SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - The story was “in the can.”
All the TV station needed was footage of the captured fugitive walking through the airport, and they had a story ready to top the evening broadcast.
WBRZ-TV, the ABC affiliate in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, sent cameraman Abram McGull to the airport to capture some footage of suspected child molester Jeff Doucet being led through the airport by law enforcement.
What McGull - now a federal prosecutor in Springfield - ended up recording was a homicide that made national news and has influenced McGull’s views of the criminal justice system to this day.
As Doucet was being led through the Baton Rouge airport on March 16, 1984, fresh off his arrest in California on suspicion of kidnapping and child sex crimes, the father of the alleged victim was there waiting.
Gary Plauche, the father of Doucet’s alleged victim, hid near a bank of phones and then shot Doucet in the head from point-blank range as he walked past.
McGull captured everything on camera.
“I can remember one of the officers, the younger one, saying, ’Gary why? Gary why?’” McGull told the Springfield News-Leader . “And I’ll never forget this, Gary’s response was, ’If it had been your son, you would have done the same thing, too.” … It was kind of chilling.”
McGull said the officers quickly tackled Plauche and gained control of the chaotic situation.
Thinking like a journalist, McGull said he stealthily switched the tapes in his camera in case police tried to seize what he recorded as evidence.
“One of the thoughts that went through my mind is that this was a very valuable tape,” McGull said.
That night, McGull said, the tape went “viral” - or whatever the pre-internet equivalent would be.
National news outlets picked up the video, which immediately drew comparisons to the Lee Harvey Oswald killing.
As for McGull, the fatal shooting at the airport, coupled with a union meeting he covered weeks later that turned into a brawl, reaffirmed his desire to get out of the news business.
McGull used the money he had saved to attend law school, and he has been working for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the last 18 years - the last five of those years at the Springfield office.
His main focus now is prosecuting large-scale drug cases.
The Doucet killing was not only the biggest moment of McGull’s journalism career, it has also helped him understand the value of due process as a federal prosecutor.
“I am opposed to vigilante justice,” McGull said. “The Sixth Amendment of our Constitution says every accused is entitled to a speedy and public trial. That’s important.”
McGull said there’s a lot of value in a public trial so the community can see that people who commit crimes are held accountable for their actions.
Furthermore, McGull said prosecutors do not like turning sympathetic crime victims into defendants.
“We just can’t have citizens going around administering their own justice,” McGull said. “We would have a chaotic system of rule of law that just would not function very well.”
Back in Louisiana, circumventing the justice system did not have major consequences for Plauche.
He pleaded guilty to manslaughter for killing Doucet and avoided prison.
“I believe the defense attorney told the prosecutor no jury in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, would find this man guilty,” McGull said. “So they worked out a plea deal.”
The Plauche case comes back into the national discussion from time to time, like in February, when the father of one of serial child molester Larry Nassar’s victims tried to attack Nassar during a court appearance.
McGull, 59, said he has done scores of interviews over the years about that day in 1984 when he filmed a homicide.
He said he has been featured on programs produced by Real TV and MSNBC.
While McGull’s television days are long behind him, he said this story is one that will stay with him.
“I’ll never forget that,” McGull said.
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Information from: Springfield News-Leader, http://www.news-leader.com
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