Smiling broadly during a wholesome family trip to the funfair, this is the US politician allegedly set on fire by a jealous British husband – pictured alongside his wife and the woman he is accused of having an affair with.
Lee Vogler said he is having an ‘awesome time’ with his wife and children – but few could imagine 10 months after the photo was taken he would be fighting for his life.
In the photo, Mr Vogler’s wife Blair on the left, affectionately leans towards her husband while his alleged mistress Mary beams for the camera to his right and his alleged attacker, Shotsie Michael Buck-Hayes stands behind him.
This week Mary’s British husband, Buck-Hayes, appeared in court accused of setting Mr Vogler on fire believing he was responsible for the break-up of his four-year marriage.
Buck-Hayes, 29, originally from Devon, is accused of dousing Mr Vogler, 38, with petrol and setting him alight inside his office on July 30.
He suffered burns on 60 per cent of his body and remains in hospital.
Buck-Hayes was arrested and charged with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated malicious wounding later that day after telling police ‘he set the person on fire who had an affair with his wife’, a court in Virginia heard this week.
Friends of Buck-Hayes told the Daily Mail today that he was ‘desperate’ to make his marriage work.
He grew up in South Molton, a small town in North Devon, and studied at South Molton Community College.
He had several jobs including farm labourer and worked in a local pub before moving to Danville, Virginia in 2020 and married his wife, a local resident, the following year.
It’s not clear whether Mr Vogler and Mary were having an affair, but she filed for divorce mid-July, two weeks before the alleged attack.
School friends back in Devon said he confided in them that his marriage was in trouble and they were going to start couples therapy.
Cal Darcy has known Buck-Hayes since they were aged 10 and stayed in touch with regular phone calls and texts since he left the UK.
Mr Darcy said: ‘I spent hours on the phone with him. The relationship was very up and down… It was a roller coaster.
‘They agreed to do couples therapy. He loved her to bits and he was desperate to make it work.
‘I feel like if he had the right support, none of this would’ve happened. There was only so much I could do on the phone. He could have just punched him in the face, but at the end of the day, he snapped.’
Cal also revealed Buck-Hayes had only recently been discharged from hospital where he was receiving treatment for his mental health and hoped the US judge would see that Buck-Hayes ‘was not of sound mind’.
He said: ‘He only recently came out of hospital. He wasn’t very well, but he wanted to get himself into hospital because he wanted to improve his health.’
Buck-Hayes’s mother Naomi still lives in the same modest terraced house in South Molton, Devon, where he spent much of his youth.
There was no answer at the home on Wednesday, but neighbours described her as a ‘lovely lady’ who works in the care sector.
One said: ‘The last time I saw Shotsie he was still a teenager at college, I heard he went to America but I don’t know what he’s doing out there.’
Buck-Hayes’s former girlfriend Taegann Underwood-Petch, who met him in 2012 when they were both 16 growing up in Devon, described him as ‘jealous’ and ‘a social misfit’.
She previously said they loosely kept in touch following the split until 2018, when she began dating someone else and Buck-Hayes accused her of cheating.
She blocked his number for several years until nine months ago when he messaged to tell her ‘that his new relationship was breaking down because he didn’t learn from his mistakes’.
Another friend, Matt Williams, called Buck-Hayes ‘a genuinely nice person that will do anything for you’.
Mr Vogler’s wife Blair told the court this week that her husband suffered second and third-degree burns to 60 per cent of his body.
According to his wife it took 35 per cent of his skin to cover the burns, he also suffered burn shock and septic shock, as well as burning to his lungs due to smoke.
Vogler has been in hospital ever since the incident and is still recovering. He has two children with his wife.
Buck-Hayes remains under psychiatric care at Central State Hospital while his attorney seeks a psychological evaluation to determine his competency to stand trial.
If convicted, he could face life in jail.
