Jealous Husband Set Wife’s Lover on Fire

- Was your intention to go killing today? - Yes, you're right. - A startling revelation midway through a police interview. When a Virginia man admits he set his romantic rival on fire. - I threw a boat getting gas in the hot. And, and, but not because he had sex in my life. - We're taking you inside the interrogation room for the shocking case. - He was probably terrified. - And later, hearing from the defendant's very own attorney. - It's not just a simple, uh, oh, you know, he's, he's upset. So he's, you know, deranged or something. So this man on fire, there was, there was a lot of evidence that I would say is mitigating. - This is scandal, presented by Lon Cron. I'm Sierra Gillespie. (upbeat music) - The fires of love taking on a whole new meaning in this case, when a jealous husband admits to setting his wife's alleged sidepiece ablaze after a lover's quarrel. - I was saying, uh, I didn't understand how it was working properly. Um, and it was, it was just rejected and, and, and, and just, I just got some cool, as my wife had an ass house, a prison, a cell phone. - Today's scandal takes us to Danville, Virginia, where since 2012, Lee Vogler has served on the city council. According to his profile in the city's website, Lee was actually the youngest person ever elected to the Danville city council when he was only 24 years old. He's served as a councilman for more than a decade now, running on a platform of community building, supporting local businesses, and bringing more jobs to the area. Lee's resume is impressive to say the very least, but according to one time Danville resident, Shotsie Michael Buck Hayes, Lee was involved with more than just city council work. It's unclear how exactly the alleged relationship began between Lee and Shotsie's wife, Mary Alice, or how far it actually went. Shotsie told detectives he believed the affair started around September, 2024, and that about 10 months later, Mary Alice filed for divorce. When detectives questioned Shotsie about what led up to the incident, he pointed to a conversation with Mary Alice. - Like, me and my wife had a conversation today on film, and I was basically freaking out online, and then we had a bad conversation, and what was the conversation about? - I just speak very well. - Yeah, I'll become never you again. The conversation was, like, I sort of repeat myself, like, she said that I didn't love her, otherwise I wouldn't have made some mistakes, and then I had more of a prediction. And up to not more of a prediction, and then I made a field, like, I have, like, show volumes and enough, or like, children and not. And then, me and her have pretty much a previous deal of pre-pass, and I was saying that I didn't understand how she's loving property. And it was just rejected, and, and, and I just, I just lost my call. - So later that day, July 30th, 2025, Shotzi went to a local gas station and made a purchase. - And so what it was, there's a bio-rice, the basement, the end of the basement, next to my bed, because I had the rice in the bucket. And I pulled the rice into a paper bag, and I walked three dollars gasoline. - No one could have expected what happened next. - That's actual video of Lee Vogler set on fire. It's so graphic that we had to blur it out, but you can hear the person on the recording say, "Oh my God." Witnesses immediately called for help, and first responders rushed to the seat. - Get out of the car, get out of the car now! - Get out of the car! Get out of the car, hands up! Lay out on the ground. (footsteps thumping) (footsteps thumping) - Where's my bed? - Over. - He still smells like gas. - That's right, 357 suspect in custody. - Here's where I have to note, Lee Vogler miraculously survived this attack. Local station, WDBJ7, reports that Lee sustained second and third degree burns on 60% of his body. He suffered burn shock, septic shock, and burned lungs too due to smoke inhalation. But despite all of that, and months at the UNC Burn Center, Lee survived. He since posted a few photos to his Councilman Facebook page. He mostly wears long sleeves, but in a few, you can see the fallout from some of his burns. He since gone back to work as a Councilman and seems to be living a normal life. It's not quite the same, though, for Shotzee Buckhays, who admitted to investigators that he's setly on fire. - I went to Lee Vogler's and I threw the bogey a gasoline on and that's because he had sex in my life. - After he was taken into custody, Shotzee agreed to speak with investigators who followed protocol, and that means they started with his Miranda Ritz. - My name is Sergeant Clay. This is Corporal Griggs. Okay, we're with the investigation section of the dam, the police department. I know that you have stuff you want to get off your chest, harness it in. But before you can even tell me anything where I can tell you anything about what's going on, I've had an advantage of a couple of things, okay? It's your Miranda Ritz, all right? So before we ask you a question, do you most understand your rights? You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used, bench and court. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice, before we ask you any questions and to have them order with you during the questioning. Do you understand those rights? Perfect, man. - The interview then starts with some background. Shotzee tells detectives about Mary Alice's alleged affair with Lee. - I'm trying to, like, try to convey what's going on. Just do okay. - My aunt, my wife had an ass house, pretty much held fire. Just, you said you wanted that affair, with the guy that you so fond of? - Yes. - Okay. I'm holding it down. It was about 10 months ago, I think. - Two months ago? - What? - Shotzee explains. He thought this affair took away his future with Mary Alice. - I was so angry at him and I felt like this morning, like, I knew I knew mistakes, but I felt like he had taken a dose of me. I really wanted her to do more. I really felt like he had stopped my children from getting this. That's what was in my head today. - Shotzee says he was triggered by a phone conversation. He shared with Mary Alice earlier that day, so he decided to take matters into his own hands. After buying some gasoline, he went straight to Lee's place of work, the showcase magazine offices on Danville's main street. - Okay, so when you came to office, can you tell me just what happened when you went in there? - I walked through the office, not the office, into the fire. And I paced. I paced. And, where I always happened. And here you put the door, and it's free. - How did you have to gasoline? - I'm okay. - Just about to work in my car. - Okay, I'm not going to car. - And you just do it all. And then what happened for me? (sniffing) - I had, you know, just chased. I just chased him. He ran out, he threw it on him, he runs out of the UN. He went through the building. But I chased after him and then I just, I just, just been there and shot him for. I reported that after that, and I had him on the street. I thought I'd call the street. So, since he opened the door, describe what is he look like? I'm not, he did it a lot, he did it a lot. I didn't know what. What we do, we'll see. Did you look happy? Conor and he was so shocked to see me. So, what, what you call, shock, scared? What would be the best way? He was probably a tariff, but what I told him, you call him like the thing is, is he would infiltrate in my family, so, I don't know, I don't care. He knew that I was upset. - And here's where things go from bad to worse. Shotsie admits he went to extra lengths to make sure the fire burned. - That's a quick question, right? Two questions. There's a good thing for that bucket or something else. Did you put like an accelerant, I made the arm, or something like that up a little bit of the styrofoam? Or the styrofoam? Why? Because I just pull it out of my heap and I'm going to make it burn, it's longer, so like that milk's goo stuff that's there, it's like styrofoam. Okay. So, one of that was because you thought it would make the fire burn longer. Shotsie is ultimately charged with attempted murder and based on his police interview, it was warranted. Shotsie, the biggest thing that, you know, I'm trying to understand is why you tried to kill him today and you told me that, but your intention to go kill him today is to not. You went to go kill Mr. Robert or that, and just to clarify, you went to go kill him because of his affair with your wife. Shotsie Michael Buck Hayes eventually pleaded guilty to attempted first degree murder and aggravated malicious wounding. In June, 2026, he was sentenced to 35 years in prison for malicious wounding and another 10 years for attempted first degree murder. He's also been ordered to have zero contact with Lee Vogler for the rest of time and has officially since divorced his wife. Wow, a lot happening in this case. We talked to you, our viewer, through the facts, but I want to speak to someone who was right there involved in all of it. We're joined now by Shotsie's very own attorney, Matt Pack, Matt, thanks for coming on scandal with us today and talking about this kind of crazy case. Thank you. Thank you for having me, sir. I really appreciate it. I can tell you that it's definitely memorable. Oh, yeah. Okay. So let's start with the very beginning, right? Like you're just normal every day, attorney doing your job, whatever. And all of a sudden, you get a call that, I don't know, you're going to be representing this guy, whatever happens, what are your first inclinations, your first thoughts when you hear about this case? Well, actually, when I came into the case, it was a little bit different in that I don't do much court appointed work and this was a court appointed case. And former associate of mine actually got the case, Mr. Ed Livotto, very good lawyer. And it was pretty complicated, some pretty complicated issues. We talked back and forth and basically decided to file a motion for me to come in and an assistance matter. Okay. So you got the job. You're helping out with this client. What, I mean, without breaking the attorney client privilege of all of it, what does he tell you about what happened? Yeah. Well, I can't really get into the specifics necessarily about exact things, but I can give you an overall flavor of what I came into with the case. And I can tell you that when I first got in, I reviewed the allegations and very interesting, the fact that somebody would go to the extent of allegedly lighting someone on fire, putting gasoline on them. You know, we're very fortunate in some respects that obviously the man survived and I'm grateful for that. You know, otherwise, we'd be looking at some sort of aggravated murder case. I mean, yeah, and the facts of all of that with lighting someone on fire here, does that show premeditation because if you break down the facts of the case, we do have your client going and purchasing fuel, you know, gasoline. The prosecution says he was out there openly saying he planned to light someone ablaze. So what do you think about all that? So the issue that we had there was he was facing three charges originally when we started the case. And it was aggravated malicious wounding, which is a lot of people think, well, why didn't they just have attempted murder? Well, in Virginia, we have a charge that's called aggravated malicious wounding. And actually, it's it's higher on the totem pole than even attempted murder. But the Commonwealth charged aggravated malicious wounding attempted murder and then breaking into a residence with a deadly weapon with the intent to obviously do harm to this man. And we thought that the real issue in the case was that there wasn't necessarily a break in an injury. This occurred during the day. And then once I got into it, I found out that it's not just a simple, oh, you know, he's upset. So he's, you know, deranged or something said this man on fire. There was, there was a lot of evidence that I would say is mitigating in the fact that there was a relationship and it came out in the record. There was a relationship between Mr. Buck Hayes wife and the alleged victim in the case. So okay, you said mitigating factor because this is something everybody was clicking on the headlines about chatting on TikTok, whatever it may be. They're all talking about, okay, this man found out his wife was having an affair. He set him on fire. That's kind of the big headline here. So do you think that is a mitigating factor? The fact or the allegation that there was an affair or a love triangle going on? Oh, absolutely. And I think that if we would have, obviously we came to a plea agreement in the case, but I think if we would have tried the case, I think that would have been the crux of our arguments moving forward. Now the issue is, and yes, it's a huge factor in this case because there's a thing called the heat of passion and any first year law student probably encounters that in the typical scenario is much like this where husband comes in, finds another man in bed with his wife, having sex and then the husband loses it, hurts the gentleman, kills him, whatever. But he did it out of heat of passion. Well, the issue with heat of passion in every state, but especially in Virginia, the issue with heat of passion is, was there any type of cooling off period? Was there any delay in the time of finding this issue and then acting out upon it? And in our case, that was our burden and that was the one thing that was going to be tough at trial, is that there was a significant amount of time between when he found out about this alleged affair and how it was prompted and gone on until the act was committed. And so that was our issue. We certainly would have been arguing heat of passion, but we understand that in the reality of the trial, and certainly a jury could have went either way, in the reality of the trial, there was a cooling off period. Okay, that would definitely make things kind of a little more tricky for all of you if there is that cooling off period, so to speak. And I haven't seen this reported. I don't know if you're able to tell us, do we know how Shotsie Buckets found out about this affair? Yes, so, and I think that it did come out in some of the evidence that was testified to, but I think that there was a basically competing timelines and competing evidence when it came to when this affair actually started, how he caught it, because I think that the evidence showed that the councilman and his wife were certainly friends with Mr. Buckets and his wife, and they hung out for quite a, quite a large period of time. And our client testified that where he really had an issue was one time his wife went to the restroom while they were at a restaurant somewhere, and he followed her back, because she wasn't back in a certain period of time and caught the alleged victim and Mariala Hayes who was Mr. Buck Hayes' wife at the time in some sort of embrace or some sort of loving gesture towards each other. And so that obviously put him on, put him in a paranoid state, and then from there, I think it just kind of went downhill. She asked for a divorce, and certainly the evidence of the two of them being together was certainly prominent after that. I mean, I do feel for someone who would later find out that their wife, husband, whoever your significant other is, is cheating on you. That's hard. I mean, my heart goes out to anybody who has to deal with that. That's tricky, right? But does it equate setting someone on fire? I mean, would that be really tricky if you guys took this to jury trial to have to say, "Okay, yeah, on one hand being cheated on is terrible and awful." But also being set on fire, I mean, does one kind of equate the other? What would you do at trial for all that? Well, what you're asking there is certainly accurate. And what you're asking is much like self-defense. Heat of passion is a, we call it a legal excuse, self-defense is legal justification. And just because you may have one of those defenses or you may have certain mitigating evidence like that, did you exceed the scope of that? And I think even if Mr. Buck Hayes had walked in on his wife in the middle of the act or something of that nature, I think to go to the extent of what happened, I think certainly the law would never excuse that. And I think it's like when we get certain cases that we have all the time where we have assault and battery case. And in that assault and battery case, the person has a self-defense claim, but then they exceed the scope of self-defense by hurting the person in excess of defending themselves. And that's really what the flavor of this case was. So at trial, we would have never, I mean, obviously if the Commonwealth didn't produce evidence because it was on them to produce the evidence. If they didn't produce evidence, obviously we'd be arguing, but the main issue then would be is it probably wouldn't have ever been an acquittal, but it certainly would have been different than aggravated malicious wounding. And had they found any heat of passion substantially, they probably would have, we would We think that the jury might have reduced it to malicious wounding or what we call unlawful, and in which most states call felony assault and battery or something of that nature. And that would have reduced his liability as far as jail time significantly. - I see what you're saying. This isn't like a classic who done it. Him saying it wasn't me, I wasn't there, but maybe kind of lowering the charges that were brought. Because I mean, even as just a normal everyday human, not an attorney, I cover true crimes. So I cover the worst of the worst. And I do feel like there are layers. I mean, if you're shot, it could be an instantaneous death. If you are strangled, it goes on for a while. It's very intimate. It's, you know, kind of raises the bar there. And then sending someone on fire. - It's a whole lot. - I don't know where it falls within all of that. I'm not the one to make that decision or that determination, but it is something I haven't reported on before. And there's also video too. So you talked about any of the evidence that the Commonwealth would have brought. Would that be hard to kind of dispute? In fact, there is video of the victim ablaze. - Well, as a trial lawyer in practicing 15 years here in Virginia, that would not have been the strategy to say, oh, this didn't happen or who done it. It was never about that because you're absolutely right. At the end of the day, if we had tried this to a jury, it would have been sorted out by, you know, lay folks and common ordinary people that would be deciding on this. And when you try cases like that, you certainly want to be reasonable. You want to defend your client vehemently. But at the same time, you know, you have to be reasonable. And I think a reasonable person could certainly look at this and see that Mr. Buck Hayes was certainly acting under a heat of passion in some regard. Now, was there a reasonable cooling off period? Did it excuse some of his behavior, but not all of it? That's kind of where we're going with this. - What about the fact that he talked to police afterward? We actually are going to play the body cam from the clips in this episode. And it does sound like he says, yeah, this guy was having an affair with my wife. Of course I did this. So he kind of admits it right away. Would that be an uphill battle for the defense? - No, not at all. As a matter of fact, it would be an uphill battle if you were trying to say it's a who done it case because you got the guy saying I did it. But that was never the issue. The issue was always mitigation and a mitigation of the charges. So on top of mitigation, we've talked kind of about this, the affair, all of that. Would you have gone the route of any sort of mental health evaluation or did he have any sort of diagnoses on any sort of medication, things like that? - Well, and this was part of the record at sentencing as well. So I'm not divulging anything. And you can look in the filings, but we did file motions for competency evaluation, not guilty by reason of insanity evaluation, as well as we filed a motion for a diminished capacity evaluation which is fairly new in Virginia. - So what is that then, the diminished capacity? - It basically says because of a mental health issue or autism or something along that range, that you didn't have the capacity basically to understand the gravity of what you were doing. It doesn't completely exonerate necessarily a defendant, but it allows the jury to understand that this is a person with diminished capacity. But we were denied all three of those motions. And I wouldn't say denied by the court, we just didn't get an evaluation that came back and said, "Yeah, I can get on stand and testify "that he was certainly under one of these three categories "of a defendant." - It sounds to me like you did exactly the job of a defense attorney going down all of these routes, testing his background, ordering maybe a competency exam, all the things that they like. It seems like you're very well versed in the case. However, it didn't end up in the jury trial. Your client ended up taking a plea deal. Can you talk a bit about what those discussions were like or why he decided to go that route? - Sure. And I can, we kind of, obviously this is part of record too, but we were right up probably within a couple of weeks of trial. And we had subpoena, the court had subpoenaed over 200 jurors, which is a lot for that little area. And it's probably one of the biggest cases they've had there in quite some time. But we were on the eve of trial, so to speak, a couple of weeks before. And we talked about the pros and cons of the case and trying it before a jury. The issue became is trying it directly to a jury and even asking for what we call jury sentencing, which means that the jury actually decides the sentence. What our concern was is if he was convicted as charged, the jury couldn't go under 42 years. It would have been 20 and 20 on the charges and another two on the other offense, the attempted murder. So it started at 42 years. The judge wasn't gonna go below that. I mean, he could, but if a jury sends you to 42 years and that's the lowest they can go, then that would have been an issue. So ultimately, and our client absolutely never said, I didn't do this. It was just an excuse or mitigation towards this. So we spoke with the Commonwealth and we told the prosecutor in this case, listen, the issue we really have with the charges as charged is that this break in and entering, this occurred in the middle of the day. And while certainly the law would support or probable cause, meaning the lowest level to support bringing the charge, I don't think that's really one that you really wanna base your case on. And so ultimately, our client decided to accept responsibility for what he really did do, which was the aggravated malicious wounding. And again, we thought it was probably more malicious, but aggravated malicious wounding in the attempted murder. And then accept responsibility for that and take his case before Judge Reynolds and let the judge decide his sentenceing in that. - So can you speak to me a bit about the sentencing too, because at least one of the reports I saw said that he was hoping to appeal the sentence, what was kind of the final sentence and what your thoughts on it was? - Sure, so what I was concerned about mostly in this case, and I know that it sounds, when you talk about it, it sounds pretty drastic, but these were the kind of cases that I deal with, is the cases where they've got a lot of downside or a lot of conditions that could really cause issues for the defendant. And in this matter, Mr. Buck Hayes, when we talked about sentencing, it was really more that the mental health issues, since they weren't gonna help us for trial, they were always gonna come in for sentencing, whether it was in front of a jury, whether it was from the judge. And our issue was, I saw this as if he's convicted, I don't care if it's a jury or the judge, I really feel like that it's gonna be a life sentence, because when you read the facts and you look at it's horrible, I mean, a lot of states call this torture, what was done. And so, we decided, and our client decided for himself, that he wanted to accept responsibility, and take his case before the judge, and ultimately, the judge did give him life, but suspended all of it, but 40 years. So he has an active 40-year sentence, and in Virginia, he's gonna serve 85% of that. And he'll be at least eligible for geriatric parole, if he gets to 60 years old and hasn't been released. But I think he'll probably be out, probably in his mid-delay, 40s, early 50s, I think is what we finally looked at. - Wow. And I don't want to brush over this, because the details of the case are pretty salacious. A lot of people are really interested in all of that. But in the end, we do have a victim here, who thankfully survived as you pointed out, but to be burned, you mentioned in some other states, that's considered torture. I mean, it's a terrible way to be injured in any way. And I know a lot of his body was covered, so do you have any update about how the victim is doing? - Yeah, so he testified in court, and I'm about an hour and a half outside of that jurisdiction, so I'm not there a lot, probably a few times a month. But the last time that I saw him, he was in court testifying at the sentencing. And obviously, he's had a tremendous, he spent so much time in the intensive care unit. I think he was down at Duke and the folks at Duke, the burn unit took care of him. I mean, obviously he's gonna have lasting injuries the rest of his life, but he is back as a councilman there in Danville, and it seems to be doing pretty well him and his wife are still together. I think all the other stuff has kind of been pushed aside. And we keep him in our thoughts and prayers, 'cause we certainly want him to make a full recovery, even though he'll still have scars the rest of his life. - Wow, I mean, the facts of this case are, I cover a lot of weird stuff, and I don't think I've covered something quite like this. So Matt Pack, I do want to say thank you for coming on Scandal today and walking us through the case. It's really interesting to get your perspective about all of it. - Thank you, yeah, and if Netflix is making a documentary about McKinsey Cyrill, I mean, I can't imagine, because here's the one thing that nobody, here's the one person that nobody has had testify. We have very little comment from. And that is Mr. Buckhase's Now XY. of life, uh, Mary Allisay. So I'd be interested to see if they ever make a documentary and track that lady down and interview her. I'd be interested to see what she says. Now, I mean, I have other statements, but I would certainly be interested. Yeah, if Netflix comes calling, that's hard to deny. Maybe she would want to kind of become part of that trend where everyone sits down for their Netflix doctor. Yeah. One we want to hear from her, you know, sure. Yeah. I guess we'll have to wait and see. Matt, thanks so much for coming on with us today. Thank you so much, Sierra. Really appreciate the time. And that's where today's episode of scandal leaves us for now. If you like what you saw and you want to see more or connect with me on social media, you can find me on places like Instagram at Sierra Gillespie. Thanks for watching today's episode of scandal. As always, I'm your host Sierra Gillespie and I'll see you next time.