By Charles Wilborn
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DANVILLE, Virginia (Danville Register & Bee) — The man responsible for setting Danville City Council member Lee Vogler on fire almost 11 months ago in a brazen and grisly attack will spend 40 years in prison, Danville Circuit Judge James Reynolds ruled Thursday morning.
Shotsie Michael Buck-Hayes pleaded guilty April 16 to charges of attempted first-degree murder and aggravated malicious wounding, avoiding what was scheduled for a weeklong jury trial.
On the aggravated malicious wounding, Reynolds sentenced Buck-Hayes, 30, to life with all but 35 years suspended. On the attempted first-degree murder count, he received 10 years, with five years suspended.
Reynolds went above the guidelines in the sentencing.
The plea came with no deal arranged between defense attorneys and Danville Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Newman.
An earlier charge of breaking and entering while armed with a deadly weapon was dropped.
On July 30, Buck-Hayes doused Lee Vogler in gas and napalm — a flammable jelly — and then set him on fire at Showcase Magazine, where Vogler works as director of marketing.
Suffering burns on 60% of his body, the attack left Vogler near death. In a miraculous recovery, he was released from the UNC Health Burn Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on Oct. 12, months before doctors thought he’d be able to return to Danville.
That same evening, Vogler attended a Danville City Council meeting.
“I could not be more sorry,” Buck-Hayes said during the three-hour sentencing Thursday morning. However, when asked by Newman about the crime, he said he did not remember it.
During an April plea hearing, Newman showed a video captured by a passerby of Vogler running into the street on fire in front of the magazine’s office at 753 Main St.
Buck-Hayes admitted to Danville Police Department investigators to throwing gas — mixed with Styrofoam — on Vogler, who had an affair with his wife.
A few hours before the fiery attack, Buck-Hayes got a call from his ex-wife that made him feel “rejected,” he told police.
That’s when he began “freaking out,” purchased $3 worth of gasoline and put it in a blue Lowe’s bucket. He added Styrofoam to the gas because he wanted it to burn longer.
When he arrived at Showcase Magazine, Buck-Hayes said he was pacing around the foyer.
When he saw Vogler, he told police the council member appeared to be “terrified.”
That’s when he doused him in gas, “and proceeded to chase him around the building,” he said on video.
When the pair got outside, that’s when Buck-Hayes set Vogler on fire on the street.
Buck-Hayes was found later in the day in his vehicle at the intersection of Jefferson Avenue and Wilson Street, only a few blocks from where the attack happened.
Vogler and his family — wife, mother and father — all testified about how their lives had changed in an instant. All viewed it was nothing short of a nightmare.
“It’s like a bad nightmare that replays over and over,” his father, Jack Vogler, said.
Although the council member recovered, he still endures pain daily and has trouble doing the simplest of tasks, such as tying his shoe or buttoning his shirt.
Vogler also returned as a middle school baseball coach this spring, but he wasn’t able to hold a glove or demonstrate to the young boys how to slide into a base.
“Perhaps the most painful is the loss of connection with my children,” Vogler explained, reading from a statement to the court.
Kingston and Ava are still worried about their father, family members said.
Vogler called it “pain I would not wish on my worst enemy.”
The affair Buck-Hayes moved to the United States from England with his American fiancée when he was about 24. They were married in 2021.
But the couple separated in June 2024. They had been living apart since Sept. 30, 2024, according to court documents.
Buck-Hayes contradicted that in court, saying that he and his ex-wife, identified as Mary Alice, were still seeing each other up until the attack.
“We were sexually active,” he testified. “The divorce was not the end of our relationship.”
Buck-Hayes said that he had tried to work on the marriage, giving up all of his “bad habits” except smoking cigarettes.
He was also working on his career.
When they were together, he asked his wife what she most wanted. The response was a house with a “grand staircase.”
That’s when he decided to become a construction worker after being at Midtown Market in Danville.
Before the attack, he worked at Eckerd Connects, a residential boys academy in Yanceyville, North Carolina.
Vogler’s wife, Blair, testified that she had been around Buck-Hayes five or six times.
Buck-Hayes referenced one of those occasions, the Shrimp Festival in Danville in 2024. That event normally happens in September.
Both couples wanted to continue the party after the event and went to Food Lion to pick up beer.
“Mary Alice and Lee had been uncomfortably close,” he said, referring to before that day.
Vogler excused himself to go to the restroom. A few minutes later, Mary Alice did the same thing.
Buck-Hayes then went to the restroom to see what was going on.
“They were in an embrace,” he said of finding Vogler and his wife together, while not sure if they were kissing or not.
“I was level 10 upset” at the time, Buck-Hayes said, but took no action.
Mental issues Buck-Hayes said he “cut everyone off” when his marriage started becoming rocky, and he worked 16 hours a day for seven days a week.
He sought mental health help locally but credited going to Virginia Baptist Hospital in Lynchburg as the “best thing that has ever happened to me.”
Naomi Buck, his mother, who traveled from England for the sentencing, said her son suffered from mental issues and was prescribed medication while in high school.
When marriage problems started to surface, others around him noticed.
Kenneth Crews, Mary Alice’s grandfather, met Buck-Hayes in 2019. Mary Alice went to college in England for years.
“Everybody loves Shotsie,” Crews testified. “I love the guy.”
He said Buck-Hayes “always wanted to help everybody.”
However, his mood changed.
“He was trying to save his marriage,” Crews said.
Donald “Bill” Cosner, who worked with Buck-Hayes at Midtown Market, also saw him decline as the marriage became shaky.
It was also in September 2024 — the same time as the Food Lion incident — that daily phone calls between Buck-Hayes and his mom started to grow more infrequent.
She was concerned and considered contacting the police over her worries, but decided not to since there wasn’t a crime that would involve the authorities.
After he was arrested, he showed suicidal tendencies that prompted Buck-Hayes to be sent to Central State Hospital in Dinwiddie County in August.
Dr. Meagan Cogbill, the assistant medical director there, saw Buck-Hayes about 10 times.
Up until then, he had only been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She said he also had a borderline personality disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, commonly called PTSD. She devised a new medication plan to help.
The violence Newman bluntly said Buck-Hayes knew what he was doing the day of the attack and even came up with a brutal plan to make the fire on Vogler burn hotter.
“He wanted to kill Lee Vogler,” Newman said, explaining that Buck-Hayes was mad at his wife and not at Vogler, since the affair had ended some time earlier.
To that, Buck-Hayes started to shake his head, and Newman continued.
“This has everything to do with revenge,” the commonwealth’s attorney said. “He wanted to burn alive” Vogler.
Vogler’s mom, Rhonda, said Buck-Hayes showed no remorse at the plea hearing as video of her son running across the street on fire was played.
Rhonda Vogler said the July 2025 calendar remains in her home on the day her life changed.
“I was ambushed and violently attacked,” Vogler described of the incident. “My attacker is an evil, violent individual.”
Jack Vogler, looking directly at Buck-Hayes, ended his statement to the court in a loud voice.
“You are a coward,” he told Buck-Hayes, who was making eye contact, as he did with all family members.
In fact, he often nodded during their statements.
The defense argued for a lighter sentence — within the guidelines — saying that Buck-Hayes accepted responsibility and could be rehabilitated.
Newman countered that argument, again referencing that Buck-Hayes said Thursday he didn’t remember the incident.
After Thursday’s proceedings, Buck-Hayes instructed his attorneys to appeal the sentence, they confirmed to media outside.
Reynolds ordered Danville Sheriff Mike Mondul to have Buck-Hayes transferred to the Virginia Department of Corrections “as soon as possible.”
When he does get out of prison, he will be on probation tied to good behavior.
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