Vigilante Part 3 | The Jody Plauche Interview

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning.

0:51 Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey y'all, kJ here, I'm back for another episode of Unspeakable. How are y'all doing? Thank you so much for tuning in. I cannot express to you how excited I am for today Because I have a guest in house. You're probably able to guess who it is now based on the last episode that I've released. But I grew up with the legendary story of Gary Ploche and the love he had for his son in my house. I knew about it since a childhood, and I feel so blessed and honored that I actually have Jodi Ploche here today. How are you doing today? I'm doing great? How are you? I'm wonderful. I was almost like, it's not starstruck, but I was almost like, wow, the real guy, you know, like the man the story you know. Whenever I first met you, I'll tell the listeners real quick. I didn't think you'd answer me, but I actually reached out to you and my husband was getting a tattoo one day, and you answered me, and I was like, oh, I'm coming to meet you then, and I went up to your work and we had a good time talking about your story and everything. So my listeners have heard the story of your dad in the previous episode that I've released. That's great. Now they'll have to go through it again. Oh no, right, Normally, whatever I do an interview, I gotta go. Can you tell the listeners just a little bit about what heaven? No, I handled that we skipped that point.

2:09 Yes, Indeed, what I want to focus on today obviously is you, and but also your daddy and your siblings and your mama um, because from my viewpoint, and I'm sure people have all sorts of their own thoughts, but your daddy was a victim. The whole family was, yeah in this story, and I think sometimes that's skipped over. They look at the action of what happened, and that you know, Jeff was ultimately killed by your father. But um that said, you know that said, let me just clear up one misconception. Okay. A lot of times when I hear people talk about this story, especially if you go on TikTok or you go on YouTube, they'll say that, you know, when Mike Burnett yelled at my father Gary, why why Gary? He looked, no, Actually it was Bud Connard looked at my dad and said, you know, like, why why would you do that? Or something something that effect. And my dad said, if he did that to your family, you would have done the same thing too. You don't know. Now. The misquote is he if he had done it to your son. He did not say if he had done that to your son, right, He said if he'd done that to your family. And that's the one point that I want to get clear.

3:15 If you go, if you go to my website, you can go and watch the unedited video. It's graphics of warning and tell me your website. It's a www. Dot Jodi Ploche dot net dot net. That's Jo d y P l aucche dot net. Okay, and it's the unedited video. If you put the headphones on and listen carefully, you can hear Bud. I think he kind of cusses out my days, like, you know, why the hell would you do that? And he my dad. He was kind of looking down and you see him look up, and he goes, if you'd done that to your family, you'd have done the same thing too. You don't know, right, And so I wanted to clear the up right. Yeah, And hey, we'll put a link in the show notes for our listeners if they want to, just go straight to it and click it. And and that's kind of where my mindset is. You know, I grew up I'm not kidding you. You know my whole life knowing that a father's of your dad was always the pinnacle of what is a father's love.

4:03 And I don't mean going and killing people, but I mean that your dad loved you and your family so incredibly much that he couldn't live with the fact that that happened to you. And you know, I say a lot of times to my listeners, justice in the court system is not justice. That's I call it the injustices. Yeah, it's it's okay. You know, you're a bad guy. Okay, go to prison. But if you're the victim, and you're the victim's family, especially what you went through, um, I don't fault him. You know what I mean for wanting personal justice. Vigilante as your shirt says, right, vigilante justice. I mean you gotta look at the look in nature. I mean a bear. You know, you don't mess with a MoMA bear's cubs. And that's what Jeff did, basically, you know, he missed with my dad's kid. Um, I just I sent you a link I think of the news article and yeah, Idaho or whatever. Yeah, and we actually covered that in our real life Real crime Daily. So the guy went and killed the whole family.

5:05 Yeah, and he used the meme of my dad and I'm like, look, I said, I tweeted this out yesterday. I was like, my dad would not condone that. My dad. The only reason why Jeff daddy shot Jeff, who says it is because what Jeff du set did to me period, right, you know, Daddy wasn't out hunting pedophiles. He wasn't now killing um, you know, registered people on you know. Yeah, but he didn't go kill Jeff's family and he killed Jeff. He killed Jeff. And and um, maybe we give a lot of latitude for parents that love their kids that much to kill somebody, because obviously I don't want to trivialize someone dying. You know, Jeff did die, okay, And but Jeff earned it. And I hate to be blunt like that, but Jeff earned it. Um. And I didn't even go in any details in my book. If I could do any details, and you know for a fact that he truly earned it. Well, I'm willing to go there wherever you're willing to go. But um, I don't want to truly you know, Um, I don't want to upset you in any way. I won't get upset. Okay, Yeah, first of all, let's say that two or second of all whatever, Number one, how amazing that you have chosen to share your story and not pretend it didn't happen. Because tell my listeners, you've you've spoken in a lot of places about your story. Oh yeah, just recently in April, I drove up to Richmond, Virginia, and I spoke at the Virginia's Sex Offender Treatment Program conference and really, well I was the final keynote speaker. So I'm going to New Orleans tomorrow. I'm on the board for the Louisiana Foundation to Gainst Sexual Assault. So it's definitely something that in nineteen ninety eight, when I had graduated from LSU in ninety seven, I moved to Urban Texas because I had gone two years at North

6:38 Lake College. So I moved back there and I looked around for a job coulding final when finally I opened it up around the nation and I ended up in German County, Pennsylvania, which is just outside of Philadelphia in Norristown, and I worked there for seven years as a certified sexual assault counselor, crisis counselor, and education specialists, and so I would go into the schools and do prevention programs for the kids. Eventually I became the supervisor of community education programs and I did that for five years, so total time that victims services were seven years and five. My dad had a stroke in April and I took two weeks off because I had the vacation time. I took two weeks off, came down, brought him to his doctor's appointments as rehab physical therapy, and that's what I kind of made a decision. Okay, you know what, I've got seven years. I got five years experience of being a supervisor. So I was like, you know, it is time to come home. And I came home, and I moved back home in July of two thousand and five, right before Katrina and my parents were separated. At the time, Daddy was living by himself, so I moved home. And my mother was living in Biloxi at the time, and her apartment was right on the beach. I mean it's right across the beach road and it got wiped out in Katrina, so she really didn't have a place to stay.

7:43 She end up standing a female trailer for probably a year, and my younger brother had a second child, and they convinced her, look will pay you to come babysit, and she would make more money living back home. So then my mother moved back home. So then it was my mom and dad and me, and then eventually Daddy a stroke how to go to nursing home, and Daddy ended up dying in October excuse me, October of twenty fourteen. So now it's just me and my mom. My little brother and his kids lived directly across the street. That's why I'm gonna go watch the game tonight, and so you know, now I'm a fifty one year old grown man who lives at home with mommy. Well, you know what, I don't fault you for it. You know you've been through so much and you've I know you've done interviews a way bigger than mine, and I acknowledge that.

8:30 But this means a lot to me and to my listeners because many, many of them have reached out and said thank you for teaching about grooming of families. Thank you for teaching about the grooming process, because I had no clue. And some of them even said I made my kids listen to it so that they would understand. Now, obviously, I want to say this real quick. If you do have kids with you in the car, we're gonna go ahead and ask you that maybe you don't want to you might want to stop and pause it for a second and see. And I did an interview years ago. I'm gonna say the same thing here. No, I think you should use this as a learning moment. Talk to your kids. Let them listen to this. Okay, you think so, I do all ages, all ages. I'll try to keep it clean, Okay, well, so let me let's start here. You're kidnapped, all right, by Jeff. Would you consider that because something else Saul said, you begrudgingly went with him, Like it wasn't like he grabbed you and you know, threw a sack of your head and forced you in the car. Where the begrudgingly probably came from is he had told me he had gotten in some financial problems.

9:24 He'd written some bad checks, so he was facing a court date and he owed someone money. And he told me he's trying to get the board of money, but if he can't, he's leaving it in him when he goes, he's going to California to contake me with him. And that was the closest I ever came to telling because I didn't I didn't want to go to California with him, right um, But also I didn't feel like I had a chance. So whenever he came out of house it was a February nineteenth Sunday morning, and his brother dropped him off, he asked, my mom, can I borrow the car? I gotta go look to see if some carpet it came in because another student his parents were building a really nice nice home. I mean it's like a million dollars home now. And his brother had a corpet company, so his brothers spos too and saw the carpet. So that was what he used as the distraction to get me alone.

10:05 Then we went to his brother's house in Gonzales, picked up some personal belongings, belongings, and then we went to Port Arthur, Texas, where his mother lived. And his mother lived next door to his sister, and so we stayed there. Sunday night, his mom called my mother and sai, Jeff's got Jody. My mother's like, he's got school tomorrow, get him home. Jeff said he was going to New York. He told his mom, going to New York and the bus is going to go through Baton Rouge. You know, we'll drop him off at the bus station. And his mother was like, fine, Well, we didn't leave until Tuesday morning, like eleven o'clock out of Orange, Texas. Well, my mother by that time, my mother, her brother who worked for the Sheriff's apartment, and a couple other detectives or deputies from the Sheriff's apartment in Baton Rouge. They went to put off say they literally just missed us. I mean, we may even pass each other on the interstate, right and you didn't you didn't think to pick up the phone and call your mom or were you told not to that didn't have access to it. I mean Jeff's mom didn't. I don't think have a phone, okay, and there weren't cell phones back there.

11:00 I tried to text my mother, but she didn't listen. Not kid back then, we didn't we didn't have the technology. And that's one of the things I talked to my business partners about, like, if we ever do this into a movie, I was like, I'm willing to modify it, Like I'm willing to say, you know, if you want to have it to where you're looking and having the perpetrator email and text or go to answer, if you want to put those motto modern day threats in my story, I'm fine with that. But you know, no one's picking it up so so, and I know I'm kind of all over the place here, but I'm trying to think about you. You're how old at this exact moment. Well, I was kidnapped, Yes, I was eleven. You're eleven and an eleven year old boy, and obviously he's been abusing you, right for the past year. Did you, in your eleven year old mind, Not now, but in your eleven year old mind, did you recognize I'm being abused or were you having trouble? No? Absolutely, I knew you knew it was wrong. My mother used to make a swatch after school specials and you know TV made for TV movies and stuff like that, and there was one one called Fallen Angels about child pornographer where I was taking pictures of the kids. And so my mother told me there are grown ups out there that will do bad things to children. And so, I mean, the first time Jeff ever tested my boundaries and put his hand in my lap, I was like, oh, he's one of those, you know. But when you're in it, it's like, you know, well, why didn't you tell or why didn't you say something? Then? I don't know because I freaked out, right, because I'm sure you were like, wait a minute, and what if I'm wrong? And yeah, and the groom and normally the initial inappropriate touch is something that can be joked away or said that it was an accident. That's why I like people who and I get people

12:31 get criticized me for saying this, But like ticklers, people who like to tickle just annoy me. They really bother me. And I know not every tickler is a pervert, but guess what ticklers are perverts or ticklers? Yeah, well yeah, so it's not all one way, but it is one way the other. And so they do things like brushing their hand across the private area and they can dismiss it away as an accident or put the kid in their lap and kind of wiggle around and then say, oh, I was just so my eleven year old mine year old mine um recognized when he barely put his hand in my lap and then took it away. I was driving a car, and I thought, oh, you know, okay, well, maybe it's an accident. It was a stick shift. He had to put his hands somewhere. Yea, he didn't maybe he didn't know we were in my lap. Yeah. So but if I look back, if I look back, so like a month earlier, I think he really started testing my boundaries and getting it where we were comfortable with him being around our private parts. He'd make us do a split and he would be like karate, yeah, yeah, oh you gotta be you gotta be flexible and here you know, oh you type right here, you're right there, and he's you know, hitting between our legs were you know, we're doing a split.

13:33 So I think that that was just one of his ways of just kind of making it just seem normal, right, And so the um first time it went more than touch, more than outside external touch. All right, so can you explain about you're eleven year old mind, ten year old our ten year old man, ten year old mine? Um? The first time that I you know, I can recall that. I don't know whether it was before after, but I mean we're all, you know, in the same a couple of weeks span, we went crawfishing, and what Jeff would do is he had to fighting team. So he had like probably seven kids and him, So it's probably eight ups, four in one bed for another or it may have been three and three. But we were going crawfishing and Jeff put me on the end of the bed and then he was next to me, and then they had like the two other kids, so he had kind of built the wall from himself from the other two kids. And remember too, this is the eighties. This is not with today's knowledge and today's in your face, you know, know all of this information, right, this is nineteen eighty three. Yeah, and we're doing crawfishing nets. We're going out in the swamp and we're gonna, you know, get crawfish.

14:37 And this is back when alligators were I think on an endangering species list because I would never go back in those woods again right now, because the alligators will get you. Yeah. I see alligators around there all the time. It's right there Airline Highway if you exit like you're going to Grammarcy. Yeah right, I mean underneath that bridge, and there's some railroad tracks right there. But that night he kept playing with me and rubbing me, and I tried to pretend like I was sleeping. And so now the delima seems like an appropriate child reaction because you don't it's an adult, and you're like, oh my god, does he know he's doing this or why is he doing this? Let me just pretend like it's not happening. Well, this is the first time I realized, Okay, everything else hasn't been an accident.

15:18 Yeah, okay. And so the next day, the next day we were at the crawfish bowl. We caught a good bunch of craw fishing, so we're having to crawfish bol We had to go run to the store to get something right Hollow Community Park on the bottom and we're running up to the store and he goes, Joey come ride with me and said I was all right, so all right with him? And that on that drives when he said, Hey, I'm going to ask you something. He's like, you, you don't say anything to your parents about what I'm doing. And I was like doing what I was playing dumb and that's when it escalated. Okay, now you might want to put the earmups on, hit the uh, you know, have your kids play your ears. But that's when he took it to the next level. That's when we went to Houston and he was like, now I'm gonna formeral section. He didn't say it that way, and so he did that that night. Did he attack you or was it more like sitting here we were stand here. No, we were in a van riding home from the karate tournament and he said, Jody come up here and I'll go up there and all the kids and they just whispered in my ear you know tonight I'm on Yeah, And well John lean movie was on, turned it off although the kids were asleep. He just went on uncovers.

16:26 What a bastard. That was April of eighty three. And so after that was done, your mind is aware. I'm freaking out, yeah, you know. And there's no other adults to speak to. And well, the other thing that really freaked me out is because I didn't know why he would want to do that. I don't I didn't know the point of it. I always knew it as an insult. You would tell other kids, Hey, you do this. Yeah. Well, and this is important for anybody who's been through any kind of sexual trauma. Is your body is your body, okay, and so your body is going to respond. Yes, when he went under the covers, I got erect and finished finished. Yeah you know, and that's a natural body response. Yeah, that's gonna happen, whether it's Jeff Doo said or you know. Yeah. But and how confusing for a kid though, because you don't understand sex. You just know what your friends have talked about right at school, and you don't understand necessarily the purpose or the reality of what sex is. And then this happens to you and you're wondering why me, did you sort of think maybe you did something or no? Because my mother, I use the term prepared me because she had talked. We had talked about it. So this wasn't something that was completely It would be different had I've been like six years old, right, you know, But I was ten, and I you know, I can't say this, um. And it has to do with the holidays, okay, um, So I knew at that age that, you know, certain things weren't real that I've been told. My mother had warned me against sexual

18:00 predors or people who pray on children. So I mean, I never once ever blame myself. I love that. That's great. But that's why it's important that people listen because that is what I think a lot of people have that guilt. You know, Let's say some stepdad molest's stepdaughter from eight to thirteen. You know, from eight and a half to thirteen, it's gonna have adult feelings, you know, and so what's happening is bad, but your body is sending confusion messages. So that's why when I think people grow up after the stepdad stops and then they were like, well why was I enjoying that? Well, your body was responding, you weren't necessarily enjoying it, right, and yeah, and there's a difference right between your physical response and your emotional mental and you know, wants and needs. So m So he continued that on what type of basis would you say, Oh, it was regular. For the next month, it was every day. And then that's when he said, I'm like he'd be cleaned. That's when he stepped it up and he said, now I'm going to do this to you.

19:00 And so, so you knew from May of eighty three till Anaheim, California, till February of eighty four. I mean it was pretty much every day, sometimes two times a day. Did he have a signal or something he would do to let you know that's what or would he just say it? He would just say it, wow. Yeah, there was no hidden signal. He'd be like, all right, go going to bathroom. I'll be in here in a few minutes. And now we're in karate practice. I mean we're doing jumping Jackson. There's twenty people in there, and I'd say, oh, I gotta go to bathroom, and I'd go into bathroom and then I guess he'd be like, hey, you come up and lead the class. And then that while they're leading a class and people are doing punching the kickids and jumping Jackson sit ups, he's in the bathroom, blest to me. So, um, what does he does? He say anything else about it? Like, did did he try to make you feel like he loved you or anything? Or did he He did a lot of things that were fun. He did a lot of things that you know, kids want to do. He'd let us stay up lady, let us run around.

19:56 He take us to the movies, we'd go to the arcade. He give us money, biased presents. I mean, all of that. All that's part of the grooming process. And that's why children don't tell. It's easier for me just to put up what Jeff was doing than to upset my parents. And I mean we saw set my dad gut right, and I don't blame him. So were you ever injured? No? And need help? No? No, that's good. So and he um, whenever, I'm kind of all over the place right now, but these he was a gentle job molester. While um, and how old was he at that time? I've kind of he would have been. He was twenty five when he got shot, but he has only been twenty five for a couple of weeks for a month, so he was he was twenty four, while most of us agree and you were not his first victim that and did they ever document any of his future or his other victims. I know that Jeff can confess to two other people in the plane right at home, and the police officers, you know, had to inform the parents about what had happened. And one of the fathers of one of the other who would have been the older of the three. Um, him and my dad were friends. And so that's kind when my mom and dad split up that summer in July and end of July beginning of August, he was the one that was kind of putting pieces together because as the end of that year came to the beginning of the next year, all this pressure is going up on Jeff. Now, I do want to say one thing, okay, because this is important to me because it's still out there. My mother and Jeff were not dating, okay, And I do address this in the book, and I also mentioned so what if they were, doesn't give him any right to me. All that would have done was to give him access but he didn't. He already had that

21:30 access. Right. So the rumor that my mom and dad, my mother and Jeff were dayton well started by my dad, you know, because he but did he believe that, like in your dad's heart? Did he believe something was going on at the time? I believe he did, yeah, But I think later he knew, he knows for a fact that they weren't. But it putrided. Okay, so let's talk about your daddy now as a victim for a second. Put yourself in his shoes is what I want to tell people. He's raped your son and you not that it's true, but he feels like he gave access to you, to him, and then he let you go on trips with him, and you know, you're looking back, going on, my god, my child. My job in life was to protect him, and I had no idea how do I not know my own child. But also he believed in his own mind that Jeff was also messing with his wife, I mean, his whole family. So when he turned and said, if this happened to your family, you would it make sense to me. He felt victimized the whole way, right, in every way that you a person could be victimized, and you're his child.

22:22 Here's a baby, right, you know. And I know he had a drinking problem. The only person that thinks he had a drinking problem was my mother, which is a drinking problem. Yeah, you know. I mean he would His job was to entertaining clients. Okay, he was heavy equipment salesman, so his job was go have lunch. So he's wake up in the mornings. Hey, you want to have lunch, meet me over to Cotton Club. So he'd go have lunch, and then after he'd go to the office, maybe do a little paperwork. Hey it's happy hour. I'd meet me at the happy hour, and then he'd go from three to five, and then five thirty he'd be at our practice because he's our coach, so very involved, as he was involved in every sport we ever took. He was my first football coach. He was an assistant of the basketball coach.

23:03 He even on the cycer coach. Never play cycer's life, but he was always around young and the kids us and he was always he was always there. But again he would go home or he would go out entertain clients. Then he'd come home drunk with the whiskey. Uh, you know, I don't want to say it with the kids. Yeah, and want to be with my mother And it just wasn't work. It just well and it just got old for her. So I can totally see her point. Not want to put up with a drunken man coming home. And for Daddy, he's like, he'd have money night football parties. You have his friends over. Okay, he say, he have like six or seven friends over. Well, guess what. My mother was the maid, she was the waiter, she was the clean up crew. And you know, Daddy's like, hey, it's great drinking beer with my friends. And he goes passes out while she's cleaning up the house back up. So I could see where that got on her nerves. So yeah, and then finally when he she said, here, you just gotta stop, and he wouldn't, so she's like, you gotta go. So he went and stay with my grandparents. Okay, I gotta say this. I think part of why I love your daddy too is never met the man of damn my life. But it's because it reminds me of my daddy when and it was the same time frame. The cloth from the clothing to the glasses to the snapbacks and the shorter shorts like I just and my dad loves to drink and have a good time. He says that we're a we're a drinking town with a football problems. That's how my dad just and he likes to say, Hey, come over, we'll put some dead shit on the pit and we'll cook it and we'll tell we'll talk shit. I'm like, that's great, I'll tell you a funny story.

24:23 But what let me tell this. I got so tickled about him because I watched a video that they did on TV about that you had told me to watch. Yeah, and I got so tickled when they said he got busted because he was cheering. That's now been banging a beer on the table. Oh look, shoot, shoot channel that was Channel two again, Daddy was a Channel two. There's like, uh so the story is it was my parents were separated. My dad's been telling my mother, Look, I haven't had a drink in a month, and all of a sudden, LSU had an opening game for the football season start right, So the local news is doing like a local news story at a local bar called a gotten club, And who's on the news with a beer going. So he's telling my mother one thing and she turns on the news. There is a bear in his hand. I don't know why that tickled me so bad. I loved it. I'm like, look, would you do it? Gary? Look at you boy? But all intents and purposes, your daddy was not didn't have a criminal record. Um, he was not a troublemaker. He would he think when he was in high school, he would get in fights, okay, because he was five to seven, and so you know, he would get picked on, and um, he developed a attitude of like, if you know, the guys would be like hery, man, what you looking at? If someone said what are you looking at? To my dad, he'd hit him Gary. Yeah. And so my mother only saw him getting one fight. This was at the vineyard and my dad's friend was about to get a fight and my mother was sitting between my dad. My mother was here, and then the friend and then the guy he was getting a fight with. So my dad's wanting to leave and my mother's like quite quite, I'm trying to listen and dads like, come, let's go listen,

25:56 and he's like, Jim's about to get in a fight. My dad was like what. Well, as Jim and the guy were walking outside, my dad followed him and that guy, Jim was taking off his jacket and when he did, my dad went and hit him. And my mother said, you know, beat him up pretty good. But so other than you know, some fisticuffs in his youth, but he wasn't out selling drugs and you know, you know, abusing women. He was just being a dad, typical American home with your same struggles and and loved his kids. Yes, he was not a violent drunk. He wasn't a mean drunk. Actually he was probably a too friendly of a drunk. Yeah, but uh no, he was very very he was the life of the party. Yeah. And so when you and I'm kind of going back and forth, but you know, I just want to establish for the listeners that your dad was not some drunk who didn't take care of his kids. He loved his kids. He his whole identity was being in your y'all's father and being a family man.

26:49 And I think that's part of the victimology of your dad and what he was going through was that he felt like his identity and everything he lived for was being stripped away from him. And what's in the center of it is Jeff. And but Jeff did that very calculated right to get a hold of you, and he never touched your brothers though correct there was an I don't want to tell their stories. There was an incident one time where like he was telling my brother like to you know, getting your under roar or take your under rare off or something like that, and my brother remembers me looking at Jeff saying, Jeff stop, and then Jeff did so. Other than that kind of a little question, Well, I don't know if he tried to test their boundaries at all, but you know, I passed the test, and so you know, when they make that investment, you know usually it's going to be a year or two, right because they're full, they're they're very invested in what they're doing. They're not going to jump on and rape immediately. That's a slow, methodical process. Your mom has to be comfortable with him. Your dad got comfortable with him, even invited him over for dinner. And I compare it to like women who are abused, like they're like, he was so nice and charming when we first started. Now he's controlling. Well, well, yeah, he's not going to tell you in the first day, what are you doing? We're in net right, you know. But once you get a relationship, once he's got you, once you've moved in, and then he's gonna be like, ain'twhearing that? You know? So it's kind of yeah, Jeff's gonna be as delightful as he can be at the beginning, you know. Is there anything that you're And this is not in a negative light. I'm just asking because if there was a kid being abused right now, okay, which there are in the way, are right? I don't know? Um, but what if anything,

28:21 could your mom or your dad or your siblings have done differently or said Is there anything they could have done or said that would have you felt like gave you the opportunity to speak up and say something to stop it? Or was this like a secret that you were horrified to Um. If I don't have the hospital report, I would probably would have never said anything because I and people saw the other day. Because when Father's Day, my dad blows up every year like yeah, Poche Day. Yeah you go on Twitter or go to I mean I got I gained like a thousand Twitter followers just this last week. My little brother he don't even use Twitter. He got like eight hundred followers because he just tweeted out my dad was a kind or something like that. So yeah, he blows up every every year. But uh, he was very very very nice, kind man, wonderful family man, great father. Yeah, and um so let's talk about we all we know what happened right that he and I told the story in the episode. But he you know, shows up at the airport's pre nine to eleven. Obviously he just walks in and kind of you know, he never went past the checkpoint, so you can still get to that point with a gun in your boot.

29:25 And this was his plan. There's no doubt this was his plan. Um, I don't think he had a plan. Well, but I mean he didn't buy chance end up at the airport. I mean he he knew, oh he had the gun he had to boot. I don't think he had a plan. Yeah. As a matter of fact, he was just there just hoping he would walk by. Yeah, and then when he saw his face then right then that's when he made the decision that he was going to do it. Yeah. And um so after that happened, and I know you're and I don't want to give away everything in your book because I'm gonna tell the listeners too that I'm we're going to do some giveaways of sign copies from Jody that, UM, I can't wait to be a to send to you. It's a great book. By the way, I read it front to back. I took notes from such a dork. I have notes all stuffed in mind. But um, was there ever a point in time after this happened when you got older, before your dad's stroke, that y'all ever had, like a man to man sit down and talked about, Um, what happened and or was it necessary? I don't even know it wasn't necessary. What would happen is you know, occasionally Daddy would get too drunk and am not a bad guy. Everybody thinks I'm a bad guy. Everybody just knows me from that, and he didn't want to be known as that vigilante guy. He would hate the shirt that I'm wearing right now. He would hate it because he doesn't want to be He would have hated Father's Day.

30:38 I think he would have appreciated the fact that people respect him on that day, but he don't want to be glorified and That's why I put that tweet out there about that guy who shared the mean before going and kill that family. My father would not have known that that's not the same thing. Yeah, this was murder. Yeah, but I have to throw the button there. But like I would, I empathize with your dad. I'm a mother of three and I can't tell you the animalistic thoughts that would go through my mind if I ever found that out that happened to my child, and I would want to stomp a mud hole through whoever it was. Let me just say this, anybody who would find out the details who wouldn't feel the same way, it's probably a pedophile. And then right, you should be upset by it. And so I know you know they came back, So let's talk about this too. Um, when you went to the hospital, okay, Um, they did the full rape exam on you, did you put up any fight or did were you kind of like resigned to the fact that it is what it is? Just a Q tip was nothing compared to right, right, No, So I knew. I knew that I was going to go to the hospital. I knew that Jeff would be failing.

31:49 Back then, we didn't have the term DNA, but I knew this male genetic material would be on or around my body. Um, so I knew eventually that the LAD would come back positive. And so I remember the night before. It was March eighth, nineteen eighty four. My mother's like, Mike Burnette called, wants to come over and talk to me and your dad tomorrow. I wonder why, and I'm thinking to myself, oh no, So that whole day I was miserable at school and I got on the bus and you just internalized all of that and never said a word. And well, I knew I was gonna have to face the music. I knew it was time to come clean. And I know you're a grown man in front of me, but like, I want to just hug you and be like you're not alone, you know. So I pull up to the bus stop my mother sitting there waiting in the car. I said, Okay, this is what it's gonna be. Yea. So she sits me down on the couch and she's sitting there and she's like, um, Mike Barnette came over today and they got the hospital report back and it came back positive. And I tried one more aft the stupidness. I was like, well, what does that mean? And she goes, that means Jeff fulled with you.

32:49 And that's when I was like, well, yeah he did. And she's like, you know for how long? And I was like about the past year? And did that just blow her away when you said a year? Not? At that point, I think she was not surprised by anything. I mean, Jeff kidnapped me, right and did your hair even? Yeah, I think she probably would have been. Now you know what, I don't think she would have been surprised because I think if you go and look back, because my parents didn't know. And that's why I wrote the book. I want parents to read it, and I want them to look for signs that your child might be have something out of the ordinary going on. For example, I was into sports. I played. I would leave my football games to go to my soccer games. I played basketball, I played baseball or softball at baseball, So I was into all these sports. Well, then once I started taking karate and Jeff started a lesson me, he made me quit all the sports. And what was the premise you need to focus on? Yeah, so yeah, if you if you see something like that, I mean that was very like it was confusing them. My grandfather even had to talk with me at false forever. He sat me down and he's like, look, you know, I'm old, I'm your grandpa, and you know, one of the things that makes me happy is watching you played football and watching you play baseball and other sports. And you were like passionate about it. Based on what things your brothers had said, and I've read like you were and they always said the best at it. I'm saying it. You were the best at it. You want all the karate tournaments and and let me say it, let me, let me brag on you, Jody, like you were a kicking ass as a kid, and then all of a sudden, it's just karate. I'll say this. I was nominated for Athletes of the Year for the East bet Rooge Parish. UM there were five finalists. Um I lost, but I also lost to a friend,

34:21 a classmate that I've known since seventh grade, Daniel Scott. And if you don't know who Daniel Scott is, at one time, she was like the female volleyball version of Shack. She was like the best player in the world. And she made that blow softened because she went to five Olympics. So the night I lost, well, when I watched her at I'm like, okay, you know, okay, I made the right choice. Fine, that's awesome. Yeah. So your grandpa picked up one it though, and said why are you quitting? They yeah, I mean they all picked up, but they didn't know why. What was your excuse? I had to focus on. I like Kari. I like karate. That's my thing that I like Kardi. Were you afraid of upsetting Jeff? Oh? Yeah, I walked on ex shows around Jeff. He was easily upset too.

35:04 I mean because he's not at first. I'm talking about, you know, coming down to the last four or five months. You know, when my parents separated, If I went in road to the store with my dad, Oh you love him more than me? Yeah, he's my dad jerk. Yeah, you know, just trying to throw guilt trips. He played a lot of mind games, guilt trips, Yeah, just to have that power over me. I don't think Jeff ever thought I would tell. And I'm gonna say this, I didn't not tell on Jeff to protect Jeff. I didn't tell on Jeff to protect me because I wasn't confident that Jeff was going to jail. Now, were you afraid he would hurt your family? I was afraid that Jeff was gonna go through the legal process, get a slap on the wrist, and then come back at me if I told on him.

35:45 So by waiting until the hospital report came out, then I could say, Jeff, you got yourself caught. I didn't tell on you. And this is an eleven year old, ten year old talking to a fricking twenty year old. That's so the weirdest dynamic that he would even tell you his private problems, about his money problems and about this and about that. Like at twenty something years old, I'm not confiding inn at eleven year old. Well, I knew he had money problems because he used to make me signing. Then he would make me sign my mother's name on the back of checks, and then he say, oh, that's not good enough to another one. And so I'd write four or five checks, or I'd signed four or five checks, and then he'd hold him and he'd just go cash them whenever he needed, you know, twenty bucks. And then when you're passing twenty all checks here and there, Yeah, nothing, you know, nothing's gonna happen, so um, y'all get out of town and um when you come back, I mean, I'm sorry on your way out of town. In the book, this kind of I really sat back and thought about this.

36:34 Uh also for a while about when y'all were on the bus and he started making out with that woman on the bus randomly, and that you said in that moment you felt it almost a pang of jealousy. Obviously that's not because you were, you know, a homosexual child, you know, chasing after this adult man. I mean, this was not right relationship. Then he'd sinking like he gets mad at me for riding a car with my dad, but now he's gonna be making up with some chick. It was kind of like almost like maybe jealousy and anger to combine, Yeah, because you know he's controlling me. But I'm pretty sure while he was kissing her, his left hand was in her purse. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, he had some type of motivation. Yeah, what a freak like anyway, but that I'm trying to think about children who are abused. I'm trying to think about, you know, the confusion they might feel too to say Okay, well I'm jealous of that or I'm angry about this. But so I've seen people this is what I'm getting at. I've seen a lot of people online go, oh that messed him up for the rest of his life.

37:32 Oh he's gay, he's this, he's that. I don't care what you are. I'm not even gonna ask you that. But did that, UM hurt to hear or see things like that? Um? Have you seen things like that online that people say that, Oh, yeah, I just come into a guy the other day. Um, what did he say? Come on, you know, something like calling me gay or something or did it make me gay? And I'm like, you know, no. And then one person said that, oh, if your dad was a good father, he would never let you get molested in the first place. And I said, you know what I said, being a victim, buddy was a pretty shitty attitude. Yeah, you know, I was like, I said, I'm pretty sure my dad didn't know, right know, went and bust of a cap in his ass when he found out. I mean, I'd have had more respect for that person that they said, Hey, man, you keep really good secrets. Yeah, you know, it was something, and so, um, when Jeff died and you found out that Jeff died mixed emotions. It really wasn't that mixed. I would say Jeff was dead because maybe maybe you could agree here or not or coach me because I don't know.

38:31 But like, I just had a friend that's no longer a friend obviously that I thought was one person found out they were another. And when I found out, I had to mourn the person I thought they were um, if that makes sense. So it was just the closest that me and Jeff had had, regardless of whether or not um I liked it or not. I mean I was still close with him. I was with him every day. We go to the movies, every day, we go to the mal I mean we were you know, I was with him, you know what I mean. Yeah, So I was, you know, sad that Jeff had died. I he was. I mean, now I'm not that eleven year old boy anymore. And to this day, I don't I don't advise parents taking along into your own hands. I understand why my dad did what he did, but the most important thing is for a parent to be with their child. Dad. Daddy put himself at a big risk. He got away with it. He got the mulligan. You're not gonna get the mulligan.

39:19 You're going to jail, So don't do it. Let the system handle it badly, but be there for your child and let your child know that they can be Okay, that's the most important thing. What did you need from your family space? I needed my own um basically, empowerment um. Basically they let me heal at my own pace, which was very pretty quickly. Um. That was another thing I've read. Oh, him and him and his dad didn't talk for years. I'm like, that's that's bull I'm like my dad. He went to the mental facility for a month after he got out of jail because he shot him on a Friday. Couldn't post bell till Monday morning. Then he went to the mental facility. We would go visit him. He was a different person. He had shaved his beard, he quit shaking. He was all shaky beforehand. I mean he mentally, he literally had a mental breakdown. I mean, yeah, that was That wasn't your just regular, everyday average bad news. Your wife separates, your kid gets kidnapped, you find out he's being raped for the last year.

40:16 Yeah, that's not your regular everyday bad news. So and it wasn't in your face in the eighties. That's something else. So like rape and child, you know, and murder and all this kind of stuff. It wasn't in the news like it is today. I know. You know what made it into news like it is today, Daddy Garry. Yeah. But um, you know a lot of people empathize with him or sympathize with him because I mean, one of my favorite quotes, it was, you know, online or whatever, somebody said that, you know, if Jeff du said, doesn't molest Gary Ploche's son, then Gary Ploche probably never commits a crime in his life. And another person commented, and it's my favorite comment. He said, Gary Ploche was not Gary Ploche until he had to be Gary Ploche. I know, I love it, and that's a fact, you know. And I think part of the today's times to the frustration and why I love your dad even as an adult, is because we all talk about what would we would want to do to somebody, but now we know, and now we know we can't because like you said, he got the mulligan, but Daddy did it. Man, Daddy protected that boy. But I do want to say this, and I look, Jeff's a son of a bitch. Okay, I'm saying it. Yes, did his family ever reach out to you after the fact in any way? I mean, you went to his mom's house when you were kidnapped. Did they ever knew? No?

41:36 No, after Daddy shot Jeff. No, we did. Now we'll see this. One time I was going to the record store as me and my little brother. My little brother had had an incident at the swimming pool where he just stayed underwater a little longer than he shouldn't, and so he had to stay in a hospital. And we got out of hospital. We went to the music store right around the time Michael Jackson's History album came out. And then we were walking into the store and who comes walking out but just brother So and what's his brother's name? This is rolland rolland's been on the radio, Rolls Rolin's great Roland was a good guy, right, and he just retires recently. So and so I see rolland Roland had a cast on. Mikey's face was all scraped up from where we had to revive him, so his face was all marked up. So they're kind of like, you know what happened in your hand? What happened in your face? And I was like, yes, I'm just coming in here to new Michael Jackson album. And the guy who was with him goes that child molested someone, want to take him out, And I was like, this didn't just happen.

42:31 Oh my god, Like this guy clearly doesn't know who who we are. Oh my god, Oh my god. That sounds like something that would freaking happen to me. I always have footmouth syndrome and say stupid. I mean me and Roland just kind of leaks you, like, you know, have a good day and you haven't really spoken to you. I haven't seen him since then, but I mean I wouldn't mind. I mean, you know, I mean they didn't do it. Yeah, I mean and and I even made the point of the book rolling of all people could be the boast upset because he fought in Vietnam, and part of fight in vietnams protecting the United States Constitution, which says the criminal has a right to a fair trial by jury of his peers. We're rolling foot for that right, you know. So Jeff did deserve his day in court. I wish Jeff would have got his day in court because Jeff made a comment over the phone tape recorded phone call Toby, mother, meet me in New York if you ever want to see Jody alive again. So when he made that statement, simple kidnap and turned into aggravated kidnapping, which is mandatory life. So Jeff was going to jail for aggressive his life. Yeah, and I was. And he was even lying about where y'all were too, Yes, we were in California. He was telling my mother, what is that about. I've never really understood that, because didn't he did he really want to meet with your mom? I don't. He's a psychopath. I have no idea what the hell he was thinking. But I love your candor. Yeah, you know, it's just like I don't know what the hell anyway? I mean, who I mean, he didn't even have a plan. I like y'all walked around and when and saw a movie get shot at one point right Hill Street Blues. We were walking down, just walking and we've gotten to the bus station around six o'clock in the morning. We hung out there till the sun came up. Then we just kind of walked around downtown in La And as we're walking down the street there's cop cards and its cameras lights, and Jett

44:04 didn't want to go down to it. But they had just filmed the movie The Toy here in Baton Rouge with Richard Pryor and Jackie Gleeson, and so we went out there one day to watch them shoes. So I recognized it as being like a film, so I said, no, come on, let's go. So we spent probably two three hours watching the film, just one scene over and over again for Hill Street Blues, which aired the night before the shooting. Oh wow, So do you um when you went back to school? Also, after all this was said and done, I know you wrote about how you got to be kind of the cool kid and say I got to see that be shot, you know, the movie or whatever. So I got to tell the class about it and how the whole thing went down. So when they saw it, they knew that I had actually watched it. No, But the funny thing is when I got to school my first day back, my mother had dyed my hair from black. It was kind of like orange, like any Lennox and sweet dreams were made of these. You were like jays. You were like all sorts of different colors.

44:55 So I walk into the gym. And so I walked into the gym at the opposite end of the gym where my friends were sitting on the stage, and so I walk over and they're just kind of staring at me. They're like and the whole gym got quiet, like, oh, he's here. So I walk over and I'm looking at my friends and they're just kind of just looking at me, dumfounded. And I my first words out of my mouth was what y'all looking at me like I've been kidnapped or something. Yeah, And then they all started laughing, and then you know, girls came and hugged me. And then I go to home room. I walk in the home room, have Big Sciences Welcome back Jody. All the kids in the class signed it, and then they had a current event board and they had my picture on the current event board and my signature. Well, I guess I'd sign a piece of paper and they put it up on a bit the current event board. Well, right above that was an article that said boy in plastic bubble dies. So I looked at the classes that said, well, all didn't give me much of a chance, did Yeah.

45:47 And so if you look if you google, google when the Boy in the Plastic Bubble died. I also mentioned Michael Jackson under Grammys. You google. I like, that's how I can remember dates. So I'm like, okay, in February of well it would have been Yeah, February would have been beginning the March nineteen eighty four. You google when the Boy in a Plastic bubble died, and it would have been a current event at that point. I got you, So are you tired of telling your story? That's why I wrote the books? Yeah, so that have been just read it. It's like, is it aggravating when people like and you say, hey, will you come to my focaut? No? No, no, no, no, no, no no, trust me, there's so much value though in your experience. Well, trust me. There's nothing more I'd rather do than Joe Rogan's podcast. That would be life changing to me. Joe Rogan, if you're listening, we'd like to add Joe Rogan, Um, Kelly and Jody Can I Can I come along and just watch? No? But Um, that'd be amazing. Yeah, he's a cool dude and he's he's no hold I mean I did the math. I mean he has like what eleven million listeners. I think it's closer to twelve. But if you use the eleven million, I know, like if someone goes on the line and buys my book, because it's been out for almost three years and I can look at total number sold, total money earned, and I make about eight dollars a sale. Yeah, okay, so if one half of percent of Joe Rogan's You're done. Rah, I'm getting a new fence. There you go. So let's talk about the book real quicks before before you wrap up.

47:07 Um, I didn't know this. But what's funny is I bought the book before I even contacted you, and um, it was. It came in by Amazon. It was sitting on the table by the couch and my mom called me. It was so weird, and I answered the phone and I said, hey, Mama, what are you doing. She's like, Kelly, did you know that there's a Why Gary Why book? It was so bizarre, and I was like, yeah, sitting right here, I got it. And Mama was like, that's the Gary when you were little, you know, And and so I read it and that's when I contacted you. But you told me the cover is actually a very deliberate, and I'll put a picture of it online for people and all that. But it's a very deliberate cover, right if you if you google my name. I did an article for The Advocate when the book first came out, and they got pictures of me. I'm holding my dad's shirts. So my dad had on a purple and white striped shirt, and so it's the pattern of the book. Is the pattern of the shirt. Yeah, I like that.

47:54 It's you know, I owed to your to your dad. If you could say one thing to your dad right now today, what would that be, would have anything to do with this or would it just be I love you to my dad? You know, what would it be if I could say one more thing to my dad? I'm proppy. Thanks, Thanks, not just for this but for everything. Yeah, it's a good daddy. You did that on purpose. Sorry. I want you to know in my heart how much I love your father. And I never met him a day in my life because I believe in him. I believe in his goodness, and I believe that he just wanted to save his boy and his family. And I think that's one of the most um honorable, honorable things that a man can do you know in our society, take care of your kids, love your kids. Ye, well, I'm gonna put a link. Sorry about that, I'm gonna put a link. I'm gonna put a link on there for people to buy your book. I hope that y'all will guys and support him. And and um, that's not why he came on. I got one funny story. I don't like. I don't like choking up. Okay, sorry, um, but uh, the first time I spoke after daddy died. And if you if you're not if you want to go go on ESPN, go to YouTube. We go to ESPN E sixty a time to kill that. It's like a fifteen minute kind of ESPN. What ESPN E sixty six a time to kill? Okay? And so I should usually show that at my presentations. And it was a national conference here in Bataruge that I was speaking at and I went and I had, like I said,

49:24 this was the first time I would get up in a speech after Daddy died. And I showed that video and I got choked up, and so I had to go back to speak, but I couldn't. And so they're like, okay, you can go ahead and start, you can start, and I'm like, I need a minute. Yeah, And finally I wanted to say unfortunately my father passed away last year. But all I could get out was daddy died. Your heart. So I had it. Like the next week, I had a presentation in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and I said, all right, before we start this video, which don't remember, my dad died. So I got it out of the way. Wait wait, I have to insert this. I know we were wrapping up, but I have to tell you this. So I went and spoke before um, the Louisiana Sheriff's Association a few years ago, okay, and I was trying to promote criminal justice program and all that. Anyway, Well, when I got in the room and I saw all the sheriffs standing there, you know those are like my people, man, I like, look up to the you know it just it was like my and I got so choked up that I literally opened my mouth and I went that noise. I sounded like a dinosaur like.

50:28 I stopped at the lady that was with me looked at me, and she goes, um, she doesn't normally croak like And then I finally got it out, so yeah, to become overcome with um, you know, emotion. I get it. I've made a fool of myself a time or two. So but look like I said, I'm gonna put the link on there. We have one audio giveaway, right so if you like to listen. Um, obviously you're a podcast listener, right if you're listening to this, But if you want to listen, I'm gonna be giving away one, um audio listen for free. And I have two signed books by mister or Jodi Ploche himself, and UM, I can't wait to give these away. And I really appreciate you coming and telling your story, um, you know, to help people get the truth, you know, in the whole truth.

51:10 Well, good, thank you for having me, and good go Tigers LSU Baseball. Tonight, y'all. That's when we're recording this, and I hope that we win and we take that World series. Y'all. Take care