum, Colorado, which is a little over two hours west of Denver, they were caught up in a different case. And they became a focal point in the, what is it? Quintuple? Is that what it is for five people? In this mass murder case. They were involved in something super shady that had put them on law enforcement's radar. And it's not exactly clear what. The details are a little bit spotty. But when the detectives investigated, they found drugs, guns, and masks. And the masks, and the number of people? Three. So it now connected these two cases together. But then they discovered that those three people were not the people that they were searching for. Then there was a tip in Iowa.

• 34:42Annie Elise?

  And again, the details surrounding it are, you know, little to none. All I know is that investigators were working with teams in Iowa to look into it. But it ultimately turned out to be nothing. So really, they were exploring so many different avenues. Yet somehow, they were still no closer to uncovering what really happened that night. And by now, it had been a few months since the fire. But the pressure to solve the case, it was no less demanding. So it was back to the drawing board. Everyone in the office sat down with all of the case information in front of them, and they went over the potential next steps. Which, why they didn't go back to those 33 names and phone numbers that they had spent so much time collecting? I have no idea. I mean, they had clearly run out of options, and that seemed like a very solid lead.

• 35:26Annie Elise?

  But hey, what do I know? I'm not an investigator. I'm not a detective. I'm just little old Annie. So the investigators decided that they needed to switch things up. They wanted to do a total 180 on the case. And they knew that they needed to go about the investigation in a totally different way if they wanted to get anywhere. And this is where their tactics really start to get even more controversial. Or maybe you'll disagree. I don't know. But one of the investigators asked, quote, "What if the perpetrators had Googled the address before going there?" So everybody was kind of like, "Yeah, that's a really good point. Maybe they did." See, they didn't have any reason to believe that these murders were committed by someone who was close to the family, nobody who would know that address or where they lived by heart. It would only make sense for the perpetrators to Google the address

• 36:10Annie Elise?

  in order to get directions there. Because they, of course, didn't know how to get there. So they began the process of doing a reverse keyword search. Typically, you get on Google, you search up a word, and all of the sources involving that word that you search will come up. But the investigators did it backwards. Meaning that they were able to use a keyword, the keyword in this case being the address, and they could see every single time that the address had been Googled. And sure enough, the day before Thanksgiving in 2020, they got a hit. Or a few hits, I guess I should say. Surprisingly, there were 61 different devices that had Googled this address of the house in the weeks before the fire, which that is way more than I would have ever imagined.

• 36:51Annie Elise?

  61 different devices, not 61 different searches or like repeated searches, 61 different devices searching a particular address in weeks before this huge fire erupted. That's weird, right? I wonder how many times my address has been Googled or yours. Like, it's weird to think about. But here's where it got better. With each of these devices, there was an IP address. So now the investigators were finally getting somewhere with this, and they didn't really have to do much narrowing down at that point. There were only five people who had Googled the address of the home who lived in Colorado, and only three people who had Googled the address of the home more than once. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. So the

• 37:34Annie Elise?

  federal investigators drafted up another warrant, this time for Google, so that they could get the information of those five people. Now, as it turns out, one person who Googled the home was a family member of the deals. But remember, the investigators didn't believe that the perpetrator was anybody that they knew personally, so that person was kind of weeded out. The second name and number was a delivery service. So that then left three more people, and their names were Tanya Bowie, Gavin Seymour, and Dylan Seabert. And Tanya? Well, Tanya's name was actually one that the investigators had heard before, because she was one of the 33 T-Mobile subscribers whose phone was in the area the night of

• 38:17Annie Elise?

  the murders. So finally, now they had this cross-reference point that they had been waiting on for months. Now, as for the other two, their names were unfamiliar. But after doing some research into all of these three people, the investigators did learn something very interesting. You see Gavin and Dylan were both around the same age, just 15 and 14 years old. Tanya was seemingly the odd one out of the group. She wasn't some sort of high school student with them. She was actually 23 years old, which I guess there's always a possibility that she was like a loser and hanging out with these young kids, being a weirdo, but it was definitely something that stood out either way. So the investigators were kind of stuck on like, what is the correlation here? Why is this 23-year-old hanging out

• 39:00Annie Elise?

  with this 14 and 15-year-old? What, how does she know them? Was she a family friend? A friend in general? A babysitter? And then they found the correlation. Tanya had a younger brother. His name was Kevin Bowie, and he was 16 years old, so around Gavin and Dylan's age. And it wasn't just their ages that they had in common. Kevin, Gavin, and Dylan were all best friends. And it didn't take a seasoned detective to figure this one out at all. I mean, it was all over their social media. These were the three best friends that anyone could have, you know, like from The Hangover. Now, here's what's weird, though. What's weird is they all lived about 20 miles away from this home.

• 39:42Annie Elise?

  So there really was no reason for all three of them to be Googling this very specific address. Absolutely not. But it begged the question. Could three teenagers, young teenagers, 14, 15, and 16 years old, could they really have been behind a quintuple homicide? It seems like such a crazy concept that these young kids could be responsible for not only a horrific house fire, but one that killed five people. And even if so, where was the motive in all of this? The investigators were seeing evidence that Kevin, Gavin, and Dylan could be connected to the fire, but how? And why? Could their controversial investigation methods have taken them down the wrong path? Maybe.

• 40:25Annie Elise?

  But the truth was, they were gonna need some hard proof to pull it all together. So on New Year's Day, 2021, some of the investigators drove by Kevin Bowie's parents' home. And what do you know? A dark-colored Toyota Camry, not unlike the car that was seen in those security cameras, was just sitting there in the driveway. Now, like I mentioned before, the security cameras hadn't been able to get any sort of distinguishing details regarding the car. But the fact that the type of vehicle and color of the vehicle were the same? That was pretty interesting. At this point, the tension was really building with the investigators. It felt like they were finally getting closer to the answers that they had been searching for for almost four months.

• 41:06Annie Elise?

  Now, on that same day, New Year's Day, 2021, the investigators filed yet another search warrant. I guess they figured that they might as well do as much digging into these three guys as possible since finding a similar car was a significant clue in all of this, but they definitely wanted to gather more evidence. The warrant was for Google, same as before. But this time, they wanted Kevin, Dylan and Gavin's search histories from that day, all the way back to early July, which would have been the month before the fire. And the warrant, it found something pretty interesting. The month before the fire, Dylan was Googling the store Party City, which it's closed down, I think. I think they've gone out of business now. But for those of you who may be familiar with it or maybe are not,

• 41:50Annie Elise?

  it's this store where you can quite literally get any theme accessory for a birthday party or retirement party or graduation party. It's like just the Mecca. Think of it like Toys R Us, but for party planning. Lots of people shop there, being the point. So it wasn't weird that Dylan was shopping there. But what was weird was that Party City sold what looked to be the exact same masks that the three arsonists were wearing the night of the murders. With plenty of digital evidence, the investigators now knew it was time to close in. And on January 27th, 2021, Kevin, Dylan and Gavin were all arrested and taken into police custody.

• 42:30Speaker 07

  It's been a rough year, not just for us, but for all of us because of the pandemic. But on top of that, having to deal with the loss of beautiful people like this.

• 42:42Speaker 07

  We are grateful, but we're still in pain. Arrests has been made, but we know it's not going to bring these beautiful people back. So our message is, let's embrace one another. Let's love each other. Let's not let horrific crime like this define who we are as a nation and who we could be as a state.

• 43:07Annie Elise?

  At the time of their arrest, the detectives had plenty of proof that these three young teenagers had premeditated the fire. But one very big question still remained, right? Why? Well, Gavin and Dylan were pretty tight lipped. They seemed to have absolutely zero interest in helping the investigation. It wasn't until the interviews with Kevin that the investigators really started to gain some traction and get somewhere. And before I fill you in on What Kevin had to say, I do have to describe the kind of person, or rather kid, really, that Kevin was. Kevin's family had immigrated to the United States from Vietnam not too long before he was born. And just like his family, they wanted more than what they always had known.

• 43:49Annie Elise?

  They wanted a better future for themselves, their kids, their kids' kids. So, these families really had a lot in common. And at first, the move to the States was extremely difficult. Kevin's dad was an accountant, and he was incredibly smart. He had dreams of opening his own accounting business in America, which he eventually did, but it wasn't a successful and booming business overnight. Even after Kevin was born, his family, consisting of his dad, mom, and older sister Tanya, had struggled quite a bit. He recalled his childhood being one in the lower-income areas and surrounded by other lower-income families just trying to survive day to day. But then, one day, his dad's business really started taking off.

• 44:30Annie Elise?

  It had taken some time, but the family was finally beginning to live that American dream that they had always pictured for themselves. They had more than enough money, they had a very nice home in Lakewood that they bought after this business started booming, and the house itself, it was pretty huge, I mean, more than enough space for their family. It was the best house that they had ever lived in with clear, unobstructed view of the mountains nearby. It was like their dream was finally coming true. And Kevin was smart, athletic, he was very well-known at school, getting good grades was never something that was difficult for him. He was also the linebacker on his high school's football team and a very good swimmer, and from the sounds of it, it sounds like he had a very bright future ahead.

• 45:11Annie Elise?

  But for whatever reason, Kevin and even his sister Tanya, they took the life that they had for granted. Kevin was only 16 years old. He could have been looking at colleges or thinking about his future career options, but instead, he was getting involved in some really shady stuff with his friends. Now, all of this information that I'm about to share are things that Kevin admitted to after the police took him into custody. So Tanya, his sister, was seven years older than Kevin, but the two of them were very, very close, almost like they were only a year apart or something like that in age, but really, seven years apart. And instead of being a good, older sister, trying to guide him and encouraging Kevin to make the best out of the life that he had been given, Tanya was a pretty bad influence.

• 45:56Annie Elise?

  And the two of them were partners in crime, quite literally. By the time Kevin was barely even in high school, he and Tanya were both dealing marijuana and fentanyl. I mean, for a freaking 14-year-old to be dealing fentanyl, that's insane. Now, their primary customers were people that they had met on Snapchat, which I have to say is not only just wild that people are using social media platforms to deal drugs, which maybe I'm just so old that I didn't realize that that's a thing, but it's incredibly scary because, think about it. He was a teenager, and other teens use Snapchat. So, other teens were likely his biggest customers. Now, how they went from selling just weed to then selling fentanyl, I truly have no idea. That is an insanely huge jump in products.

• 46:40Annie Elise?

  I would imagine it's gotta be like something to do with the bottom line and the margin because fentanyl is so cheap. But, the money and the notoriety of all of it, it was almost like this high that they got that was better than any of the drugs that Kevin could ever sell. And he loved this. He loved the thrill of it, so he wanted to do more. And that is when he started getting into other, even scarier, territory. He started dabbling in something called "carding", which is essentially stealing people's credit card information off the dark web. Then, from there, he started dabbling into buying and selling guns. Now, I don't think that it even needs to be said that if somebody is trying to buy a weapon under the table, it's probably not for very innocent, upstanding reasons, right?

• 47:24Annie Elise?

  And the people that Kevin was dealing with, they were not amateurs by any means. But he thought that here he was this big shot, this big dog. He thought that he was this badass drug dealer turned weapons dealer, and that he was, you know, hot shit and he got a high off the control and the authority of it all. But then, one day, he was humbled. Because apparently Kevin had made plans to meet up with a group of guys in Denver that July. They told him that they were interested in buying one of the guns that he had. And he didn't really know who these guys were. I'd imagine that they were all using fake names, maybe street names, since he was dealing with those kinds of people. But when they showed up, they didn't just do this quick and easy little transaction like Kevin had imagined, "Give me the money, I'll give you the gun."

• 48:08Annie Elise?

  These guys essentially jumped him and they stole all the cash that he had on him. They even stole the shoes that he was wearing. They were apparently some kind of fancy and expensive sneaker, which he was always known to wear, the latest and greatest Jordans, kind of like a shoe guy. And so they stole his sneakers, his cash, and lastly, they stole his phone. I mean, they took everything. Which you might be thinking, "Okay, well, what does this have to do with these two families who lived in this home together, who were burned alive?" Well, it's at this point in the story that we start getting into the motive behind the fires. And bear with me, because your jaws are literally going to drop.

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• 49:32Annie Elise?

  So Kevin got robbed. And instead of thanking his lucky stars that he had made it out of that situation alive, because let's be honest, they could have just killed him and likely gotten away with everything, he just sat there plotting and simmering on the thought of getting revenge. His ego, like I said, was incredibly high. And that's not something that he ever admitted. It's just something that I had gathered from this whole story and the way he spoke and the information that he has shared. And excuse my language, but basically, he just thought that he was like the shit. He thought that he was untouchable. So the fact that these guys not only robbed him, but had embarrassed him like that? Uh-uh. That was not sitting well with him. Now, all of this was during 2020. So a reminder, everybody was on lockdown.

• 50:14Annie Elise?

  Schools were closed, no sporting events were happening, nothing was going on. Restaurants, I don't even think were open fully by this point. So Kevin had more than enough time to just sit around and get angrier and angrier about the situation. And that is when a thought came to him. Kevin had an iPad at home and lucky for him, his iPad was connected to his phone. So he decided, oh, I'm gonna go on the Find My Friends app on my iPad. I'm gonna track down my cellphone. I'm gonna track down where these people are. And sure enough, he saw where his phone was pinging. The address was 5312 Truckee Street. And from there, Kevin's plan really started taking shape.

• 50:56Annie Elise?

  He knew that he wanted to get revenge and he knew that he wanted the people who had stolen from him to pay for what they had done. Now, what's interesting to me as a little sidebar here is that for someone who thinks he's such a gangster, he couldn't really enact this revenge on his own. He began recruiting his closest friends to help him with this, Gavin and Dylan. And apparently, it didn't take much convincing. They both seemed down for it from the jump. So now we're at the point in the story where they all separately start searching the address of the house on Google. Because they wanted a better look at not only the outside of the house, but the inside of the house as well. Now Kevin claimed that their original plan had just been to do some light vandalism on the outside of the house, which, do I necessarily believe that?

• 51:41Annie Elise?

  Meh, no, of course not. They had gas cans. You're not going there with light vandalism if you have gas cans in your hand, right? They also were scoping out the layout of the interior of the house. They also bought these creepy masks online, which I don't think that you would go through all of that trouble if you're just gonna drive by, throw some eggs at it, or even spray paint the house. Like, no. And also, if this home truly belonged to the guys that had met up with Kevin for that sale, they had seen his face. So he would need to hide his identity, therefore, wearing a mask. So to me, it all just screams something deeper and darker. But of course, there are also other reasons why I believe this. I mean, for starters, there are literal messages on their phones talking about setting the house on fire.

• 52:26Annie Elise?

  Like, yeah, I'll say it. First, you're an idiot to use Google, but also you're an idiot to ever text any incriminating things digitally. They will find it. But then again, these guys were teenagers. They were not mastermind criminals. On August 1st, Kevin messaged Gavin hashtag possibly ruin our futures and burn his house down. Which, I kind of have to say, that says it all right there in the hashtag. And I didn't even know people still use hashtags, quite honestly. I thought that it was a whole thing, and I definitely didn't know people use it ironically like that, especially in messages to one another. But I guess that kind of just shows again, their true age in all of this. They're using a hashtag. Then there's also, like I said, the fact that they showed up at this house with gas tanks or gas cans.

• 53:11Annie Elise?

  So that couldn't be more obvious that the intent and the premeditation was there. But interestingly enough, Kevin later would try to say that their intent was just to do some light damage. Throw rocks at windows, eggs on the outside of the house, maybe key a car or two, which again, I'm not believing it for a second. So the night of August 4th started off as a seemingly normal one. All three boys got together, they went to Party City, that's where they bought the masks, and then they headed to Wendy's to grab a late night dinner. Just normal teenager stuff. But we know that that night was nowhere near normal for them. After getting their stomachs full at Wendy's, eating all the Frosties and bacon cheeseburgers they could handle,

• 53:53Annie Elise?

  they all got back into Kevin's car and they made their way to Truckee Street. It was around 1:00 a.m. by this time. However, they knew that they had a stop that they had to make first, which wasn't too far into their journey, but they stopped at a gas station. Not to load up on gas for the car, but to fill up their gas cans. Then they were on their way. Now, the drive itself was about 30 minutes long, and there wasn't much traffic at that time of night, so it was a pretty easy drive. And some of the sources that I read, they did bring up a really great point, that the 30-minute drive was 30 minutes Of sitting there, thinking about what they were about to do. Meaning at any point during that drive, they could have realized like, uh, what the fuck? What are we actually about to do? Let's turn around. Let's not go through with this. They could have backed out.

• 54:38Annie Elise?

  They could have turned around and never spoken about what they almost did that night. But that wasn't the case. Nobody spoke up to say that what they were about to do was wrong. And the next thing they knew, they were in the neighborhood. Now, the lights were all off at the house and everything seemed very quiet. Almost like whoever was inside was likely already asleep. There was also a minivan parked out front, yet they didn't vandalize the car like Kevin tried to say was the initial plan. They didn't do anything to the car. Instead, they just drove around the block, scoping out the scene and coming up with a game plan. Then finally, they parked the car far enough away that it wasn't literally parked right in front of the house, but close enough that they could run to it when they needed to. And they set their plan in motion.

• 55:23Annie Elise?

  Then it was the moment of truth. They went through the backyard of the home where the back door sadly was unlocked and they just literally walked right into this house. Now, there were no cameras inside the home. So what happened inside that house is still kind of a mystery. But the firefighters were able to see that there was gas poured all over the back rooms, on the walls, on the floors, on the furniture. But nobody really knows exactly who did the pouring. Maybe they all did. Maybe they all took a turn. Maybe one person did it while the others watched. We don't really know. But the next thing that we do know is that these boys were seen running away from the backyard. And almost instantly, the fire was visible on the neighbors' cameras.

• 56:06Annie Elise?

  And sometimes I think it's easy for us to forget just how quickly fires can spread. But the fact that the fire had started on the lower level, spreading so quickly to where all of the exits were, that is so incredibly heartbreaking. And then even after all of these deaths were all over the local news and social media, these three boys just went on with their lives, not thinking twice about any of the victims. They continued posting on social media, showing their adventures, going camping, golfing, even going to Cancun, just smiling as if they weren't murderers, as if they didn't just snuff out the lives of five people, two of which who were children. But the real reason that this case is so horrific?

• 56:48Annie Elise?

  Is that Kevin and his app, his Find My Friends app, they had gotten it all wrong. If you're familiar with the Find My app, people tend to believe that it is the end all be all when it comes to location tracking, but it isn't. And let me explain. Have you, do you track any of your friends or family members? I do. I track my brother, my sister and my husband. And I also have my kids' tablets on trackers. Not that they're ever going to go anywhere because they're little, but you know, whatever. But have you ever looked at one of your friends' locations? And their ping is showing that they're literally like in the middle of the water somewhere, when in reality, they're a few blocks away from the water. It's not exact, right? Or it will look like they're at one place, but then 30 seconds later, their little bubble will like quickly, quickly shift and move ahead.

• 57:33Annie Elise?

  And it turns out they were never in that place, that their phone was just reading it wrong and it took a moment to catch up. Well, that is a prime example of what happened here. When I said earlier that these two immigrated families kept to themselves and were such amazing people, I meant it. None of them were out there mugging this 16 year old and buying things off the dark web, which that is a huge detail that I want to point out and I want you to remember. But Kevin was young. And to me, he was the kind of kid who took everything they see on their phones and on the internet as a fact. So he saw that his phone was pinging at that address. And to him, there could be no mistake, no faulty tracking. The people living there had to be the ones who wronged him.

• 58:16Annie Elise?

  Which, the crazy thing is investigators still have no idea why the Find My phone app led them to that address. Was the actual person who wronged Kevin living nearby? Was it a neighbor? Was it just some insane fluke? I mean, both options could be true. And apparently, incidents like this happen all the time, not just to this awful deadly extent that I'm talking about today, but I actually found an article from 2023 about a guy in Richmond, Texas, who was reaching out to the media pleading for help because so many people were just showing up on his doorstep saying that he had stolen their items and it wasn't his location. And I want to be clear, this story would be heartbreaking even if the address where the families lived had been associated with somebody who stole Kevin's phone.

• 59:02Annie Elise?

  Because even if it had been true, it's not like everyone who lived in that house would be responsible for this theft, right? I mean, in other words, burning down an entire house full of people you think might be responsible for stealing your phone? That makes no sense. And most importantly, their deaths were just so brutal. And the fact that these innocent lives were lost is heartbreaking. Don't get me wrong, that is heartbreaking in and of itself. But imagining two babies, both being killed in such a horrific way, literally choking on smoke and having cherry red organs. It's unimaginable. All over something that they didn't even do, that their family didn't even do. It's so scary and it's so surreal.

• 59:45Annie Elise?

  So all three perpetrators, Kevin, Gavin and Dylan, ultimately took plea deals. Not so tough then, right? Each of the deals were slightly different. Kevin, being the ringleader of all this, he faced harsher charges and sentences. He pleaded guilty to only two counts of second degree murder and he was sentenced to 60 years. And at his sentencing, he did show some remorse. I mean, that is if it was even real. He told the courtroom, quote, "I'm not asking the surviving family members for forgiveness, but I pray that they find some kind of peace and joy in their lives moving forward. I was an arrogant 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."

• 1:00:29Annie Elise?

  Which I'm sorry, but I hate that we're here, but life goes on? I was just a young knucklehead? I'm sorry, but that is definitely not what I would have said if I was truly sorry for brutally murdering five people. But, I don't know. I guess that's one of the many reasons why Kevin and I are different.

• 1:00:46Speaker 09

  We feel that his actions, since this took place, don't reflect that he's contrite. I mean, they did go camping, they were celebrating after this occurred, after he knew that five people had died.

• 1:01:02Annie Elise?

  And sure enough, Kevin certainly didn't learn any lessons as far as staying out of trouble goes.

• 1:01:07Speaker 10

  A suspect in a deadly arson case now faces a judge for charges related to dealing drugs while in jail. Kevin Bowie was allegedly trafficking fentanyl for his sister in that arson case. Now in jail, he faces charges for possession and distribution after pills were discovered in his cell that contain allegedly fentanyl.

• 1:01:26Annie Elise?

  As for Kevin's accomplices, Gavin pleaded guilty to one count of second degree murder, and he was sentenced to 40 years. Dylan, the youngest, he got the best deal out of the three. He was the only one tried as a juvenile, and he only got 10 full years. Three of those years were to be spent in a juvenile detention center, and the other seven were scheduled to be in a young offender program. But even with these plea deals, I get that they're taking some accountability, not all, not all, not all, for all five deaths, only like a couple counts each. So it's not congruent to the amount of people that they killed, which means it's kind of like some of them aren't getting any justice at all. Plus Dylan is going to be out in the world soon,

• 1:02:08Annie Elise?

  and that seems very incredibly scary. I mean, do you feel like a guilty charge means justice was served? Or is the sentence itself what really brings justice to a victim? Because the family and friends of these victims felt very strongly that justice was not served.

• 1:02:24Speaker 11

  What we got today is not justice. It is just, just this, right? It's not justice, it's just this. So just this is what we get. Remember the people who come here, like GB, Hassan, Aja, and their two kids, giving it all, being a part of all the things that go great in this country. Remember those people. And then the way that they were taken away in an arson that was planned for days and then acted upon, and then we just get this.

• 1:02:57Annie Elise?

  Although Kevin's sister, Tanya, wasn't involved in the murders, she also faced a lot of accountability and her own reckoning day, and was arrested for the crimes that she was involved in. She pleaded guilty in February 2022 to possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, and possession with intent to distribute a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of fentanyl. She was sentenced to 10 years and 10 months. And this really has nothing to do with the crimes, but I do want to mention Tanya and Kevin's dad was arrested in 2023, and he was charged with 48 criminal counts related to tax-related crimes. So clearly, deviancy and entitlement runs in the family, or greed, I guess you could say.

• 1:03:42Annie Elise?

  Now, while so many lives were lost that night, think about the other victims, the surviving victims, the family members who survived on the side of the house, who now had just that pure luck of being able to escape the flames that night, and now they're left grappling the loss of family and friends. And my mind also immediately goes to Hassan's husband, Amadou. He had never even met his baby yet, and because of some senseless teenagers enacting their deranged revenge plot, he never will. It's just heartbreaking. He told the Colorado Sun during an interview that he avoided being alone at all costs, especially at night. He said that sometimes being alone was unavoidable because his roommate worked night shifts pretty frequently.

• 1:04:28Annie Elise?

  So he would call his family, or he would go to the gym. But on the nights when he was alone with his thoughts, he spiraled, thinking not only about the love of his life, who died so young, but his daughter. And my heart genuinely, it just breaks for him. I can't even begin to comprehend what that is like.

• 1:04:45Speaker 12

  This is not justice, and I'm not grateful for the justice, but I will respect it. I just want him to suffer for the rest of his life, and if he get a chance to die hard, to do so.

• 1:04:58Annie Elise?

  Since the arrest and sentencing, the house on Truckee Street has been demolished. Now, all that sits where a home once sat that was full of love and full of, you know, heart, is an empty space of land, holding the memories of the people who lived there and the lives that were lost. And this case was one that truly stood out to me, whether it's for the horror of it all, and how easily this could happen to any one of us, or all of the above, and the entitlement, and the greed and like, audacity of it all. I am glad that a sense of justice, at the very least, has been served, because I think that that will allow the families to grieve and cope and move forward as best as humanly possible in this kind of situation. But I just wish that this was never a case that I even had to cover at all.

• 1:05:43Annie Elise?

  And this kid, all for what, your phone being stolen? That's why at the top of this episode, I was like, it's just the most insane overreaction, like... Think about that. Kids who are teenagers, who are so young, yet carry such an ego and such a need to be untouchable and important, that they get robbed and their phone gets taken, which is not excusable, don't get me wrong, but then they think they need to retaliate by setting that person's house on fire and killing them? It's scary. It is a scary world, and unfortunately, I'm just gonna say it, social media is not helping, and people glamorizing certain situations is not helping, because now, these young kids want the infamy that comes with this, not really realizing,

• 1:06:27Annie Elise?

  because their frontal lobes aren't fully formed, not realizing what the repercussions mean for the rest of your life, and what the gravity of the situation truly is. So I don't know. Thank you so much for listening to this story. I know it was a tough one, and it was a little bit different than the ones we typically talk about, but I felt like it was one that we certainly needed to share. So thank you so much. I will be back on the mic with you very soon, and until the next one, be nice, don't kill people, don't start any fires, and just don't be a little teenage prick, okay? Like, get it together, and don't deal or buy fent. Please do not. It is so scary, so deadly, and like, don't do drugs. Okay, bye.

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