Jody Plauche’ from Baton Rouge, La., made national headlines in March 1984 when he was abducted by his karate teacher and taken 2,000 miles away from home to Los Angeles, Ca. FBI officials rescued Jody and his abductor was arrested. Upon his karate teacher’s return, Jody’s father Gary, shot and killed him.  The shooting was captured by  WBRZ news crew, a local ABC affiliate. 

Jody obtained his bachelor’s degree in General Studies from Louisiana State University with minors in Psychology, Speech Communications, and Philosophy.  

Jody has worked in the field of violence prevention since 1995. While attending Louisiana State University, he served on the executive board for Men Against Violence, a campus organization aimed at preventing campus violence, including sexual assault and other physical violence.

For seven years, Jody worked at Victim Services Center of Montgomery County, a comprehensive crime victim center in Norristown, PA.   At Victim Services , Jody worked as a sexual assault counselor as well as a prevention educator, and eventually became the Supervisor of Community Education Programs.  Jody provided crisis intervention to sexual assault victims on the agency’s 24-hour crisis hotline as well as in person support at hospitals and police stations. He facilitated sexual violence risk reduction programs to students ranging from pre-K through college age.  Jody also presented numerous professional trainings for police officers, hospital staff, parents, and school administrators.

Jody has also co-facilitated a workshop at the PCCD’s Pathways for Crime Victims conference.  In October 2002, he attended The White House Conference on Missing, Exploited, and Runaway Children, in Washington, D.C. featuring Colin Powell and President George W. Bush.   While in Pennsylvania,  Jody served on the state-wide Men Against Sexual Violence Committee.  In 2004, he was named the Survivor/Activist of the Year by the Pennsylvania Commission on  Crime and Delinquency.

Jody has shared his personal story as well as his knowledge about working with survivors of sexual assault on numerous TV shows including: Geraldo (1991, 1993, 1996), Now it can be Told (1991), Maury Povich (1993, 1996), Oprah (1995), Leeza (1995), Real TV (1996), The Montel Williams Show (1997, 2005), The John Walsh Show (2002, 2003), CNN’s Connie Chung Tonight (2003), ABC World New’s Tonight, ESPN’s E:60 (2013) and has done several interviews for local papers and local television stations, as well as several radio interviews.

Currently, Jody presents professional and college trainings about sexual violence risk reduction throughout the country