With respect to that example, add the lines between hold on and hold off in this code to get the plane you want:
scatter3(long,lat,rural,40,fatalities,'filled') % draw the scatter plot
ax = gca;
ax.XDir = 'reverse';
view(-31,14)
xlabel('W. Longitude')
ylabel('N. Latitude')
zlabel('% Rural Population')
hold on
xl = xlim;
yl = ylim;
patch([[1 1]*xl(1) [1 1]*xl(2)], [yl fliplr(yl)], [1 1 1 1]*30, 'r', 'FaceAlpha',0.2);
hold off
EDIT — Added plot image. (6 Jul 2018 at 00:52 UTC)