In 1984, 11-year-old Jody Plauché was kidnapped from his home in Baton Rouge by his karate instructor, Jeff Doucet. Doucet took the boy to California, where he held him captive and sexually assaulted him for several days. Jody was eventually rescued after Doucet allowed him to make a phone call home, which enabled authorities to trace the location and arrest the kidnapper.
On March 16, 1984, Doucet was being extradited back to Louisiana to face charges. Gary Plauché, Jody’s father, arrived at the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport wearing a disguise and carrying a concealed .38 caliber revolver. As Doucet was being escorted through the terminal by police, Plauché stepped out from behind a row of payphones and shot Doucet once in the head at point-blank range, a moment captured on live television by a local news crew.
The shooting became one of the most famous examples of vigilante justice in American history, largely due to the shocking footage and the public’s sympathy for a father’s grief. Despite the cold-blooded nature of the act, there was an enormous outpouring of public support for Gary Plauché. This sentiment significantly influenced the legal proceedings, as many in the community felt that Doucet had received the justice the legal system might have failed to provide.
In the ensuing legal battle, Gary Plauché pleaded no contest to manslaughter rather than facing a second-degree murder trial. In a controversial decision, the judge sentenced him to a seven-year suspended sentence and five years of probation, along with community service. This meant Plauché served no jail time for the killing. He lived the remainder of his life in Baton Rouge as a local figure of both notoriety and empathy until his death in 2014.