There is a well-known clip of a father shooting his son’s accused abuser in front of TV cameras in 1984. Joseph Boyce “Jody” Plauché, now 53, a survivor of child molestation, has looked back on the high-profile case that changed his family forever. He shares a thoughtful perspective on his father’s actions after this awful crime, and how they have affected his life over the years.
Warning: The article contains details of child sexual assault as well as murder. Please proceed with care.
The public’s reaction to Gary Plauché’s actions left a complicated legacy for Jody. His memoir, called Why, Gary, Why?, reflects the same question the deputy asked at the airport. According to The Guardian, long after the case disappeared from major news coverage, Jody kept meeting people who praised his father. Even when he posted cooking videos online, viewers often ignored comments about his food and instead wrote messages praising his father’s actions.
According to Jody, these interactions always included statements like “Your dad’s a hero” rather than talking about his cooking. Looking back now, Jody Plauché, now 53, has a more critical view of his father’s legal outcome. He said his father was lucky not to get a harsher sentence, which would have taken him away from Jody at a crucial time in his recovery from abuse.
Some actions, even well-intended, deal the worst consequences to others
Jody even remembered giving his father the silent treatment for months after Doucet’s death. He said that at the time, he didn’t want Doucet to be killed, and he didn’t want his father to hurt anyone. His only wish was for Doucet to stop the abuse, something he knew Doucet probably would never have done, but it was a personal prayer he repeated every night.
The nightmare started when Jody was only 10 years old. His karate coach, Jeff Doucet, began to molest him, a betrayal Jody later wrote about in a memoir. In February 1984, when Jody was 11, Doucet took him from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to a relative’s home in Port Arthur, Texas, and then on a bus to the Los Angeles area, where they went to Disneyland.
After about a week, police found them in a motel room after Jody was allowed to make a collect call to his mother. Jody was quickly brought back home, and medical tests confirmed he had been sexually assaulted.
As two deputies from the Baton Rouge sheriff’s office flew to California to bring Doucet back to Louisiana to face kidnapping and child sexual abuse charges, Jody’s father, Gary Plauché, got a tip from a local news station, WBRZ, about when Doucet would arrive at the Baton Rouge airport. Gary Plauché, wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, placed himself in a hidden spot.
As officers walked past him with a handcuffed Doucet, Gary Plauché pulled out a handgun, pointed it at the 25-year-old’s right ear, and fired at close range, killing him while news cameras filmed the scene. The moment after the shooting was caught on video, with one deputy, who recognized Gary, shouting, “Gary, why? Why, Gary? Why?”
The shooting immediately made Gary Plauché famous across the country, with many Americans seeing him as a hero who took justice into his own hands. At first, he was charged with second-degree murder, but he later pleaded no contest to manslaughter. He was given a suspended seven-year sentence with five years of probation and 300 hours of community service, so he never went to prison. He died in 2014 at the age of 69.
Only a few of these stories end with the accused dying, but many can go uncharged or serve hardly any time. Luckily, there are plenty of cases where criminals are caught.
Jody explained that he eventually forgave his father after seeing the strong bond between Gary and his mother after the shooting. He accepted what happened when he realized the authorities wouldn’t take his father away when he needed him most for support during his healing. During one of their rare talks about Doucet’s killing, Jody remembered telling his father that he wasn’t angry anymore and that he understood why his father did what he did. Gary Plauché’s reply, as Jody recalled, was filled with love.
Published: Jul 30, 2025 07:06 am