In the fall of 1982, fifth-grader Jody Plauché was attending Mayfair Elementary School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when he and his classmates were handed a flier for karate lessons. Uninterested, Jody tossed his in the trash.
But his younger brother, Mike, brought his copy home. Their mother, June, signed up all three of her boys—Mike, Jody, and their oldest brother Bubba—for classes starting in January 1983 with a new instructor named Jeff Doucet.
“We all loved him,” Jody, now 53, tells PEOPLE. “Jeff became almost part of the family.”
Doucet quickly ingrained himself into their lives, even joining family game nights. But behind closed doors, he began grooming Jody for abuse—something that began subtly during stretches in karate class…