If you love police work, you will love this edition of True Crime Tuesday. The story is true, sounds true?
No, it sounds made up. I don't know. Gary and Shannon present True Crime.
We'll start with the crime itself, Arson that led to murder. It was just after two thirty a m. August fifth, twenty twenty. People are just coming out of the pandemic of the lockdowns. Amadal Sao woke to the shrieking sound that could only be smoke detectors and his home there in the suburbs of Denver was on fire.
He's forty six.
He rushes to his bedroom door, but a column of smoke and heat beat him back. He's panic. He runs to the rear window, breaks the screen with his hand, and jumps the two story drop, fractured his left foot. His wife woke their daughter, who shared their room. She dragged the ten year old little girls of the window and pushed her out. Dad tried to catch her but missed. Miraculously, she landed on her hands and feet uninjured. Then it was Mom's turn. When she leaped, she fell on her back,
shattered her spine in two places. Dad barely hurt. His wife's howls of pain. He was thinking about their twenty two year old son. He couldn't see any movement in the son's room. He hurls a rock through the window, but the glass was steady, it didn't break, and he just feel filled with despair. I mean, the whole place is on fire. Then he notices that a son's car wasn't in the driveway. Thank god, his family is safe, But what about the other people in the house. At
that time, nine people called it home. It was at fifty three to twelve Truckee Street. The dad had bought the four bedroom property and Green Valley Ranch area in twenty eighteen. This was a newly built neighborhood, sparsely populated, kind of cut off from the city, kind of giving an isolated ghost town feel, and it was a refuge. Dad is from Senegal. He's an immigrant work nights at Walmart. Not long after his family moved in, his old friend
and his family joined them as well. His friend's twenty nine years old much younger six' eight civil. Engineer first fire truck arrives about sixteen minutes After dad first woke. Up by, then the fire had shattered the windows of smoke was filled the entire neighborhood is filled with, smoke and stench of burning wood fills the, area and firefighters get in the front, door and there they find the
small body of a. Child it was dad's. Friend it was his, daughter just two years, old barely two years. Old and there was his. Friend and there was his young wife twenty, three and there was his young wife's. Sister an entire family wiped. Out, oh by the, way the sister died with her arms wrapped around her seven month old. Daughter all five died of smoke in. Elation at the same time firefighters are arriving at the. House Neil, baker a homicide detective For DENVER, pd is awoken by
a call from his. Sergeant neil is in his. Fifties he's got reading, glasses thinning, hair rosy, face and he throws on a, suit tells the Wife sea and jumps in his.
Car he's been a cop for thirty years in The denver.
Area he knows his way around, town but also knows That Green Valley ranch is a. Mess it is a rabbit's warren of identical. Roads so he jumped On google like we all. Do jumped On. Google that night trying to find the source of the, fire the location of the, fire not knowing that it would Be google that would help him solve this. Case it was three weeks before this fire that a sixteen year Old kevin went into Central denver to buy a.
Gun kevin had led a charmed.
Life his family had come there From, vietnam but right before he was born they were well. Off his dad's accounting business was. Successful they lived In lakewood views of the. Mountains kevin Wore gucci belts And Air. Jordan's he is a. Psychopath that sounds like a little. PSYCHOPATH i disliked, school BUT i was always really good with. It, athletic a,
swimmer inside. Linebacker he was close with his older, Sister, tanya seven years in age, difference And tanya was friends With kevin's girlfriend and they were thinking at the time of getting a dog. Together But kevin And tanya also liked to deal in fentanyl marijuana and they would find
their customers On. Snapchat And kevin planned to start, karting which is basically stealing people's credit card information on the dark, web and he started collecting weapons as seasoned drug dealers are won to, do and the guys Of kevin had arranged to meet in Central denver on the day In, july promised to sell him a.
Gun, instead they robbed.
Him here's this kid From lakewood showing up in His gucci belt and His jordan's and like a. Place they rob him of his, cash his, iPhone in his. Shoes, well this is the, kid know what he's. Doing he was. Humiliated kevin was. Humiliated he thought he was a big time drug. Dealer he's this kid from the. Suburbs this was a time when classes were. Virtual this is during the. Pandemic football practice had shut. Down classes are. Virtual he wasn't doing anything but this whole drug snapchat.
Operation and he's.
Pissed he's just sitting in his room getting pissed and being filled with revenge and feeling, stupid and he decides to get. Even so he pulls up to find my device on his iPad and watches as it pings his phone and it lands At Green Valley ranch and a pin drops at fifty three Twelve Trucky, street where those two families. Live the next, Afternoon kevin sends a snapchat
to his Friend, gavin and things got. Rolling his Friend gavin is also a troubled teenager plagued by insecurity struggles with multiple learning, disabilities not great in school as opposed To kevin's perfect cookie cutter. Life gavin's parents split when he was, young father not. Absent he also has idle hands a lot of. Time and they decide to go after the people at fifty three Twelve Trucky, street the
people they thought Robbed. Kevin so we're talking true Crime, tuesday and this is a story about a man who awoke and his house was on, fire and, unfortunately the other family that lived there. Perished and this all started when a teenager who fancied himself a drug dealer and Suburban denver decided to go to the big city and buy a weapon and he was robbed because the people who he was buying it from knew what they had
on their. Hands and it was a kid from the suburbs who was not a real drug dealer and needed to be, robbed taken down a. Notch And kevin is his, name was very. Mad he was, disgraced his self image was. Suffering his self image is a, winner a, champ top dog.
Shattered so he searched that.
Address remember he used to find my iPhone app and he found the pin at fifty three to Twelve Truckee, street the house that would later three weeks later burn to the. Ground he searched that address thirteen. Times he searched it On, zillow and he persuaded his, friend who was kind of a, loner not a, success not a top, dog a go along to get along Friend, dylan who was about sixteen as, well and another friend of fourteen
Old dylan to help him exact. Revenge so they all three of them had searched the address multiple times and they. Decided they later insisted that they just wanted to vandalize the, place you, know throw rocks at the, windows egg the. Place but somehow things took a darker, turn and On august, First kevin Mentioned dylan hashtag possibly ruin our futures and burn his house. Down three evenings, later they all go
To Party city to buy black theater. Masks they grab dinner At wendy's On august, fifth about one, am they pile Into kevin's. Camera they stop at a gas station fill a red fuel canister to the. Brim they set off for that. Home they saw a minivan parked outside a family. Vehicle they found the house's back door. Unlocked they doused the gas on the living room walls and the.
Floors they set it on fire and they took. Off now back To.
Detective baker who was, there and everything's on fire and the air tastes like app and they tear told right away there could be five. FATALITIES a neighbor actually has some video footage to, share but it's not, great three figures in hoodies and. Masks but at least it put to bed the idea that maybe this was falsy.
Wiring it was.
Not but they can't tell who these people. Are the detective, thinking, oh you're kidding. Me they're five people. Murdered their only lead is a few seconds of video that reveal nothing about the criminal's. Identity, well they the. BOYS i call them boys because they're sixteen and. Fourteen they begin to realize that this thing has made the, headlines and the, Leader, kevin realizes that they targeted the wrong.
House they killed a.
Family but the cops go.
On and they do their.
Jobs they go through video, footage they, clips they piece together clips from nearby ring. Cameras they see that the the suspects were in took a series of wrong, turns but the videos weren't enough to make out the make or model of the. Car they triangulated the cell tower information as.
Well there were about.
Fifteen hundred devices registered TO tea mobile within a mile of the house when it, Ignited so they checked off the bouncing from one cell tower to the, next and they narrowed the list down to one hundred devices nearer the house at the time of. Ignition all of the, things these are things that are. Done it's just common protocol now of. Days but nothing pointed to any obvious. Suspects but they were still convinced there would be something
that would give them the breakthrough they. Needed but the months went on and the progress on the case began to. Falter the tips stopped rolling, in the psychics started. Calling they're feeling the pressure, Right and then this is in the midst of The Black Lives matter, protests and the victims in this case are people of, color and is this a reason why the investigation is? Dragging so the detectives do what detectives are not always want to.
Do they ask for fresh.
Eyes they plead with colleagues for ideas was there anything we haven't, Tried and another detective, wonders maybe if the perpetrators had googled the address before heading, there Perhaps google had a record of that. Search perhaps you could match up the people that had googled that exact address with the cell phone records that pinged off the towers in the area when that house went, up and there would be a common, name and guess what there was and
it Was kevin's. Name there was a lot of high, fiving but they realized it was too soon to fully, celebrate and in, fact what a legal hurdle this would turn out to.
Be they were able to.
Dive into all of the kids' social, media all their messages back and, forth but kind of looks like they were going to hit a hurdle with allowing That google search to be the main pin in the. Case one of the defendant's lawyers announced that The Colorado Supreme court had agreed to address the constitutionality of a keyword. Warrant, now this verdict would only apply In, colorado but it would influence law enforcement's behavior in other, states potentially THE
Us department Of justices stance on these warrants as. Well this is quite the legal. Process they heard arguments The Supreme court. Did one of the defendant's attorneys argued that reverse keyword searches were alarmingly similar to geofense, warrants which they had begun to question in courts across the country the constitutionality of such. Warrants and you, know you can't just ask for whoever searched this and then narrow it. Down that's a violation of price casting too large of a.
Net but ultimately the court ruled in their. Favor so one slid by the, goals slid by the. Net there there are now police departments from across the country regularly calling these detectives asking for a copy of their. Warrant In, denver they've said that they would only be very careful about using this. Again but already police departments are, saying, hey we could really use. That no systemic data is being collected on how often reverse keywords warrants are being,
used but it's. Possible there have been hundreds of examples to. Date by the, way by the summer of last, year all three teams had accepted plea. Deals the youngest one got ten years in. Juvie kevin got Sixty dylan got, forty both in adult. Prison kevin got the harshest sentence because he masterminded the. Arson oh and he was also caught with ninety two pills of. Fentanyl but to the, victims, then of this is. Enough the husband of the sister of the other family had never.
Met his young. Baby.
Man he, says you took away from, me my, wife the most beautiful THING i ever. Had you took away from me my baby THAT i never had a chance to.
Meet it's just. Heartbreaking