Gary Plauche Incident

I ran across a thread on ARFCOM yesterday that I had missed. The subject was the Gary Plauche incident. You probably know about this. Gary rightfully shot a pedo who molested his son and it was all caught on camera. The subject came up and turns out Gary’s best friend’s son is an active member of ARFCOM., He chimed in to tell his and his Father’s memories of the event. You can read them below and there will be a link to another article with more background on the event.

“Most folks know the “airport” part of the story. The cops show up with the pedo and blam, lights out. There is more to it. I know some that I heard, some that I’ve been told and some that I saw. I’ll try to keep those straight.

Everyone knows the story on the front end so I won’t repeat it. I’ll focus on what happened in the days preceding.

Jody was found and Jeff Doucet was captured in California. Jody was brought back to Louisiana soon after and reunited with his parents. It was shortly after that they found out what actually happened. Gary was understandably disturbed by this.

Something you need to know is the folks that my father grew up around, as I found out later, weren’t really normal. (This was evidenced when I went to the army and told my friends stories about growing up and they said they were impossible.) These were men of principle to the point where it the cost of action wasn’t even a consideration. Right was right, wrong was wrong and that was it. Wrong one of these guys in some way and you were going to have to defend yourself, right then, right there. (side story… My 62 year old father employed a lawyer to handle a legal matter. The lawyer said it would take X to do it. The guy basically at his retainer up and produced nothing. He told my father to get bent. He quit taking my Dad’s calls. My father drove to the law office and parked behind the lawyers car. He called the secretary and asked for the lawyer. She said he wasn’t there. My father responded with “I’m parked behind his car and you have two choices. Walk out with a refund check or call the cops and call an ambulance because one of us is going to the hospital and one of us is going to jail”. My father got his refund.)

Gary knew that they were going to extradite Jeff back to Baton Rouge but didn’t know when. Gary’s wife (who when young had dated one of the cops who escorted Jeff through the airport) informed one of the escorts prior to all of this going down “Gary is going to kill Jeff”. (BTW, this cop also knew Gary, hence the “Why, Gary why”.) Responded with “I’ve been escorting prisoners longer than Gary has been an assassin so Jeff will be fine”.

Gary had gone to lunch that day and happened to over hear a producer from the local television station (where coincidentally Gary had worked as a camera man at some point) what time Jeff was going to be brought through the airport. Shortly after he called my father and said “I know when he’s coming through, I’m going to kill him”. My father responded with something like “they are going to kill you Gary”. Gary understood that would likely be his fate and was resigned that he would do it anyway. He fully expected to be killed doing this.

The other thing you have to know is that my father had recently had his leg cut off. Long story but he was house bound due to the recent surgery. That said, my father called a friend who worked at the Sherriff’s dept. and told them that Gary was going to be at the airport and was going to kill him. He wanted them to skip the airport and take him from the tarmac. This was many hours before all of this went down. I heard these conversations myself. The response was “don’t worry, we’ll take care of it” or something of that nature. I only heard one side of the conversation.

Gary called my father again later in the day. My father was trying to convince Gary not to do it. He didn’t want his friend to be killed. Gary told him that he had what he needed and was going to the airport later. My father called the Sherriff’s dept. again to relay that he was absolutely going to be there. His friend at the Sherriff’s dept. said something along the lines of (going off of memory here) “he won’t do it, he’s just talking”. I can remember my father saying “I’ve known Gary all my life, he’s never backed down from anything. He IS going to kill him”.

I recall that my father called the Sherriff’s dept. one other time and the gist of the conversation was something like “don’t worry, it’s taken care of”.

Gary called my father back from the airport. He had posted up at the pay phones that we all saw in the video. He posted up there because he knew there was only one way out of the Baton Rouge airport and you had to pass that way. Also, the camera man was right behind him and he knew the camera man would be in the right place. Coincidentally, the camera man also knew Gary Plauche. They had worked together at the same TV station. You should also know that Gary never wore a beard to my recollection in his life except for that moment. It’s not crazy to think the camera man didn’t recognize him for that reason.

He called my father shortly before all this went down. The conversation wasn’t a long one. We basically knew what was going to happen as it had been the subject of talk all day. My father was sitting in his bedroom on his bed and I was sitting next to him. My father briefly tried to talk Gary out of it. Gary saw them coming before everything went down. He told my father ” I see them coming. They took him a different way out. No, they’re coming and going to walk right past me. He then said “when the camera throws the light on, I’ll know they are close to me and I’m going to shoot him”. He then said, “I’m pulling the gun out of my boot, you’re going to hear the shot”.

Shortly after, my father turned to me and said “he just killed him” and he hung up the phone. I asked him “how do you know he got him”. He said “Gary is the best shot I’ve seen in my life. I know he hit him”, or something to that effect.

Something like 30 seconds after my father hung up the phone, it rang. It was the sheriff’s dept. The person on the other end said “we think we can divert them away from the airport”. My father responded with “it’s too late, he’s already dead” and then he hung the phone up.

At that point, my father thought his friend had been killed as a result of what happened. He just knew he’d shot him but that was it. He didn’t know he’d been taken into custody.

Shortly after this happened. (it seemed really short. But in conversations with Jody, he said it was about 20 minutes or more) The video showed up on TV. Most local folks say “I remember seeing that live” but it wasn’t on live TV.

Mike Barnett who instantly realized who it was asked “why Gary, why”? Gary’s response was something along the lines of ” I had to do it. I had to do it. You know what he did to my son.

The rest comes from my fathers retelling of the events that happened after, to me. (BTW, other than my father telling me, I don’t think he told this to anyone else and it’s never been written anywhere before. You guys are the first people to “hear” this.) He said after muttering that phrase to Mike Barnett Gary didn’t speak another word. He basically went catatonic and just stared off into space. He wouldn’t respond to anything. They placed him in a local mental hospital for treatment. I’m pretty sure he was silent for several weeks. During this time my father wasn’t allowed to see him.

Finally they allowed my father to see Gary. He was told of his condition and was worried about his friend. Upon seeing Gary, he walked in and immediately gave his friend a hug.

Once he was close Mr. Gary muttered into his ear “did you see that shot”….”

I once asked Gary if he regretted anything about doing it. (Keep in mind, on the plane ride to Baton Rouge before Jeff was shot, he confessed to Mike Barnett that he had done this to many, many children.) Gary told me “I regret taking the satisfaction of killing him away from all the other parents.”

Below is a picture of Gary and the OP’s Dad.