Just moments after news cameras captured this image, Louisiana dad Gary Plauche stepped up to the man who’d kidnapped and raped his young son – and shot him dead on live TV
“If somebody did it to your kid, you’d do it, too.”
On March 16, 1984, Jeff Doucet was led through Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport in handcuffs. He had just been arrested in California after kidnapping 12-year-old Jody Plauché, bringing him to the West Coast, and repeatedly molesting him in an Anaheim motel room.
Little did Doucet or law enforcement know that Jody’s father, Gary Plauché, was waiting in the airport with vengeance on his mind and a .38 revolver in his boot.
As Doucet walked by in the middle of a police entourage and with local news cameras rolling, Plauché seized the moment and fired a shot straight into Doucet’s head, killing him right then and there.
Plauché was initially charged with second-degree murder, but agreed to a plea bargain in which he pleaded no contest to manslaughter. He was sentenced to seven years suspended, with five years’ probation and 300 hours of community service, which he completed in 1989.
