Family's brutal killings, charges against daughter
"rock small East Texas town"
08:11 AM CDT on Sunday, March 9, 2008
By SCOTT FARWELL and PAUL MEYER / The Dallas Morning Newssfarwell@dallasnews.com; pmeyer@dallasnews.com
EMORY, Texas – This is the kind of place where people introduce themselves by first name and where they go to church. It's a place where people fasten Bible verses to mailboxes and bumper stickers on trucks read, "Don't follow me, follow Jesus."
{been here 4 years, haven't seen those bumper stickers yet?}
So last Saturday, when evil descended on this East Texas town of 1,500 people, three stoplights and 17 churches, people sought answers in their faith.
{wow, 17 church's and in a 2 to 1 vote...Emory voted in Beer/Wine sales recently.}
Why, as alleged in court documents, did a 16-year-old girl known for tearful, sweet alto church solos help conceive and carry out a hellish plot to massacre her family and torch her home? Did darkness infect and rot out her heart? Did she sit in the silver Dodge Neon listening to the gunfire and screams?
And later, as fire crews recovered the charred remains of her mother and two young brothers, did the angelic girl with blond hair and a radiant smile lie down in a raggedy blue trailer and have sex with one of the confessed killers?
The questions defy easy answers.
Police said she wanted her parents dead because they wanted her to break up with her boyfriend.
"That's not the girl we knew, it's just not," said Rebecca McGahee, the wife of the pastor at Miracle Faith Baptist Church, where the family worshipped. "We had all talked to her about this boyfriend and told her, 'Don't get swindled into something you're not ready for.' But we were thinking sex; we weren't thinking murder."
Mrs. McGahee had prayed with the girl she called soft-spoken and sweet. When confronted with concerns about her older boyfriend's possessive nature, drinking and fondness for camouflage pants, she said, the girl demurred.
"I know," the blue-eyed beauty said. "I'm confused. I want to please my parents, but I like him."
The girl's father, Terry Caffey, survived the pre-dawn ambush by climbing out a bathroom window as his house burned. The 41-year-old crawled 300 yards across a wooded field, weak from five gunshot wounds, including one in his head.
Neighbor Tommy Gaston called 911 about 4:15 a.m. and told dispatchers his friend was coherent but badly wounded.
"Where's he bleeding from?" the operator asked.
Mr. Gaston answered, "He's bloody all over."
Mr. Caffey was released from the hospital Thursday. He could not be reached for comment.
The Caffeys' daughter; her 19-year-old boyfriend, Charlie James Wilkinson; 20-year-old Charles Allen Waid; and 18-year-old Bobbi Gale Johnson all were arrested later that day and each charged with three counts of murder.
The three adults were being held in the Rains County Jail. They declined requests for interviews, and their attorneys did not return phone calls. The Caffeys' daughter, who is not being named because of her age, was detained at a juvenile detention facility in Hunt County. Officials are weighing whether to charge her as an adult. Bail for each was set at $1.5 million.
At first, news of the shootings was greeted by disbelief in Emory, a town set on a strip of highway between Lake Fork and Lake Tawakoni, about 70 miles east of Dallas. But as details emerged, including police reports built on confessions by three of the four suspects, townsfolk increasingly framed the crime in biblical terms.
Pastor Terry McGahee preached last week in the chapel where the Caffey family worshiped, his black cowboy boots peeking from under pressed jeans. He said the community and the church are under attack.
"For too long, some of us, me included, have sat back and took the easy road," he said. "And while we've done that, Satan has been stealing away our children and stealing away our loved ones. But I'll tell you, this ought to wake us up and fire us up. We need to go out and give the devil a black eye."
{it could have started with a no vote on Beer/Wine sales recently.}
Friends laughed and wept as they recited stories about the fallen family members they described as shy, and almost paralyzingly private.
Penny Caffey, 37, was an accomplished seamstress and the church's pianist. A preliminary autopsy report listed her cause of death as gunshot wounds to the head and sharp force injuries.
Matthew Caffey, 13, known as Bubba, played the harmonica and bass guitar. He died of a gunshot wound to his head or neck.
Tyler Caffey, 8, loved chocolate milk. He was stabbed to death with a sword.
"We live in an evil world, and it will continue to be evil until Jesus comes back," Mr. McGahee said. "We're all hurting, but we don't have anything to be afraid of. We know where Penny and the boys are."
A private funeral will be held this week.
Before last weekend, no one in the Caffey family had a criminal record, and there are no official signs of discord. Neither police nor Child Protective Services had ever been called to their modest home three miles off State Highway 69 between Emory and nearby Alba.
Before moving to the area about three years ago, they lived on a rural county road near Point, and in Celeste, where the Caffeys' only daughter attended public school through the seventh grade.
The children were home-schooled until last fall, when they enrolled in school. That's where the Caffeys'16-year-old daughter, a freshman, met Mr. Wilkinson, a 19-year-old senior.
He is described as slight, with a firm handshake and a fondness for oversized cowboy hats. Friends said he completed an Army pre-boot camp last summer and planned to enlist after graduating from high school.
Mr. Wilkinson later told police that his girlfriend wanted her parents dead because they were keeping the young couple apart. He said they had taken her cellphone and forced them to break up the night before the murders.
"It could well be ... that she was infatuated with this boy who turns out to be a sociopath, and he probably put the idea in her head that they could live happily ever after," said Byron Johnson, co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University.
He said it is unlikely the girl's conservative upbringing inspired the killing spree.
"Some of those kids may rebel and run away from home and pursue other lifestyles," said Dr. Johnson, who has studied the causes of homicide for the Department of Justice. "But what we know is most of these kids ... come back to their faith."
In documents released by the Rains County Sheriff's Department, the four suspects described a monthlong plan to kill the Caffeys and explained how the rampage began.
Mr. Wilkinson had enlisted his longtime friend, Mr. Waid, and his girlfriend, Ms. Johnson, a high school senior, to assist in the killings.
After a barking dog foiled a first attempt, the three picked up the Caffeys' daughter, who was waiting at the end of the driveway under a split cedar log inscribed with a Bible verse, Joshua 24:15.
It reads: "But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. ... But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."
The four young people parked nearby and discussed how to carry out the slayings, according to arrest warrant affidavits, which say the men walked to the house and the two girls waited in the car.
Mr. Wilkinson told police he found his girlfriend's parents asleep in their room. A detective for the Rains County Sheriff's Department wrote in a report what happened next.
"Mr. Caffey told me he awoke to someone standing in his room with a gun, possibly a shotgun, and put his arm up to defend himself," the detective wrote. "He also told me he heard the name Charlie being yelled and more gunshots.
"Mr. Wilkinson said he fired a .22-caliber handgun at Ms. Caffey several times, but did not kill her. He then handed the weapon to Mr. Waid, who fired several more times at the man and wife."
The two boys stirred during the commotion, court documents say, and Mr. Wilkinson told them to return to their beds in the loft. The two men followed the children upstairs.
Mr. Waid shot 13-year-old Matthew in the head or neck, records show, and both men stabbed 8-year-old Tyler with a sword.
Afterward, the men stole money and jewelry, picked up a bag packed by the Caffeys' daughter, and used pocket lighters to start a fire intended to cover up the crime.
Mr. Wilkinson and the Caffeys' daughter were dropped off at a mobile home a few miles from the murder scene, where they had sex.
The next day, investigators discovered Mr. Wilkinson in the trailer, lying face down on a mattress with a rifle and a pistol nearby. Later, they discovered the Caffeys' daughter, hiding under a pile of clothes and a stuffed animal.
Officers also found two swords and a selection of firearms and a condom.
In the week since the murders, a steady stream of vehicles has bounced down the country road that leads to the blackened skeleton of the Caffey home. Some pull in the driveway and pause at the yellow crime tape. Others snap photos.
In Emory, rumors ricocheted from the Y'all Come back Café, to City Hall, to shops on the town square.
[y'allCome back cafe is for sale by the way}
"We're really growing," said Mayor Cay House, whose leads the city named for her great-grandfather, Emory Rains. "People move out here from the D-FW area and Tyler who are looking for a safe, intimate place to raise their children."
{lol... Mrs. House must not have seen this site yet! We find the crime out here worse than Dallas per capita, and a lot noisier!}
She paused, recognizing the irony.
"What happened is a tragedy," she said, eyes moist. "We're all feeling the sorrow and shame of it."
The Sunday morning after the murders, she said, churches filled with the faithful, their faces drawn, eyes wide.
At Miracle Faith Baptist Church, where a week before the Caffey family worshipped, a man walked to the marquee in front of the chapel and posted a message.
"God is still God."