Before I dove into researching this case, I had watched The Behavior Panel analysis - which I mention in this episode - and was shocked at the demeanor of the perpetrator. It's hard to believe that there are individuals in this world that feel nothing, quit literally. This isn't one of those cases whether you believe the person was guilty of not - it's pretty clear they were...what isn't clear is what caused them to do it. Was it their personality? Was it their upbringing? Was it their peer influences? Or were they just innately evil?
After you've listened to the podcast episode or watched my Youtube episode, be sure to also watch these videos if you get the chance, they are eye-opening for sure:
Terry Caffey's Book: Terror by Night, the True Story of the Brutal Texas Murder
You can find me on Youtube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok!
Transcribed Episode / S3 EP23: Caffey Family Murders
[Host]
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[Host]
When we think of psychopaths and murderers, you probably think of Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy, but I’m sure teenagers are not the first thing that pops in your mind. I’ve actually read quite a few cases where teenagers ARE the perpetrators, and a good portion of those cases usually involve a restriction of some kind to the teenager - whether it’s a restriction of privileges, of money, or maybe a restriction of simply dating another person. The story I’m about to tell is not simply a case of a teenager throwing a tantrum for not getting her way, but it’s something much more frightening and represents a certain psychopathy that we rarely see in young people. Alright let’s get into it…
Terry and Penny Caffey had met at a church revival meeting in Garland Texas when Terry was 24 and Penny was 21. The couple got married in 1990 and ended up having three children, a girl, Erin, and two boys, Matthew and Tyler. The Caffey’s lived in Celeste Texas, a small rural town in northeast Texas with a population of about 800 people. The family was a conservative, religious family, and they were quite protective over their children.
From the time he was a young boy, Terry had wanted to work in the ministry and was working on becoming an ordained minister. In 2004 he was offered a job to work as the youth pastor, for a small baptist church called Miracle Faith Baptist Church in Emory Texas, and he jumped at the opportunity. In an effort to be in closer proximity to the church, the family moved to Alba Texas, another equally small, rural community that lies about 75 miles east of Dallas. Alba’s population is about 600 people and it lies in Rains County which is the second smallest county in Texas.
The Caffey’s lived in a two-story modest farmhouse situated on about 20 acres of remote woodland surrounded by pine trees. The home was located on a narrow one-lane gravel road with just two other homes within the near vicinity. Above the Caffey’s driveway, hung a polished cedar plank with the inscription of “The Caffey’s: Joshua 24:15.” That bible verse was a good representation of their faith, and includes the phrase: “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
In addition to working as a youth pastor, Terry also worked for a medical supply company delivering medical equipment to various organizations and Penny worked as a stay at home mom and was also a substitute driver for Meals on Wheels, delivering meals to members of the local community. Penny also had been homeschooling all of the children for the past three years.
Miracle Faith Baptist Church became a significant part of the Caffey Family’s everyday life. They would attend Bible study on Wednesday nights and go to church every Sunday, and would rehearse gospel songs during the week. Penny was an accomplished piano player, playing for the church as well as for a Christian band, The Gaston Singers. The band would play for various churches and had even recorded some albums. Tyler also played guitar and Matthew played the harmonica. Erin, the vocalist of the family, would often sing gospel solos at the church and the church members would recall that she sang with pure emotion, with tears streaming down her face. Erin was a blue-eyed, petite girl who soaked up any attention. It was said that boys would often go to Miracle Faith just to see Erin, and attributed their commitment to God and Christianity to Erin. Despite her popularity with the boys, she was also viewed as extremely naive and innocent. The Caffey children were all known to be well mannered and polite - if a bit shy, and Erin was definitely the most outgoing.
By 2007, Terry and Penny had been married for about 18 years and the kids were growing up. Erin was now 16, Matthew was 13 and Tyler was 8. The children had been homeschooled for most of their education, until Erin had entered the 8th grade and they allowed her to enroll in the local public school, hoping she would benefit from the social interaction. That didn’t last long however, when just a month into the academic year, her parents pulled her out when they were horrified to find out another girl that had shown interest in Erin, had tried to kiss her in the hallway at school. They weren’t happy their daughter was exposed to a culture of bisexuality and it was at that point the children were pulled back out of public school and back into homeschool where Penny could teach them a Bible-based curriculum. They also thought that homeschooling could benefit Erin, as she’d been diagnosed with ADD or attention deficit disorder which caused her to fall behind her classmates.
For Erin, being homeschooled again made her feel trapped and isolated from friends - that her life revolved around Miracle Faith church and her parent’s house. In December of that year her parents allowed her to re-enroll as a freshman in public high school and Matthew had already gone back to public school that Fall because he wanted to be around his friends.
Erin was ecstatic, and loved the freedom that public school offered and when she turned 16 she got her driver’s license and her parents purchased an old Chevy pickup truck for her. She asked her parents if she could get an after-school job as a carhop at Sonic - you know where they bring you food while wearing rollerskates - to give her a little bit of spending money. Terry and Penny agreed, as long as the job didn’t interfere with her school work.
Erin was well-liked by her coworkers at Sonic, but they definitely noticed that she was very naive and sheltered, and recalled that it was “like she was seeing the world for the first time.” She had many boys ask her for her number while working at Sonic, but didn’t really know how to react to their advances.
Erin’s fun-loving personality also attracted the attention of a local boy. A sandy haired, 18 year old high school senior named Charlie Wilkinson. Wilkinson liked wearing wranglers, black cowboy boots and an oversized cowboy hat. He loved hunting and four-wheelers and he often talked about joining the military, and had dreams of leaving their small town and traveling abroad. He lived in the country with his father, stepmother and three siblings. His father worked at a paper mill just outside of Dallas and his biological mother lived about 7 ½ hours away, and he only saw her maybe once or twice a year.
He was a charming guy, but was also known to have a temper, although he had no criminal history and no discipline problems at school. Erin and Wilkinson began talking more and more, with Wilkinson going to Sonic any opportunity he could get when Erin was working. The relationship progressed quickly and the two began dating.
With the relationship becoming serious very fast, Erin asked her parents if she could bring the boy over for dinner to meet them. Terry and Penny were looking forward to meeting him and seeing who Erin was spending all of her time with, but the evening did not go too well. Terry didn’t have a good feeling about the boy right from the start, later saying that there were things about him that just didn’t sit right with him, that Wilkinson wouldn’t even look Terry in the eye.
Not long afterwards, Charlie presented Erin with a promise ring - it was his grandmother’s engagement ring - and told her that he’d intended to marry her.
Penny immediately noticed the ring on her daughter’s finger and ordered her to give it back. Terry even pulled Wilkinson aside at a basketball game at their church and told him the ring was inappropriate.
It was clear to the Caffey’s that they needed to limit the time that the two teens spent together. They could see each other, but only once a week and in their home, under their watch. Terry allowed them to go out to dinner by themselves every now and then, but Erin had to be dropped back home by 9:30. They also had a phone curfew for her…she could talk to him until 10pm during the weekdays and until 11pm on the weekends-that was it. This upset Erin and she confided in her aunt that she planned on running away from home when she turned 17.
It was shortly after Christmas, when Erin and Wilkinson were at a friend’s house where they could be alone, that they had sex for the first time.
As the relationship progressed, her parents began noticing changes in Erin’s behavior, she became more moody, began being disrespectful to her mother and didn’t take as much care about her appearance. Erin had called her father once to tell him that she and her mother had gotten into an argument and Penny had slapped her.
In early February, Penny caught Erin violating her phone curfew, and as punishment, took her car keys and cell phone away, and for the next several weeks her parents drove her to and from school. They also temporarily didn’t allow Charlie to come visit the house.
It was apparent things were tense at the Caffey home, and members of the church even noticed that Penny seemed withdrawn - she’d declined to go on a woman’s church retreat, saying that she needed to spend more time with her family.
While they were dealing with this newfound rebellion in Erin, in mid February of 2008, Terry went to visit his father, Clarence “Sonny” Caffey, and found that he had died of natural causes. Although none of the Caffey’s were close to Terry’s father, they held a funeral in his honor at Miracle Faith and the Caffey’s played Amazing Grace, with Terry and Matthew playing harmonica, Penny on piano and Erin singing. The pastor’s wife, Rebecca McGahee, was troubled at Erin’s performance that day - her singing was usually upbeat and full of life, but during this performance she came across as unenthusiastic and indifferent.
After the funeral, the Caffey’s were still struggling with the challenges of their daughter’s relationship.
When Erin started to do poorly with her schoolwork, Penny decided to go to the local library - at the suggestion of her sister - and use the internet to do an online search for Charlie’s Myspace account. She found it, and was shocked to see it consisted of comments about having sex and getting drunk. Maybe not a big deal to some people, but this type of behavior went against Terry and Penny’s beliefs, so this was not the ideal thing to discover in someone who was dating their daughter, coupled with the fact that Charlie was pushing for a more serious relationship with Erin.
That afternoon Terry and Penny had a talk with Erin, telling her that they didn’t raise her that way and that Charlie wasn’t good for her and that the relationship was over. Surprisingly, Erin didn’t protest, she admitted that she’d wanted to break things off with him for a while, but hadn’t been sure how, and she promised her parents that she would end things with him.
Even though her parents thought she was good with the breakup, Erin was actually not good with it at all - she was infuriated. She began talking to her friends at school about wanting to kill her parents. Erin and her friends began coming up with a plan. Charlie suggested that the two just run away together, but Erin wasn’t thrilled with that idea, and insisted that her parents be murdered instead.
On March 1st, just three days after Erin’s parents had that talk with her and thinking everything with the daughter was going back to normal, Terry had come home late, around midnight, from a 14 hour shift at the medical supply company. He warmed up his dinner, ate a little, then went to bed. Feeling more comfortable about his daughter’s situation, he told Penny that "Things are going to be OK," and went to sleep.
It wasn’t long before Terry was woken up around midnight by the sound of his dog barking. Max, the Caffey’s black labrador, was alerting the family to “something.”Terry assumed it was a coyote or some other animal and went back to sleep.
Around 1:30am Wilkinson, his 20 year old friend Charles Allen Waid and Waid’s 18 year old girlfriend Bobbi Gale Johnson drove over to Erin’s house to pick her up. When they arrived, Erin ran out of the house in her pajamas to meet them at the end of the driveway. She got into Bobbi’s silver Dodge Neon and the group drove around town for about an hour before driving back to the house. They parked down the road from the house, and Erin told them that she’d wait in the car with Bobbi while the two boys went into the house. Before entering the home, Wilkinson told Erin that he would have no choice but to kill her two brothers so there would be no witnesses and she responded by saying “I don’t care, just do what you gotta do.”
The boys entered the house through the front door-which Erin had left open for them-armed with a .22 pistol and a samurai-style sword. They made their way to Terry and Penny’s bedroom. They flung open the bedroom door, Terry and Penny were sleeping. Then gunfire rang out. Wilkinson fired two or more shots at Penny with a .22 pistol, but that didn’t kill her. The sound of the gunshots was deafening and the smell of gunpowder filled the room. The gun then jammed and Wilkinson handed the gun to Waid who fired more shots at Terry. Terry immediately tried to throw his arm over Penny, taking shots to his face and shoulder which blew him out of bed and knocked him out.
Waid then grabbed one of the samurai swords - and stabbed Penny in the neck, almost decapitating her. With blood coming out of Terry’s mouth, nose, eyes and ears, Wilkinson went back over to Terry and shot him three more times in the back.
Although Terry had been shot multiple times, shockingly he was still alive. He couldn’t move the right side of his body and couldn’t speak - he had to just lay beside Penny, motionless and unable to move, while he watched his wife die of her injuries…there was nothing he could do for her.
After Matthew and Tyler had heard the commotion and came downstairs, Wilkinson had told them to go upstairs to their bedrooms, where they hid in Erin’s room. After they had finished shooting inside of Terry and Penny’s bedroom, the Wilkinson and Waid headed upstairs. When 13 year old Matthew cried out “No, Charlie. No. Why are you doing this?” Waid then shot Matthew in the face. 8 year old Tyler had gone to a closet to hide and the pair took turns using the sword on him - stabbing him to death. While the boys were being attacked upstairs, Terry was drifting in and out of consciousness.
After attacking the family, the two boys then rummaged through the house looking for valuables because Wilkinson had promised Waid $2,000 for helping him in the attack. They retrieved a small lock box with cash inside from the bathroom laundry room and were able to open it because Erin had provided them with the location of the box and the combination. They took jewelry from the parent’s bedroom which included money from Terry’s wallet and Penny’s purse that amounted to $375 and some change, and also took a piece of luggage containing clothes and personal items that Erin had packed earlier just for the occasion. After they had finished sifting through the house, they poured lighter fluid on the furniture and lit bedspreads, laundry, food items, and furniture in the house on fire using pocket lighters. Wilkinson called the girls to drive back to the house and wait outside for them. Exiting through the front door they got back into the car with the girls.
The group drove around for a while and Erin and Wilkinson were dropped off at a friend’s house where they had sex before going to sleep.
When the boys were gone, Terry was able to gain consciousness. He tried to raise himself up but couldn’t feel the right side of his body. The fire started to spread throughout the house and he immediately thought about the children. He checked on Penny, but she was already dead. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get upstairs because the flames were pushing him back into the bedroom, so he managed to crawl out of a bathroom window and slowly and painfully crawled 300 yards to his neighbor’s Tommy and Helen Gaston’s house where Tommy called 911.
[911 Call: Dispatcher and Tommy Gaston]
[911 Dispatcher]
911 what's the address of your emergency?
[Tommy Gaston]
This is Tommy Gaston I've got a man that’s been shot out here at my house.
[911 Dispatcher]
Okay so he’s been shot?
[Tommy Gaston]
Yes
[911 Dispatcher]
Is he conscious?
[Tommy Gaston]
Yes.
[911 Dispatcher]
And Is he breathing?
[Tommy Gaston]
Yes.
[911 Dispatcher]
When did this happen?
[Tommy Gaston]
I don’t know, just a little bit ago, and we’ve also got a house on fire out here
[911 Dispatcher]
And the house is on fire?
[Tommy Gaston]
I think…
[911 Dispatcher]
Is the person who shot him still nearby sir?
[Tommy Gaston]
Yes he’s right here at me.
[911 Dispatcher]
You shot him?
[Tommy Gaston]
No i didn’t! I don’t know any more details I’ve got to hang up and help him.
[911 Dispatcher]
Sir i have to ask you these questions, they’re en route - is there any serious bleeding?
[Tommy Gaston]
Yes he’s bleeding.
[911 Dispatcher]
Is he completely awake?
[Tommy Gaston]
Yes he’s awake.
[911 Dispatcher]
Okay what part of the body was injured?
[Tommy Gaston]
I don’t know, I don’t know, but I’ve got to go… (inaudible)
[911 Dispatcher] Sir I need to know where he was shot?
[Tommy Gaston]
Do what?
[911 Dispatcher]
I need to know where he was shot at.
[Tommy Gaston]
I don’t know!
[911 Dispatcher]
He’s right there and you don’t know where he was shot?
[Tommy Gaston]
Yes.
[911 Dispatcher]
Where is he bleeding from?
[Tommy Gaston]
He’s bloody all over.
[911 Dispatcher]
He's bloody all over?
[Tommy Gaston]
Yes.
[911 Dispatcher]
Okay do you know what he’s been shot with?
[Tommy Gaston]
No.
[911 Dispatcher]
Is there more than one wound?
[Tommy Gaston]
i don’t know.
[Host]
It took Terry about an hour to crawl to his neighbors house and about two hours had passed after the start of the attack. When the 911 dispatcher asked Tommy where Terry was bleeding from, he replied “where isn’t he bleeding from? It’s a miracle he’s here at all.”
When the ambulance arrived at Gaston's house, Terry was laying inside, wearing a t-shirt, pajama bottoms, no shoes and a single wet sock. He’d been shot a total of five times, once in the head, twice near his right shoulder, and two more times in the back. His face and upper body were covered in blood.
The ambulance started to pull away when sheriff’s investigator Richard Almon, who was one of the first on scene, climbed inside, trying to see if he could get any information from Terry. Terry strained to say: “I don’t think I’m going to make it.” Almon asked him a few questions, trying desperately to find out who was responsible for the fire and for the shootings. Terry told him that Charlie Wilkinson, his daughter’s boyfriend, had been the shooter and he and his wife had recently told Erin to stop seeing him.
Terry was taken to East Texas Medical Center and rushed into emergency surgery where they removed four slugs from his body.
Authorities could not determine the cause of death for Penny or the two boys, whether it was by gunshot or by fire, as their bodies had been severely burned.
Richard Almon shared what Terry had told him with chief deputy Kurt Fischer. Fischer’s own boys were friends with Wilkinson and had gone fishing and four-wheeling with him many times. As a matter of fact, Fischer had just spotted Wilkinson’s car parked outside Matthew Waid’s trailer (Matthew is Charles Waid’s older brother) on his way to the Caffey’s house. He knew that Wilkinson and his friends would often hang out and drink at the trailer.
About three hours later, Fischer and another deputy made their way to Matthew Waid’s trailer. All of the lights were out in the blue single-wide trailer. When they knocked on the door, an unknown teenager opened the door and said he wasn’t sure if Wilkinson had spent the night there or not, but let the officers in. Inside, they found Charles Waid and Bonni in one bedroom…and Wilkinson holed up in another. A semi automatic handgun lay on the floor next to him. Officers had also discovered boots and a shirt inside that were spattered with blood.
Wilkinson was taken in for questioning and when asked if he was involved in the Caffey murders, he told them no, that he’d gotten drunk the night before and passed out. After obtaining a search warrant, officers went back to the trailer and found a camouflage-colored purse with a driver’s license inside it belonging to Erin Caffey. There were also spent shell casings scattered across the carpet, and next to the mattress, a box of ammunition.
As the officers continued to search through the room where Wilkinson had been found, they lifted up a blanket and to their surprise, was a small blonde girl, sitting with her back to the wall, in a fetal position - it was Erin Caffey. She was wearing flower-print pajamas, and acted disoriented and appeared to be in a state of shock.
It was less than 24 hours after 911 was called that all four suspects - Wilkinson, Waid, Erin and Bobbi Johnson - were in custody.
Wilkinson, Waid and Johnson began telling their versions of the story. Waid told police that Wilkinson had promised him $2,000 for helping "take care of business" in the murders. All three told police the same story: the murders were all Erin’s idea. They told authorities that Erin had been angry because her parents were trying to prevent her from seeing Wilkinson.
Wilkinson said that he had insisted the two run away together and did not suggest killing them. He told authorities that the Caffey’s decided Erin could no longer see him and that she wanted her parents dead because of that decision, and because they had taken away her cell phone. Wilkinson also said that he, Erin, Bobbie and Waid had several discussions about how to kill the Caffeys during the course of about a month.
He said the group had first attempted to get to the Caffey’s house that prior Friday by parking down the road, but when the two boys walked to the house, the Caffey’s dog was making too much noise so they abandoned the plan and returned to their car. Erin called them and told them to come back in an hour so that she could keep the dog quiet.
When Waid recounted his version of events, his story was identical to Wilkinsons, but he added one extra piece of information. As the group was leaving the house after they’d set it on fire, Erin cried out: “Holy shit, that was awesome!”
Meantime, while the other three teenagers were being interviewed by authorities, Erin was being taken by ambulance to the Hopkins County Memorial Hospital, and was given a full medical assessment. She was interviewed in the hospital’s trauma room by the chief of police who at the time, believed her to be a victim, who’d been kidnapped after the murders.
Erin seemed confused, repeatedly telling officers that she was 14 years old. She recalled remembering waking up in a house full of smoke, and that there’d been “two guys with swords” dressed in black who ordered her to get down on the floor. She didn’t remember how she got in the trailer but did remember trying to call her friend Charlie and she wasn’t able to reach him. She then drank “some stuff” that was offered to her at the trailer but it all went blank afterwards. She was teary at the beginning of the interview, but didn’t show much emotion other than that.
The investigators later took note that strangely Erin hadn’t smelled like smoke when she was taken from the trailer and interviewed.
Officers gave Erin some privacy when her maternal grandmother, Virginia Daily, showed up to tell her that her father had survived the attack. Erin’s grandparents then helped to drive her to another hospital-escorted by the sheriffs-when the officers suddenly got a call. They needed to pull over Erin’s grandparents and arrest Erin….she’d been implicated in the murders. The officers pulled the Daily’s over and told them they needed to arrest Erin - Virginia Daily became hysterical, grabbed Erin’s face and asked her “did you have any part in this?” And crying, Erin told her no.
Terry Caffey was discharged from the hospital several days after the attack. Along with the five gunshot wounds he sustained, he had a broken nose, two fractured cheekbones, and minor nerve damage in his right arm. He then went straight to where Erin was being held to talk to her and the others. He was able to also sit down with his daughter, the two boys and Bobbi. He stated that the only remorse he saw came from Wilkinson, that the boy kept looking down and cried when Terry was questioning him.
When Terry confronted his daughter, Erin started to cry and told him that she had nothing to hide from him and would tell him anything he wanted. She told him she knew of the plot but tried to run away that night, and the others forced her to wait in the car while they killed her family. She claimed the murders were Wilkinson’s idea, that he tried to put the blame on her, that it was Erin’s idea, and he was just going along with it because she brainwashed him. Terry didn’t -or couldn’t- believe that his daughter was the mastermind the murders.
In January 2009, the four teens were officially arrested and charged with three counts of capital murder each.
Investigators also tracked down and interviewed one of Erin’s former boyfriends who she’d met at Miracle Faith, Michael Washburn, who also claimed he was told by Erin that she wanted her family dead. That conversation was several months before she began dating Wilkinson.
Richard Almon, who acted as lead investigator on the case, had this to say when asked to explain the motive for the murders: “Evil came calling the night Caffey's life changed.”
Assistant attorney general Lisa Tanner, a seasoned prosecutor, was assigned to the case. Even though Wilkinson and Waid had been drinking that night, drugs were not found in their systems. Although Erin had told investigators she remembered “smoke”, she’d shown no symptoms of smoke inhalation. She was screened for Rohypnol, GHB, and other drugs that can cause memory loss and ALL came back negative. Then phone records were also pulled for all four defendants.
The phone records corroborated the teens' stories and supported the theory that Erin was the mastermind. “From 11:46 p.m. until 12:48 a.m. that night, Erin called Wilkinson 6 times from inside her house. From 1:22 a.m. to 1:58 a.m, she called him 7 more times. According to Wilkinson’s statement, that was when Erin was calling him saying, ‘Where are y’all? What’s the holdup? Hurry up, come back, and I’ll keep the dog quiet.’”
The prosecutor painstakingly laid out the case to Terry Caffey, showing him the damning phone records, the photos of the suitcase that Erin had packed and the burned-out lockbox that was open because Erin had given the combination to Wilkinson. She showed him witness statements that a friend of Erin’s had told the prosecutor how she’d wanted her parents killed. She told him how Wilkinson and Erin had sex immediately after the massacre. Terry would just sit and shake his head, saying “why, why…”
Charlie Wilkinson and Charles Waid both plead guilty. Prosecutors initially requested the death penalty, but Terry Caffey requested their life be spared and that they be given life in prison instead because according to Terry, he's quoted as saying: “I wanted them to have the chance to find remorse.” In October 2008, both of them were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Three months later, Bobbi Johnson also plead guilty and was sentenced to two 40 year concurrent sentences and will be eligible for parole in 24 years.
In January 2009 Erin Caffey accepted a plea deal as well, and she was given two consecutive life sentences plus 25 years. She will be eligible for parole after 40 years.
Terry Caffey has struggled with the tragedy and had contemplated suicide as he grappled with his daughter’s involvement in the murders. Erin still denies that it was her idea and insists to her father that she tried to run away from Charlie the night of the murders, but was forced to wait in the car - her father believes her.
Once a month Terry drives three hours to Gatesville, where Erin is incarcerated. Despite what she did to his family saying: “I honestly believe she was not the mastermind, this was a vulnerable 16-year-old girl with a controlling, psychopathic guy. He went on to say, “I do forgive her. I have to forgive her.” He doesn’t believe that Erin is or was capable of murder.
He has since remarried and is now a stepfather to two children. He lives just down the road from where Penny and his boys are buried. He was ordained as a minister and does speaking engagements where he visits churches and public schools, talking to young people about the dangers of running with the wrong crowd - trying to use the tragedy in a positive way. He wrote a book, "Terror by Night," which details the murders of his family and his rise from tragedy.
There’s an interview that Erin did with Dr. Phil in 2014 where he confronts her about the murders. It’s a very telling interview, watching Erin’s demeanor shift into almost a child-like state as sort of a defense mechanism when she doesn’t want to answer the uncomfortable questions posed by Dr. Phil. It also gives us a chance to hear Erin explain that morning in 2018 and state what she claimed actually happened, so do check it out if you have the opportunity.
In another interview that Erin had with Piers Morgan in 2016, she stated that she was “shocked, angry and hurt, this was Wilkinson I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with and he loved me, we were going to get married.” She goes on to say “When I look back on it now, this was all just stupid. I mean, for what? They weren’t beating me, they weren’t starving me to death. I had it made.”
One of my favorite channels on Youtube, The Behavior Panel, who are four of the world's top body language and behavior experts, did an excellent body language review of Erin Caffey during that Dr Phil interview. They really dove into the psychopathy that I referred to at the beginning of this episode, and how Erin showed not just a lack of emotion surrounding the fact that her mother and brothers were murdered, but also the lack of remorse that she displayed.
I’ll put links to the Dr Phil and Piers Morgan interviews as well as a link to the Behavior Panel episode in the description box below.
If you yourself have children, would you be able to resolve the reality that your child murdered your family and tried to kill you as well? Would you be able to accept the fact that your child was a monster? I think most of us would say no - that we’d disown the child, but in almost every case I’ve come across, even the most heinous cases, that’s not what happens. As parents, I think there’s a love for a child that goes beyond any wrongdoing they commit and a forgiveness unlike anything else. It’s obvious that Terry Caffey has come to a resolution of sorts in accepting what Erin did, and maybe that’s his way of being able to make peace with it.
[Host]
Thank you for listening - please check out our website at thecrimeshack.com where you can find links to all our social media platforms. I’m excited to announce that The Crime Shack is now on Youtube - be sure to check us out and Subscribe. We’re also on Instagram, the only platform where I do giveaways for cool stuff! Did you know I’m also on TikTok where I do mini crime stories? Check out my profile at @shellzcrimeshack! This podcast is currently sponsor-less and as a listener you can help support the show by purchasing merchandise, Subscribing to my Youtube channel, becoming a Patreon member, or just by Buying Me a Coffee. Any and all support is much appreciated!
PODCAST RESOURCES
Erin Caffey, The 16-Year-Old Who Had Her Whole Family Murdered
Emory murders: The healing journey | Local News | tylerpaper.com
Woman who planned the murder of most of her family reveals why she did it
Emory murders: Lives changed after family was killed | Local News | tylerpaper.com
Chilling details emerge from Rains County murder scene | | heraldbanner.com
Youtube: 911 Call Erin Caffey Family Murders https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG35cg7DcCc&t=4s
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