Dad executed man who sexually abused his son as TV cameras filmed
After his children’s karate instructor was charged for sexually assaulting his son, a furious dad bided his time before brutally executing the alleged abuser at an airport with a TV camera catching the fatal shooting.
Jody Plauché was a fifth grader in Baton Rouge in 1983 when he was signed up to karate classes by his parents to be taught by karate instructor Jeff Doucet.
The instructor became a family friend even joining for board game nights at the family home.
But beneath the apparently friendly student/instructor relationship, something far more sinister was going on. Jody told People: “I think what first started was when we would be stretching at karate class because you got to get in the splits, and, ‘Here, let me help you.’”
“We'd put our feet on cardboard, and we'd do a split and now he's like, 'Feel how you're tight right here?' And that was kind of him normalizing putting his hands between my legs — but not touching my private parts, but he's touching my inner thighs, which is close to my private parts. So, I think that that was his first kind of trick to normalize that.”
The abuse escalated and in March 1984, Doucet kidnapped Plauché and took him to Disneyland, California. The police were immediately called and tracked the two to a motel in Anaheim.
FBI agents busted the door down and a week later, on March 16, a test confirmed that Jody had been sexually assaulted. Doucet was extradited back to Baton Rouge to face charges for kidnapping and sexual assault.
It was at a Louisiana airport that dad Gary laid in wait with a .38 snub-nosed revolver. He called his best friend from a payphone and waited for Doucet to walk by.
According to his son, he told his best friend: “You’re going to hear the shot.”
Gary, 38, turned around and shot Doucet point blank range in the head, killing him.
After a cop asked Gary why he did it, the vengeful dad said: "If he'd have done that to your family, you would've done the same thing too. You don't know."
Gary was later charged with second-degree murder but it turned him into a hero to many.
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The dad pleaded no contest to manslaughter and was given a seven-year suspended sentence, five years' probation and 300 hours of community service. His community service was spent painting and cutting grass at a local Catholic church and school.
Although initially angry for taking justice into his own hands, the son forgave his father.
Plauché said: “I think it was that summer we were walking down to the pool, and I told him: I said, ‘Look, I forgive you. I'm not mad at you no more. I understand why you did it.’ And I think that meant a lot. But I mean, we really didn't talk about it a lot. That was probably one of the most we ever talked about it.”