Matthew LaPlante: USU Professor and Journalist
The convicted serial killer who once threatened Professor Matthew LaPlante’s life will be released soon.
While trying to arrange an interview with the accused (now convicted) murderer, LaPlante said the man not only refused an interview, but warned him to stop trying to make contact, and his release date isn’t very far away.
“I think it’s in, like, 2018, so I think he’s still in jail, but it’s coming up now,” LaPlante said. “He said, ‘just so you know, I’m scheduled for release, and if you keep pursuing this, I’m coming after you.’”
The threat of death is nothing new for LaPlante. He remembers moments clearly in which he knew his life was in danger. He remembers vividly when, while embedded with troops in Iraq, he witnessed a mortar attack for the first time.
“The first one was a rocket,” he said. He whistled, mimicking the high crescendoing hiss of a firework — a firework or a rocket. “I hate July. I’m more used to it now, but when I first came home it was horrific.”
“It was my first time in Iraq, I’d only been there for three or four days, and a rocket hit this building that was fifty or sixty meters from us,” he said. “It was really close. I hit the ground, and there was a Humvee next to me, so I rolled under the Humvee. I looked up and the photographer I was traveling with was still standing and he lifted up his camera to take some photos. All of the sudden, this flash of khaki came and tackled him. It was a soldier, who threw his body on top of him because he knew — and this is exactly what happened — another rocket would come. It hit a palm tree. When it stopped, we dusted ourselves off and went running to see what happened.”
At first, he said, the men were laughing, glad to have survived.
“There were three that hit that day — the two close to us and one further away,” he said. “There was a Marine killed instantly, and a soldier who died of his injuries later on. The building had some holes in it, the tree was smoking. We followed some guys doing markings, trying to find out where it came from. So we followed them to where the third one hit.”
He was looking for people to interview, LaPlante said, so his eyes stayed at eye level. But no one would speak to him. He approached some soldiers who angrily told him they didn’t want to talk to him.
“I told this soldier I was with, it’s really interesting,” he said. “The people who were 300 yards away were just laughing, and these people seem really f—ed up by this. And he said, ‘have you looked down?’ I looked down and there was blood and body parts everywhere, all over the ground. The ground was covered and I just missed it. I totally missed it. I’m a paid, trained observer. I felt so ashamed. The story changed completely. It went from this situation of ‘we survived’ to realizing that somebody hadn’t.”
Among all these terrifying experiences, it’s easy to wonder if LaPlante regrets the life he chose. As a journalism major, the question I most wanted answered was this: could anything make it worth it? All the suffering and ugliness he has experienced in the name of documenting it? In speaking with him, I was continuously struck by the awe and gratitude LaPlante still has for the life he’s had as a journalist, and the opportunity to do work that matters.
The life of a journalist and the opportunity to do work that matters still inspires awe and gratitude for LaPlante.
“Someone was going to die on Iraq on that day; lots of people died in Iraq on that day,” he said. “I didn’t want any of that to happen. I would do anything to bring that soldier and that Marine back, but people were going to die that day. I was there, so I got the privilege of telling that story and the privilege of, for a moment, writing a story that a bunch of people back home in Utah probably weren’t going to be able to ignore. I got to tell them about the real consequences of war, what that looks like and feels like.”
For LaPlante, what makes it worth it is the possibility that his work has impacted lives for the better.
“You’re going to see the world at its best and the world at its worst, and you get to be the person who translates that for people,” he said. “I could certainly find an easier road. I don’t know how many lives I’ve changed. It could be zero, and it could be thousands upon thousands. It’s hard to measure that kind of thing. It’s probably closer to zero than thousands of thousands. It’s a little cliche to say it, but maybe I changed one person’s life. Maybe I saved one person’s life.”
In the middle of a career that has taken him all over the world, brought him to witness the birth of a baby elephant, taken him across borders he legally shouldn’t be able to cross, gotten him tased and risked his life many times over, LaPlante is okay, and he wants his students to know they can be too.
“Sometimes there are things that are hard about this job. But every now and then you get paid to step out of a helicopter and go snowboarding, or to meet a baby elephant. I was a sports reporter for a while. I got paid to watch sports. I’ve traveled all around the world. I’ve been to countries that I’m not allowed to go to — but I am allowed to go, because I’m a journalist.,” he said. “I watched a thunderstorm from above in Ecuador. I’ve ridden horses in fields of buffalo — I’ve been chased by a buffalo! Sometimes there are hard things about this job, and other times it’s like, ‘you’re paying me for this?’”
One of the saddest things, he said, is when students who love journalism choose not to pursue it because of the instability of the field or the fear they won’t make enough money.
“If you don’t want to do this, if you don’t love this, there’s nothing I can say that will make you love this,” he said. “You’ll feel it. Every semester I have students come in, sometimes in tears, because they know this is what they want to do and they’ve been told all their lives that this is a dead-end career and that they won’t make any money at it. All I can tell them is, ‘do I look like I’m hurting?’ I’m okay! I’m okay. And I’m not even the best at this. You’re going to be okay.”
— katherinetaylor@aggiemail.usu.edu
@kd_taylor96