Gary Plauche, a Louisiana father, gunned down a karate instructor at an airport for kidnapping and molesting his son.
Plauche, a former salesman and loving father, snapped after thinking about the magnitude of what happened to his son, Jody Plauche.
So what really happened to his son?
Plauché and his son lived in Baton Rouge.
In 1983, when Jody was 11-years-old, he began taking karate lessons with a 25-year-old instructor, Jeffrey Doucet.
However, at some point during their time together, the karate instructor began molesting the young boy.
The abuse lasted for nearly a year until Doucet kidnapped Jody and took him to a motel in California.
Police later tracked down Doucet after he allowed Jody to make a call to his family.
In 1984, while authorities were escorting Jeffrey through the airport in Baton Rouge for the trials, Gary confronted him.
He then took his gun and shot Jeffrey at point-blank range in front of television crews who caught the incident on camera.
Footage of the incident shows Gary firing the shot before officers arrested him.
Police on the scene also instantly recognized the shooter as the victim’s father. The officers asked him:
“Gary, why? Why, Gary?”
The killing made national headlines even recently because of the vigilante nature of his actions.
Considering the circumstances, the judge and jury showed leniency with Gary.
The prosecutors initially charged him with second-degree murder. But he agreed to a plea bargain in which he pleaded no contest to manslaughter.
In the end, Gary received a seven-year suspended sentence, with five years of probation and 300 hours of community service. He also ended up spending no time in jail.
Gary’s defense team argued that he was driven to a temporarily psychotic state after learning about the abuse of his son.
In August 2019, the abused son, Jody Plauché, now 48, released a book titled ‘Why, Gary, Why?‘
The book details the accounts of the events from 36 years ago. It also tells what parents should do to protect their children.
The title references what a law enforcement officer said when his father gunned down Doucet.
In the book, Jody urges parents to be involved with their children and be wary of an adult — including a family member or close friend — who pays an unusual amount of attention to their child.
He says:
“If someone wants to spend more time with your kids than you do, that’s a red flag.”
