The man accused of setting Danville City Council member Lee Vogler on fire last summer pleaded guilty to two charges related to the attack on Thursday, just days before his trial was scheduled to begin.
Shotsie Michael Buck-Hayes, 30, pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder and aggravated malicious wounding. The plea deal did not involve a reduction in sentence, but the commonwealth dismissed a third charge of breaking and entering with intent to commit murder while armed with a deadly weapon.
He will be sentenced in June.
Buck-Hayes, who was born in the U.K., was arrested and charged on July 30, hours after Vogler was attacked and set on fire.
Vogler was at his workplace when a man police later identified as Buck-Hayes entered the office, doused him with a flammable liquid and lit him on fire, according to the Danville Police Department.
He was airlifted to the burn unit at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill immediately after the attack to receive treatment for second- and third-degree burns to more than half of his body.
On April 1, Buck-Hayes pleaded not guilty to all three charges. His trial was set to start Monday and run for five days.
A plea deal came together late last week, Danville Commonwealth’s Attorney Michael Newman said in an interview after the hearing.
“There is rather overwhelming evidence in reference to those two charges,” Newman said. “At the end of the day, he realized that we had the evidence to convict him for those.”
Edward Lavado, one of Buck-Hayes’ attorneys, said that his client pleaded guilty because he wanted to accept responsibility.
“Through this whole process, all he wanted to do was accept responsibility and explain his story,” Lavado said in an interview after the hearing.
Buck-Hayes’ second attorney, Matthew Pack, said the defense is looking forward to presenting mitigating evidence at the sentencing hearing.
“He had reached his breaking point, I think. It doesn’t make it right in any way, but it gives an explanation to what happened,” Pack said. “We’ll have that evidence presented at the sentencing hearing in June.”
Newman presented several videos as evidence during Thursday’s hearing, including police body camera footage of Buck-Hayes’ arrest, videos from his police interrogation hours after the attack and a paused video showing Vogler outside his workplace on Main Street, engulfed in flames.
In the videos from the interrogation, conducted by Sgt. Garrit Clay, Buck-Hayes describes the attack and motive.
“I went to where Lee was, and then I threw a bucket of gasoline on him,” Buck-Hayes said in the video. “That was because he had sex with my wife.”
In another video from the interrogation, Buck-Hayes told Clay that he had intended to kill Vogler.
Buck-Hayes and his wife have been separated since June 2024, according to court records. In another interrogation video, Buck-Hayes said that he had been on the phone with his wife on the morning of the day of the attack.
During the phone call, Buck-Hayes said that they talked about their marital difficulties and that he felt “rejected” by her.
“I just lost my cool,” he said.
In a series of videos, he described grabbing a plastic bucket, buying about $3 worth of gasoline, mixing it with Styrofoam in an attempt to make it burn longer, putting it in his car and driving to Vogler’s workplace.
When he got there, he entered the foyer, paced for a while and then knocked on the door to Vogler’s office, he said.
“He opened the door and I threw [the gasoline] on him,” Buck-Hayes said in the video. “I just chased him. … He ran from the building and I chased after him and then I just, I just lit his shirt on fire.”
Buck-Hayes, who was crying in some of the interrogation footage, said in another video that Vogler looked “shocked” and “probably terrified” to see him.
“I was so angry at him,” Buck-Hayes said during the interrogation. “I felt like, I knew I had made mistakes, but … I really felt like he had stopped our children from existing. So that’s what was in my head.”
Vogler and his wife, Blair Vogler, attended the hearing along with Vogler’s mother, father and stepmother. This was the first time Vogler had attended one of the court proceedings for Buck-Hayes.
Vogler declined to comment until after the sentencing hearing in June.
Both Vogler and Buck-Hayes remained expressionless during the hearing and the presentation of videos.
Vogler was released from the hospital in October, months earlier than expected, and attended the Oct. 21 city council meeting on his first day back in Danville, which was his first public appearance since the attack.
He has continued physical and occupational therapy since returning to Danville, and he has had a laser surgery to address scarring from the burns. Since he’s been back, Vogler has been attending city council meetings and other local events.
Buck-Hayes’ sentencing is scheduled for 9 a.m. June 25.
The maximum sentence for attempted first-degree murder is 10 years in prison, and the maximum sentence for aggravated malicious wounding is 20 years to life, according to Newman.
