How man who shot his son’s karate instructor dead on live TV ended up walking free
Gary Plauché was a dad who did something that shocked the world he shot and killed the man who hurt his son, and he did it right in front of TV cameras. Yet even though it was all caught on video, he didn’t end up going to prison.
His son, Jody, had been abused by Jeffrey Doucet, a karate teacher who had been grooming the whole family for about a year to get closer to Jody. Eventually, Doucet kidnapped the boy and took him across the country to a motel in California. While they were hiding out there, Doucet continued abusing Jody every day.
Luckily, Jody got a chance to call his mom, and the police used that phone call to find and rescue him. They arrested Doucet and planned to put him on trial back in Louisiana.
But Gary couldn’t wait for justice through the courts. When Doucet was flown back and brought through the Baton Rouge Airport, Gary was there waiting for him. He wore a cap and sunglasses to stay hidden and stood by a payphone pretending to be on a call. As Doucet walked past him, surrounded by police, Gary pulled out a gun and shot him in the head at point-blank range. Doucet went into a coma and died the next day.
A local TV station had its cameras rolling the whole time, and you can even hear an officer yelling, “Why, Gary?! Why?!” after the shooting.
Even though it was all recorded, the community saw Gary as a hero, not a criminal. A lot of people believed he did what any parent would want to do if their child had been hurt like that. Instead of being charged with murder, Gary made a deal he pled no contest to manslaughter. This meant he didn’t admit he was guilty, but he accepted the punishment.
The court gave him a suspended seven-year sentence, five years of probation, and 300 hours of community service. That’s it. He never spent a single day in jail.
Psychologists said Gary had snapped after learning what had been done to his son they believed he was temporarily insane, that he couldn’t even tell right from wrong in that moment. One psychiatrist even said Gary felt like God was telling him he had to stop Doucet to protect other kids.
The judge agreed that putting Gary behind bars wouldn’t help anyone. He said it was a rare case where both sides Gary and Doucet were victims in different ways.
Gary lived for 30 more years after the shooting and passed away in 2014 after having two strokes.
His story is still talked about today because it raises hard questions about justice, revenge, and how far a parent would go to protect their child.
