Cinco Ranch High School student Spenser Vogt lived in a comfortable gated neighborhood in Katy, drove a nice sports car, worked at a Wal-Mart and had just been accepted into college.
Lee Carl Banks III lived with his mother in a poorly kept south Houston apartment complex after being expelled fromJordan IV shoes Yates High School. He had no car and no job, and was wanted in a Harris County courtroom to explain why he had botched his probation.
The two 19-year-old men likely never would have met except for the fact that both were drawn to a gay chat room, police said.
When their paths crossed online it led to tragic results, with Vogt shot to death and Banks jailed on a capital murder charge, possibly facing the death penalty.
Police say they may never know exactly why the pair’s second face-to-face meeting on March 27 turned violent, but said Banks eventually confessed to shooting Vogt so he could steal the victim’s 2007Air Jordan 3 Mitsubishi Eclipse and other items.
Banks denied robbing or intentionally harming Vogt when interviewed by the Houston Chronicle at the Harris County Jail last week. He said he fled to another state in Vogt’s car because he was scared.
“I’m very sorry for what I did — I know what I did was wrong,” Banks said from inside the jail, where he is being held without bond.
But Banks refused to say what he was apologizing for, even as he denied robbing and killing Vogt.
He also said they were just friends.
Interviews and public records suggest Banks, a former Yates High School drum major and one-time aspiring journalist, had problems controlling his temper.
One Yates High School instructor said she was so badly frightened when Banks lunged at her in 2007 that she considered quitting her job. Banks later sent an e-mail to fellow students threatening the teacher’s life.
Court records also show Banks was arrested last year on allegations of assaulting a former boyfriend and damaging his apartment.
“Lee kind of painted himself as everything going downhill, beginning with the Yates deal and the break-up with the boyfriend,” said Fort Bend County sheriff’s Detective Jeff Martin.
Banks’ bleak future diverged markedly from Vogt’s, whose death came the day after he had received an acceptance letter from the University of Texas-San Antonio.
Pair met online
Both Vogt and Banks were openly gay and both were young when their fathers died. Vogt embraced his homosexuality, describing himself onJordan VI shoes his MySpace page as “gay and proud” and posting provocative self-portraits.
Banks also was fond of posting self-portraits on his MySpace page, though his pictures were less racy — sometimes showcasing his new clothes, expensive suits or new Air Jordan shoes.
Fort Bend County sheriff’s investigators and Texas Rangers don’t yet know which man initiated contact with the other.
Police believe Vogt was killed on the men’s second date at the apartment Banks shares with his mother in the 3300 block of Yellowstone. Banks first told police Vogt found his gun in his room and they struggled, which caused the gun to fire, striking Vogt in the head.
Handgun is being tested
He told investigators he then wrapped Vogt’s head in two plastic bags and put the body in Vogt’s car before dumping Vogt’s remains in a field in south Houston.
Three days later, a deputy sheriff stopped Banks in Cairo, Ga. — about 14 hours from Houston — as Banks headed to Atlanta, driving Vogt’s car.
Officers found a gun that Banks said was his — a Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver — on the car’s floorboard, Martin said.
Police are awaiting ballistics test results to see if it was used in the killing.
Directions provided by Banks later led police to Vogt’s body, wrapped in a blue tarp and dumped in an undeveloped lot in the 5200 block of Fuqua near Cullen.
An autopsy revealed Vogt had been shot twice in the head — once at close range in the left temple and another time in the base of his skull.
After giving conflicting stories, Banks confessed Monday that he shot Vogt to steal his car, said Harris County prosecutor Connie Spence.
Investigators found what appeared to be blood on the back patio of the apartment, a search warrant revealed.
Officers seized all the bedding and sheets from a second-floor bedroom in the apartment, along with a floor mop, a vacuum cleaner canister, a couch cushion and fabric cut from a chair.
Banks’ life apparently began to unravel when he was expelled from Yates High School during his senior year in the fall of 2007.
Yates magnet school coordinator Myrtice Newhouse said Banks became belligerent when she asked for a medical excuse because Jordan VII shoeshe had missed class one day.
She said Banks followed her out of her office, then lunged at her in front of a school police officer.
“He just lost his mind,” Newhouse said. “He was hollering, screaming. It made me contemplate quitting. It frightened me that bad.”
The expulsion also led to Banks’ removal from the Houston Chronicle Classroom, a program designed to expose high school students to journalism.
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