When the cameras started rolling on a March afternoon in 1984, Baton Rouge news stations thought they were documenting an assaulter walking towards his legal fate. What they captured instead was raw, human justice by the hands of a devastated father.
11-year-old Jody Plauché had looked up to his karate instructor, 25-year-old Jeffrey Doucet, like a mentor. Jody’s mother, June, with whom he was living at the time, also greatly trusted Doucet. But on Feb. 19, 1984, the trust turned to horror. Doucet kidnapped Jody from Louisiana and drove him more than 2,000 miles to a motel in Anaheim, California. There, over several days, he sexually assaulted and held Jody captive while the boy’s family and police launched a frantic search.
But Doucet’s arrogance undid him. He allowed Jody to make a collect call to his mother, which the FBI quickly traced. Then, on Feb. 29, California police raided the motel, rescued Jody, and arrested Doucet. It was revealed that Doucet had been sexually abusing Jody for at least a year, which began with “testing the boundaries” and ended with raping him after abduction.
A father’s dilemma and perfect planning
On March 1, Jody reunited with his family in Louisiana. In an interview with a news television crew, Jody’s father, Gary Plauché, revealed that after he heard reports that Doucet had sexually assaulted his son, he felt helpless and could not figure out how to deal with the situation. As it turned out, he did what he felt was justice for Doucet’s crime against his son.
As the 25-year-old predator was being escorted through Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport on March 16, 1984, to be brought to trial, reporters and TV crews gathered to film his return. Among them stood Jody’s father, Gary. He wore a baseball cap and glasses, standing quietly by a row of payphones with a .38 revolver hidden in his boot.
A father’s justice: Gary shot Jeff Doucet and walked free
As Doucet walked past him in handcuffs, Gary turned, drew the revolver, and fired a single shot into his head. Doucet collapsed instantly as cameras captured every frame that would play on national television for weeks. Reportedly, one of the cops present at the scene was Gary’s friend, who arrested him and swiftly asked, “Why, Gary, why’d you do it?” To which, he answered, “If somebody did it to your kid, you’d do it, too.”
As the footage went viral on TV, millions came in support of Gary and saw him not as a criminal, but as a father who was pushed beyond reason. In court, too, prosecutors acknowledged Gary’s overwhelming emotional trauma. The judge sentenced him to seven years suspended, five years of probation, and 300 hours of community service.
Jody forgives his father
However, Jody was initially “upset” with what his father did, and only wanted Doucet to go to jail. But years later, he forgave his father, even though he wished he hadn’t pulled the trigger. He turned his pain into advocacy, writing a book and speaking at schools about child abuse prevention. Gary lived another 30 years and died in 2014 of a stroke, at the age of 68. In 2024, a 52-year-old Jody appeared in an interview for the Mirror and regarded his father as “the greatest dad of all time.”
