A Texas teenager who plotted with her friends for weeks to kill her parents so that she could be with her boyfriend has been sentenced to two life sentences. Under the plea agreement, Erin Caffey, who was 16 last year when the murders occurred, will be eligible for parole when she is 59 years old.Others involved in the murders have also pleaded guilty and received stiff prison sentences.
On March 1, 2008, Terry and Penny Caffey were shot while they slept in their rural East Texas home. Their 12-year-old son Mathew was also shot and their 8-year-old son Tyler was stabbed with a sword. Only Terry Caffey survived, by fleeing the burning home, crawling 300 years through the woods for help after being shot five times.
Sentenced for Murder Plot
Charlie James Wilkinson, 20, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. It was Wilkinson who the Caffeys had forbidden their daughter Erin to date, setting off the month-long plan that ended in their murders. He received the longest sentence of the four.
Charles Allan Waid, 21, a friend of Wilkinson, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty. Waid and Wilkinson were the ones who entered the Caffey home around 4 a.m. and did the actual shooting. Waid was still a student at the same high school that Erin attended at the time of the shootings.
Bobbi Gale Johnson, 19, was sentenced to 40 years in prison for her part in planning the crime. Johnson did not enter the home, but waited in a car nearby. She will be eligible for parole after 20 years. This was the lightest sentence any of the defendants received.
Deaths Stun Community
According to police reports, Wilkinson and Waid broke into the Caffey home around 4 a.m. on Saturday, March 1, and shot Terry and Penny Caffey in their bed while they were asleep. They then went upstairs and shot Mathew Caffey and used a sword to stab Tyler Caffey to death.
The two then set fire to furniture and laundry in the house before fleeing with the 16-year-old Erin.
Although he had been shot in the head, twice in the back and twice in the shoulder, 41-year-old Terry Caffey somehow escaped the burning home and crawled through the woods to a neighbor's house to get help.
The Killers were found hiding in a mobile home a few hours later. They have been held on $1.5 million bond since their arrests.
See Also:
Lovesick Teen's Boyfriend Jailed Over Murders
Teenage Girl Gets 2 Life Terms in Family Slayings
Earlier Article:
Daughter Arrested in Texas Family's Slaughter
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Comments
Too bad the entire crew didn’t get the death penalty. They knew exactly what they were doing; we should do the proper thing as well and rid the earth of these vermin.
What is wrong with people? Are all these kids on meth because this psychotic behavior is just unacceptable. Why do we have the death penalty if we aren’t going to use it on an a-hole that murders a child with a sword!!
So discouraging.