In February of 1984, an 11-year-old boy was abducted from his Baton Rouge home by his karate teacher who had also become a trusted family friend. A week after he seemingly vanished, a phone call ended up being the key piece to help find Jody Plauché & bring him back home to his family.
Jody Plauché was born in 1972 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to parents Gary & June Plauché. He was one of four children & an active boy who was very involved in sports. He played soccer, football, softball & basketball & in 1983 when he was 10-years-old & in fifth grade, he & his two brothers decided to try karate. Their instructor was 24-year-old Jeff Doucet.
In August of 1983, June & Gary separated & were in the midst of a divorce when Jeff seemingly swooped in to fill in the role of the father figure of the home after Gary moved out. Not only was he serving as an emotional support for June, but he was spending more & more time with the children. Eventually, June & Jeff began an intimate relationship.
Jeffrey Paul Doucet was born in February 1959 in Port Arthur, Texas which is a small town on the Texas/Louisiana border & he was one of seven children. He & at least one brother relocated 185 miles away to Baton Rouge with their father, who was a service station owner, while his mom remained in Port Arthur.
Jeff admitted that he was abused as a child & when he entered his teenage years, he transitioned from victim to abuser & began to abuse other children. He later indicated that he lost track of all of the boys he had abused over the years.
By 1982, Jeff, who was an ex-Marine, was working as a karate teacher, specifically teaching Hapkido which is a Korean martial art. He was living at the karate studio, but spending his days working for his brother’s business as a carpet fitter. Some around him noticed that he was spending more & more time focusing on karate rather than fitting carpets.
Initially, Jeff was a blessing to the Plauché boys, improving their physical fitness & discipline & Jody even went on to win a trophy at the Fort Worth Pro-Am under Jeff’s guidance.
It didn’t take long for Jeff, who was a very opportunistic person, to weave himself into the lives of the families of his karate students. He was often invited to family dinners & game nights & even spent the night in the homes of his students, sleeping on their couches. Parents viewed Jeff as a sort of older brother to the boys he was instructing.
One of the families that welcomed him into their lives was the Plauché family; they realized that he didn’t have a family of his own & accepted him with open arms. Jeff spent many Saturday nights with the family, eating & playing rounds of Password & Trivial Pursuit together. Because he didn’t have a car, he often relied on the kindness of his karate student’s parents to drive him around.
A psychologist & author, Dr Anna Salter who studies sexual predators explains that many times, sex offenders are very affable, likable people. The building of trust through a charming personality isn’t just to convince the children, but also their unsuspecting parents.
Looking back, Jody now sees that Jeff Doucet was an experienced groomer with both his victims & their families. He would gradually push his boundaries & as trust was built he would be so integrated into their lives that while he spent time with his victims or was physically close to them, it didn’t register as alarming or inappropriate.
Jeff took advantage of the fact that he was a karate instructor which involved physical touch during training. The grooming with Jody began in early 1983 during these classes & Jeff ultimately normalized touching Jody’s groin & thigh area during practice. He explained to Jody that because his inner thighs were tight, it was important that he help stretch him. It was over several months before he ever started doing anything as the boundaries slowly moved further & further & further. Initially, if he did touch Jody’s private area while stretching, he passed it off as an accident. Looking back, Jody realized it was a slow, gradual process.
Jody had been very involved in a handful of other sports, but during his time spent with Jeff in karate lessons, Jeff slowly convinced Jody to drop his other activities so he could fully focus on karate. This was his way of ensuring that he had more time to spend with Jody.
When the lessons first started, Jody viewed his instructor as his “best friend” & someone he could trust. However, as time went on & the sexual abuse began, Jody felt that he was unable to tell his parents what was happening out of fear of upsetting them or getting Jeff in trouble. As Jeff began paying an inappropriate amount of attention to Jody, one day when Jody was ten, he offered to teach him how to drive a car. As Jody sat on his instructor’s lap, he suddenly felt Jeff’s hands on his lap. At first, Jody was completely confused & tried to explain it away in his head as a mistake. At the time, he didn’t say anything & looking back years later, he realized that Jeff was just testing the boundaries, something Jody referred to as “textbook pediphilia.”
Soon, the testing of the boundaries turned into full-fledge sexual abuse starting in May of 1983. Being only 10-years-old, Jody couldn’t understand what was even happening at first. As much as he wanted to tell those that he trusted what was happening, he figured it was easier to keep quiet than risk upsetting everyone. The abuse ended up going on from March 1983 through February 1984 & in the height of it, Jeff was sexually abusing Jody almost daily, sometimes twice a day.
On Sunday, February 19, 1984, 11-year-old Jody was home in Baton Rouge with his family when Jeff came to the house & asked June if he could borrow her car. Jeff’s brother had dropped him off & once inside, he told June that his brother had to leave & his father was building a new home for the family of his karate student & needed the carpets to be installed. He asked if he could use her car to go over there & requested that Jody come with him. Jeff assured her that he would be back with both the car & her son by nightfall & the two headed out together.
Little did June realize at the time, but Jeff had an upcoming court date for bad checks he had written which led him to fall into significant debt. It was his plan to go on the run & take Jody, who he had been grooming & abusing for about a year at that time, along for the ride.
As Jody got into the car & set out with Jeff, he got the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. They first went to Jeff’s brother’s house in Gonzales, southeast of Baton Rouge. After he gathered some belongings, they drove to his mother’s home in Port Arthur, Texas & he told her that he was traveling to New York City for work & needed money for bus fare.
While there, Jeff’s mom called June & explained that he & Jody were at her house & June maintained that Jody couldn’t stay out late since he had school the next day; Port Arthur is 185 miles, or a 3 hour drive from Baton Rouge. Jeff’s mom questioned him about Jody & worried how he would get home if Jeff was going to New York. He assured her that he was traveling through Baton Rouge & Jody would be dropped off at home before he set off for his trip. However, before they’d left Baton Rouge, Jeff had asked Jody if he wanted to go to California & when he said yes, Jeff put the plans of the abduction in place.
By the next morning, Jeff was heading west with Jody, first to Vinton, Louisiana where Jeff’s uncle lived & then to Orange, Texas which sat on the Louisiana border. During the second day, Jeff abandoned June’s car & he & Jody took various buses through New Mexico & Arizona before ending up in Los Angeles more than a week later.
When they arrived, Jeff was out of money & ended up contacting a man he knew in Houston. He concocted a story, telling him that he was in L.A. for a karate tournament & his van had been stolen with his money inside. The man ended up sending him $600 which amounted to $550 after fees were taken as well as his brother’s birth certificate so he could obtain identification. At this point, Jody was just along for the ride; Jeff had taken him to Disneyland, they saw the Hollywood sign & did other touristy things, so that it didn’t feel like an actual kidnapping.
During their travels, Jeff shaved his beard & changed Jody’s hair color from blond to black & told people that they met along the way that Jody was his son. He took Jody to different tourist attractions they passed & concocted the idea that they were two lovers who had run away together, rather than the fact that he was a pedophile who had abducted a young boy from his family. When they stopped off at motels, Jeff proceeded to rape Jody.
When darkness fell on Sunday, February 19 on the day that Jeff left with Jody, he had assured June that he would be back with her son & her car before nightfall, June began to worry. They were expected back hours earlier & June didn’t even have her car to drive around & look for them. She began calling both Jeff as well as Jody’s friends, but no one had seen them that day. June’s anxiety only grew as the hours passed & she soon contacted the police to report her son missing.
The Baton Rouge police realized that they needed to trace Jeff’s steps in order to find Jody. They began speaking with his family, including his mother in Texas & she confirmed that both he & Jody had been by her house. At this point, the FBI was called in since Jeff had taken Jody across state lines which made this a federal crime. They continued to trace Jeff’s steps, but soon hit a dead end.
On Sunday, February 26, 1984, one week after Jeff left with Jody, June received a collect call from her son & he told her that he was safe. Initially they believed that the pair were in New York because of what Jeff told his mom. Jeff was in contact with June over the next several days & on one occasion, Jody called collect & they spoke for 22 minutes. What Jeff had no way of knowing was that while Jody called home to assure his mom that he was safe, the FBI had set up a wiretap on June’s landline & not only had the Baton Rouge Deputy Sheriff listened to the conversation, but they were also able to contact the telephone operator who gave the location of where the call had originated from.
Within minutes, the call was traced back to the Samoa Motel in Anaheim, California, near Disneyland, 2000 miles away from Jody’s home. It didn’t take long until the Anaheim police responded to the scene & broke down the door of room 38 to rescue Jody. At the time they busted into the room with guns, Jeff was still speaking on the phone with June. Jody was taken to the Anaheim Police Department & questioned for about an hour & denied being sexually assaulted by Jeff, but the rape test at the hospital would later prove otherwise.
Jeff was arrested & held for questioning while Jody was returned home to his family in Louisiana. As Jeff spoke with investigators, he admitted that he’d had a relationship with Jody’s mom, June, but denied sexually abusing or abducting Jody. Instead, he tried to paint a picture that he had intended for June to join them in California with the rest of her children.
When Jody was safely with his parents on March 1, they eventually learned the harrowing details of what their son had lived through & the shocking fact that he had been sexually abused by someone they trusted & allowed into their home.
One day after Jody came home, he went to the Baton Rouge Police Department & was interviewed for what felt like hours. He continued to refuse to tell the truth about the sexual abuse he was put through & maintained that Jeff had not touched him. He felt they were very harsh with him during his questioning, hoping he would crack & tell the truth. Once the rape test came back one week later, there was no more denying this fact.
Jody remember seeing his mom waiting for him when he got off the bus & knew at that moment, that she was now aware of the sexual abuse. When she sat down with her son & told him this, the full truth came out. Jody remembers feeling like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders; after he went out to ride his bike with friends. Gary, Jody’s dad, recalls feeling helpless when his son returned, unsure what to do to help him.
The horrific ordeal that Jody had been subjected to brought June & Gary back together as parents in order to be a united force for their children during this traumatic process. Gary was working through his own demons & the immense guilt & anger he felt, realizing that he had been fooled by Jeff’s manipulation & grooming. Gary blamed himself for the fact that his son had been an innocent bystander who had been harmed in the process.
While Jody was reunited with his family, Jeff remained in custody in California while the extradition process began to transfer him back to Louisiana. He was charged with aggravated kidnapping & would be facing a trial back in Louisiana.
On March 16, 1984, Gary was having a drink at a bar called the Cotton Club, when he struck up a conversation with a news executive from a local ABC affiliate news station, WBRZ-TV. Gary was currently working as a salesman, but previously worked as a TV camera operator for the same company. The news executive told him that Jeff was arriving in Baton Rouge that night. After he mentioned the exact time of his arrival, 9:08 pm, Gary made the decision to head straight over to the Baton Rouge airport.
Jody later spoke with ESPN & told them that his dad went to the airport assuming he was going to die, “He said either Jeff or him was gonna die that night.”
As Gary made his way through the airport, wearing a baseball hat & sunglasses, he waited by a line of pay phones with a .38 tucked into his boot. Since it was 1984, airport security was much more lenient & people were free to wander through the airport, going directly to gates to welcome their loved ones. Gary walked through the airport, unnoticed by anyone & headed to arrivals, positioning himself close to where the news crews were setting up their equipment.
When Jeff’s plane landed, Gary called his best friend & told him what he was planning to do, “Here he comes. You’re about to hear a shot.” Gary kept his back to the crowd, aware of the fact that if he turned around too soon, the local police would recognize him from his son’s case.
In the meantime, the media was present & cameras were rolling & his friend heard that shot that Gary told him to expect, as Gary shot his son’s rapist in the head. Some claim that the cameras were broadcasting the footage live, but the footage was intended to be rushed back to the news stations in order to appear on the 10 o’ clock news that night.
It was 9:30 pm when Gary sprang into action as Jeff walked by the line of payphones; his hands were cuffed in front of him & an armed officer walked next to him. To the shock of those on scene, Gary shot Jeff in the head.
Jeff immediately collapsed to the ground as Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Barnett, ran to Gary & pinned him to the pay phone. Deputy Mike Barnett just happened to be a personal friend of Gary’s as well as an investigator on the case, & realized that the shooter was Gary. Deputy Barnett could be heard on camera asking, “Why, Gary, why’d you do it?” Gary replied, “If somebody did it to your kid, you’d do it too.”
Gary was arrested & taken into custody while 25-year-old Jeff was rushed to the hospital where he remained in a coma until his death the next morning.
On the day of the airport shooting, Jody & his siblings had been staying with their grandparents while June had been playing dominoes at her sister’s house. When June came home, the house was quiet & empty & she turned the TV on & began doing chores. When the 10 pm news came on, June heard mention that an ‘unknown assailant guns down alleged kidnapper.’ She immediately knew that this assailant must be Gary & June fell to the floor & began to scream until neighbors heard her & rushed over.
The next day, June told her children what had happened & Jody’s initial reaction was that of anger. Jody later explained to ESPN, “I didn’t want him dead. I just wanted him to stop.” It was enough for Jody that Jeff be sent to prison & it took him time to forgive his dad for what he had done. He was also upset that his dad’s decision would likely result in him leaving the family to go to prison. Jody also worried that because of what happened to Jeff, the whole world would soon learn what Jeff had done to him & he wasn’t ready for this information to come out. He hadn’t publicly announced any of the abuse he had lived through & now, he worried that all of his friends, neighbors & classmates would know what happened to him.
Gary spent a total of three nights in prison; he was taken in on Friday night & released on Monday. He was released to a psychiatric hospital where he spent a month. Gary & June had been separated for six months by this time & June was told that Gary would no longer be consuming alcohol on his release & with that condition, she indicated that he was welcome to come back to their home which he did.
Gary was charged with second-degree murder, but the charge was later changed to manslaughter in a plea deal & Gary ended up being sentenced to seven years in prison. However, the sentence was suspended & he was given five years probation plus 300 hours of community service. The judge felt that prison would serve no useful purpose.
Many people understood why Gary had done what he had done & even applauded his decision, while others, Jeff’s family included, felt his sentence was too lenient. However, nothing came of these complaints & Gary served no time in jail for murdering Jeff other than the initial three nights.
By summer of that year, Jody’s anger & resentment toward his dad began to dissipate as he began to heal & understand why his father had killed Jeff. Jody went on to Louisiana State University where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in General Studies with minors in Psychology, Speech Communications & Philosophy. During his time in college, he served on the executive board for Men Against Violence which is a campus organization aimed at preventing campus violence, including sexual assault & other physical violence. In 1991, he faced the public for the very first time when he appeared on a television talk show.
Soon after his first TV appearance, Jody was contacted by a local police officer who informed him that a boy had watched his interview which gave him the courage to come forward to disclose his own abuse at the hands of his pastor, who went on to be arrested. This fact gave Jody the inspiration to share his story with the world.
That one TV appearance led to a career in public speaking & advocacy & after graduation, Jody relocated to Pennsylvania to work as a counselor & risk prevention educator. In 2019, he released a book about his story, titled, Why, Gary, Why? It was important to Jody that other victims of child abuse know that with the correct support, they could get their lives back. He explains to these victims, ‘You’re not scarred for life. You’re not damaged goods. Your innocence – that may have been taken, but for the most part, you’re going to be OK.’ He also unveils the sneaky tactics that child predators often use in order to better inform parents of what signs to look for.
Gary Plauché suffered a stroke in 2011 & was in a nursing home until he passed away in October 2014 & Jody describes his father as being the greatest dad of all time. He also acknowledges that while it isn’t okay to take someone’s life, he adds, “When someone’s that bad a person, it doesn’t bother you too much in the long run.” Jody realizes that many people view his father as a vigilante, but he said that his dad was truly the nicest person he has ever known, the type of person who would stop & pick up stray animals.
Jody is currently thriving & travels throughout the U.S. to present professional & college trainings about sexual violence risk reduction.
If you or someone you know is experiencing sexual abuse, 24/7 help is available at the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
References:
- Medium: Deadly Vengeance: The abduction of Jody Plauche
- Ati: Jody Plauche was sexually assaulted – then his father killed his abuser
- Jody Plauché.net
- RAINN: National Sexual Assault Hotline
- YouTube: Team Never Quit Podcast: Joseph “Jody” Plauché: Sexual Abuse & Abduction Survivor
- Criminal Minds Wiki: Jeff Doucet
