Well you have the basic story down but your facts are completely wrong.
Baton Rouge La, in 1984, Jody Plauché, then an 11 year old boy, was taking karate lessons from one Jeffrey Doucet, a pedophile, who was 25 at the time. The boy was eventually kidnapped by Doucet and taken to a motel in California. The police launched a nationwide search to find the boy.
Doucet was found after making a collect call to his mother and taken into custody. Jody was returned to his family while Doucet was extradited to La to face a ton of charges.
Leon “Gary” Plauché, Jody’s father, learned the time and airlines that Doucet would be arriving at the Baton Rouge airport from a police officer on the Baton Rouge PD. He arrived early, pretended to be part of the crowd and when the Doucet was being escorted off the plane, Plauche’ put a bullet into his head. One less pedophile walked the earth.
Plauche’ was indicted by a Grand Jury on 1st degree murder charges and went to trial. The charges were eventually dropped down to manslaughter to which Plauche’ pled “no contest”. The jury found him guilty and sentenced him to 10 years suspended and 5 years probation.
Yes, Plauche’ was found “guilty” and he was sentenced. He did not get off scott free as many people thought he should have been. His plea on “no contest” probably had something to do with that although the jury could have simply pulled an OJ and through nullification let Plauche’s completely off.
His son Jody has written extensively about his childhood, the molestation and kidnapping and his father’s case. A quick google search on his name will bring you more information than I have posted on here as well as a book Jody Plauche’s wrote about the case. He has his own website (where I believe he’s some sort of radio personality now) at http://www.jodyplauche.com/
Sorry, the story I spoke of (as I indicated in the post) did not happen in Baton Rouge, LA and California in 1984, this happened in Indianapolis, IN in the late 1980s and it was a young girl who was raped and left for dead.
There was no national manhunt in this case. The girl was left in a field, did not die, and was taken to the hospital after being found where she recovered and later identified her assailant.
The story you recount sounds a little similar in terms of what happened to the perp, but is a completely different story. This man was not “convicted” at all, but was found not guilty.
Check things a little more thoroughly before making a staement about facts being completely wrong...of course they are when you are talking about two completely different stories.