A 19-year-old man pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree murder for starting a house fire that killed five people in Denver’s Green Valley Ranch neighborhood more than three years ago.
Gavin Seymour pleaded guilty in the Aug. 5, 2020, fire that killed five Senegalese family members in a home on Truckee Street. He faces between 16 and 40 years in prison on the single count of second-degree murder, a sentencing range that prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed on as part of the deal.
Sixty other charges against Seymour were dismissed as part of the plea agreement.
“Guilty,” Seymour said when asked for his plea Friday morning in Denver District Court.
Seymour and two other teenagers — Kevin Bui and Dillon Siebert — were accused of intentionally setting the house fire in the middle of the night. Djibril Diol, 29; Adja Diol, 23; Khadija Diol, 2; Hassan Diol, 25; and 6-month-old Hawa Baye were killed in the blaze.
Investigators believe Bui mistakenly thought someone who had stolen his phone lived in the house and set the house on fire as revenge.
Seymour and Bui were 16 at the time, Siebert was 15. Siebert pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in 2022. The cases against Seymour and Bui were stalled for several months while the Colorado Supreme Court considered the legality of a controversial search warrant that police used to identify Seymour and Bui as suspects in the arson.
The search warrant required Google to turn over any users who searched particular keywords in a particular timeframe. The state Supreme Court upheld the warrant in October, allowing the cases against the teenagers to move forward.
The case against Bui is still pending.
Seymour faced more than a dozen counts of first-degree murder, which carries a life sentence without the possibility of parole in Colorado. He was also charged with multiple counts of attempted murder, assault, burglary and arson.
Seymour will also be required to pay a yet-to-be-determined amount of restitution to the victims as part of the plea agreement.
His sentencing is set for 1 p.m. March 15.
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