Weeks earlier, Gary and June Plauche’s son Jody, 11 years old at the time, went missing. Authorities tracked him to a hotel room in California, where the boy was staying with his karate instructor, Jeffery Doucet.
The authorities rescued Jody Plauche and arrested Doucet, 25, on kidnapping accusations. On the plane ride back to Louisiana, after a grand jury indicted Doucet on a charge of aggravated kidnapping, Doucet confessed to molesting Jody Plauche and other children, Mike Barnett, a former East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff’s deputy who investigated the disappearance, said Wednesday.
Barnett and another deputy, Bud Connor, who flew to California to apprehend Doucet, walked a handcuffed Doucet through the airport once they arrived in Baton Rouge. Unbeknownst to them, Barnett said, Gary Plauche stood nearby at a pay phone, talking to a longtime friend and wearing a ball cap and sunglasses.
“I’d known him most of his life,” Barnett said. “But I just didn’t recognize him when I walked past.”
Seconds later, right in front of a WBRZ-TV camera, Gary Plauche spun around and fired a single gunshot. The bullet struck Doucet in the head. He later died at a hospital.
On prime time tv.