No one would ever believe that sweet and innocent Erin Caffey would go to prison for committing a heinous crime. She was a small-town girl who had modest dreams—or so it seemed. Unfortunately, this once quiet teenager ended up doing something so devastating, it shocked the entire world!
Love makes us do crazy things, right? Well, that was certainly the case for Erin Caffey, whose love ended up costing the ultimate price. The young woman and her boyfriend had been putting their plan into motion for a while, and sadly, no one caught on until it was too late.
While we all want to spend the rest of our lives with our other halves, it isn’t sunshine and rainbows all the time. All Erin Caffey wanted was a happy life with the person that she loved the most in the world. But, not everything turns out how you plan them. Things can go downhill quickly, and that’s precisely what occurred.
Every love story has to go through a bit of a ruckus, and sometimes the involved partners have to take drastic measures to truly complete their fairy tales. Every love story has its flip side, but Erin Caffey’s story is borderline terrifying!
She fell in love with one of her co-workers, and the two seemed like a match made in heaven (or should we not say ‘hell’). Unfortunately for the couple, Erin’s parents were totally against the relationship. And that’s what led to a disastrous fate!
Having failed to gain her parent’s approval, Erin and her boyfriend decided to take a drastic step that would result in a complete massacre. Be warned, learning about Erin’s act will send shivers down your spine!
What Erin and her boyfriend were up to might sound terrifying, but she started her life just like any other kid growing up in Texas. Born on July 27th, 1991, in Rains County, her childhood was quite restrictive as her family was very orthodox.
Growing up in a conservative Christian household, she definitely had a blooming rebel spirit deep within, but no one would have thought that she would end up going this far!
Erin’s parents were regular attendees of Sunday service at the local Church. They were religious people with a firm belief in the divine. A little too much, for their own good! Not just that, they were also ministers at a conservative Baptist church.
They were so religious in their own might that they also moved closer to the Miracle Faith congregation and, later on, pulled Erin out of her public school to pursue private homeschooling just because she allegedly did something very… ‘forward’!
Being a homosexual is considered to be a sin in countless families across the world, and Erin’s family was no different. Her homophobic parents pulled her out from a public school when she was in eighth grade, and the reason behind it would completely baffle you!
Children are innocent beings, devoid of malicious motives and propagandas like the so-called adults running the world. It so happened that Erin Caffey and her two brothers were made to leave their school just because a girl in her class tried to kiss Erin! Oh, and that’s not all!
After the children were forcefully made to drop out of their public school, their mother, Penny Caffey kick-started a Bible-based curriculum at home. Yes, you heard that right!
Needless to say, devoid of any social interaction, Erin became close friends with loneliness and utter despair. She had no idea that this friendship could lead to something chaotic in the near future …
Homosexuality is frowned upon by many as most people out there cannot comprehend any form of relationship that does not concern a man and a woman. Erin’s father, Terry Caffey was quoted saying that they saw bisexuality as a threat and this is the reason why he wanted to keep his children miles away from it. But as they say, man proposes, God disposes!
His Homophobic nature made him claim that it was the bisexual culture that was enticing Erin to tread down a dark path. He claimed that his family was shocked by a culture of bisexuality. According to him, it was bisexuality that held her hand, walked her down the dark path with her premarital partner, and commit something quite horrifying. Oh, they could never have been more wrong!
Not allowed to go to public school, Erin was restricted to the confines of her home, and that too forcefully. Homeschooling was not her thing. She was a free-spirited soul with ambitions to scale greater heights. How would she do that from the boundaries of her home?
Erin’s home was six miles away from the town, further strengthening the stronghold of isolation in her existence. Having noticed her diminishing aura, her parents finally agreed to her proposal of working at the local Sonic drive-thru—a decision that they would later regret!
Like happy people are surrounded by their positive aura, her isolated and lonely soul was crying for help without making any noise. Only if someone had heard it earlier and held her hand, things wouldn’t have gotten so bad.
But her co-workers could observe that she was deprived of happiness. “She was so sheltered. It was like she was seeing the world for the first time,” her colleague said. And they could do nothing about it. Probably, they didn’t want to!
Her grieving soul soon found comfort in the arms of Charlie Wilkinson. Erin met her new boyfriend while working at Sonic. Charlie has had some temperamental issues right from the start, but he was never arrested or expelled from school. Erin quickly took into him, probably a bit too soon!
The two troubled souls started spending time with each other, and one thing led to another. Their relationship didn’t get the seal of approval from Erin’s parents, but that didn’t stop Charlie from proposing to Erin with his grandmother’s engagement ring.
It was already evident that Erin’s parents didn’t like Charlie, and the fact that Charlie had already proposed to their daughter, enraged them even further! Could they separate the two lovebirds, or could they not? Only time would tell!
The parents were so infuriated by Erin’s love affair that they started meddling in her relationship. So much so that Terry and Penny started putting even more shackles around her freedom, restricting her to meet Charlie only once in a week and that too, at their home and under their watch!
Teenagers are difficult to tame, and when parents are this restrictive, it fuels the fire in their hearts even more. Just put yourself in this position and try imagining everything; how would you feel?
Erin wanted to do as she pleased but her parents would often ground her, denying her from meeting Charlie. Being away from her ‘soulmate’ and the constant surveillance was breeding something quite nefarious in her heart. Something that would eventually change everything!
While her parents were getting more restrictive than ever, Erin was transforming into something else. She started looking for options so that she could live her dreams with Charlie. Not everything that came to her teenage mild was necessarily peaceful!
Charlie, on the other hand, was getting restless. All he wanted was to live with Erin, a happily ever after. He constantly pleaded and even begged her to run away with him. But each time, Erin declined the offer and started plotting something even more heinous!
All these days of plotting only clouded Erin’s mind. Nothing seemed good enough; nothing seemed to be the solution. She wanted to bid her final goodbyes; she wanted to do something that most would term “sinister.”
Rather than packing their bags and run away from all the hurdles, Erin told Charlie that “killing [her] parents was [their] best option.” Even the sound of it is terrible but they soon started mapping their proceedings and even got Charlie’s friends on board to kill Erin’s parents.
It went down on March 1st, 2008, when Charlie Wilkinson, Erin’s boyfriend, and his friends Charles Waid and Bobbi Johnson started their journey towards Caffey’s home. A journey that would lead to disastrous consequences …
Deals were struck, and resolutions were made! Wilkinson promised Waid $2,000 to carry out this deadly scheme. The plan was to vanish Erin’s parents from the face of the earth and loot their home to source the promised money.
Wilkinson was together with Erin Caffey while the rest of the crew—Charles Waid and Bobbi Johnson were also romantically involved. The former couple spent quite a few days plotting their nefarious scheme.
It was all set; everything was planned. After all, how hard could it be? No one would ever find out, no one could even guess, or so they thought. A thought that would lead to their destruction … to their complete decimation.
Before turning into a cold-blooded psychopath, Charlie Wilkinson was just a student at Rains High School. But he wasn’t what you would call an ‘ideal student’ as he frequently got scolded by his teachers. Despite that, he would often come up with his own explanation, a trait that many prized.
Apparently, in the week leading up to the treacherous crime the duo was about to commit, Charlie was yelled at in his class for using a computer. No one really knew that it was all adding up; the breaking point was not far away. Frustrated from within, he was soon about to find solace in committing a heinous crime.
Charles Waid was merely 20 years old when he was offered the ominous job of murdering Erin Caffey’s family. What makes his satanic act even more unbelievable is the fact that he fathered a baby girl only a few months before it all went down. Although they weren’t together for a while, he remained married.
“He wasn’t like this right from the beginning,” his ex-wife claimed that he was a pretty good guy, and she could not imagine him doing something so extreme. He also used to go to the Church regularly with his family because he was raised in a Christian household. It all started to go downhill when the couple broke up after being together for about a year and a half.
Charles Waid drifted away from his fatherly commitments when he met Bobbi Johnson. What was particularly shocking about Bobbi’s involvement in this massacre is her past life. She had always been a good kid who was also active in the school community and in her school’s theatre department.
No one would have thought that a soul as pious as hers would be a part of something downright satanic but love can make you do terrible things. Her involvement in this heinous crime is almost nerve-wracking if you think about it!
On that fateful day, the crew pulled outside the Caffey’s home and rode right into their driveway. The Caffey’s were sound asleep and had no idea of the danger that awaited them.
Wilkinson and Waid entered the house through a backdoor while the girls stayed seated inside the car. When Wilkinson conveyed to Erin that to wipe the slate clean and hide their tracks, they would also have to kill her brothers, she reportedly said, “I don’t care, just do what you gotta do.”
The boys soon barged into her parents’ room and rained hell on the couple with a .22 pistol. No one could have imagined the scene in their wildest dreams. Few kids from down the block doing something so horrible, it was hard to digest. And the sheer coldness of the murderers only made it all the more terrifying!
Terry Caffery, the father, endured multiple shots to his body and face. However, when the boys were trying to shoot Penny, the mother, Wilkinson’s gun jammed! But that didn’t stop him as he switched to something even more barbaric!
After nearly decapitating Penny with his Samurai sword, the boys then shifted their focus on the children. As an evasive measure, they brutally murdered the sons, but their father was still fighting the battle of life and death as he drifted in and out of his consciousness.
Tyler was sent to the gates of heaven by taking a gunshot to the face while Terry cried with fear, “No, Charlie. No. Why are you doing this?” It felt like a tragedy of blood of thunder, a scene from some 15th-century Shakespearean play, or a Kafkaesque nightmare. What the sociopaths did to Matthew was even more spine-chilling!
Soon after taking turns with the samurai sword to finish off, Matthew, Wilkinson, and Waid raided the house. After sourcing some money from the family’s lockbox in the bathroom, they even sniffed the home for some valuables.
Completely ignoring the gruesome sin that they had committed, they went on to commit crime after crime. It was as if nothing had happened. It was as if they had not taken the lives of fellow human beings. But that’s not it, because what happened next will send a shiver down your spine!
The house was in a bloody mess, just the sheer magnanimity of which will leave you nauseous. There was blood and gore all around, not to mention the decapitated bodies of the victims. Something had to be done; they had to cover their tracks. No one could find out what had happened in the house!
The boys poured lighter fluid across the house and burned it to the ground to get rid of the evidence. All this while, Erin was sitting in the car, witnessing her family’s extinction and her ‘home, sweet home’ being turned into ashes, all with a chilling smirk on her face …
With so much brutality and tyranny unleashed on the Caffey family, of course, the conspiring group thought they had gotten rid of everyone. After all, who could have survived the sheer destruction of the blood-curdling teenage minds?
After all that went down at Caffey’s home, it is hard to imagine that anyone would have survived that brutality, but as it turns out, Terry Caffey is one tough nut! Erin’s father was shot five times, and he also took a gunshot in the head and chest. As he drifted in and out of his consciousness, he saw his home engulfed in his flames, and it was at this point that he knew he had to get out.
Who would have thought that after witnessing his wife’s nearly decapitated head and two dead children, Terry would make it out? But he did as he crawled towards his neighbor’s place, leaving a trail of blood behind for 300 yards!
With sheer willpower and determination, Terry Caffey started crawling towards his neighbors’ place slowly yet firmly. It was so very hard. The pain was unbearable; it felt as if this was it. But every time, he woke up and moved a little further away until he finally reached his neighbor’s patio.
The neighbors were completely astounded at seeing a blood-covered Terry Caffey on their patio. It was unimaginable. Immediately, they called 911 for help. The 911 dispatcher enquired about Terry and asked where was he bleeding from, to which the neighbor responded, “where isn’t he bleeding from?” If this isn’t gut-wrenching enough for you, there’s more!
Caffey’s family also had a black Labrador who got away from the massacre but was found patiently waiting for his “hoomans” to pet him. But Penny and the two children weren’t like phoenixes and couldn’t rise from the ashes. Their story was complete, a sad and brutal ending to their mortal life.
It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out who was the Mastermind behind this abominable act. When the boys in their crew were committing the absolute treacherous crime against her own parents, Erin was patiently waiting for it to get over. After all, it was her way out from the years of restrictions. She was now free, or so she thought!
Even when the rest of the crew pleaded in front of Erin to drop the plan, she reportedly said, “this is the only way; this is our only option.” But if you think that this is the first time Erin has planned something like this, you are dead wrong!
The whole “murdering her family” plot was not planned in a fit of rage. It was all part of a complete cold-blooded scheme that Erin had been brewing for quite some time. It just goes on to show her absolute hatred and disgust for her parents, which would later come in handy for the detectives investigating the heinous crime.
Erin’s then ex-boyfriend, Michael Washburn, had met Caffey at a church camp when they were 16. Because of her strict parents, one fine day, she proposed the idea of killing her whole family to Washburn as well—that he should kill her family and burn the house down. “No one would ever know,” she’d said. In Washburn’s words, he replied with absolute disgust, “You crazy b**ch! Get out of my house!”
The wrecking crew initially planned to carry out this horrendous job a week earlier, but they ran through a roadblock when Erin’s grandfather, Terry’s father, passed away. As their beloved daughter Erin joined the family in mourning the departed soul, little did they know that a similar fate was lurking around their home?
She could seem considerate at first for postponing the murders, but when you factor in the massacre, how it was executed, and Erin’s reaction after that, it is safe to assume that something in her head was not right.
Sexual sadism is basically considered a disorder where a person derives pleasure from one’s suffering. As the name suggests, it is basically a fusion between getting physical and inducting sadism with it. After EVERYTHING went down and her home reduced to mere ashes, you would expect Erin to mourn. Just a little, but mourn!
However, sticking true to their psychopathic tendencies, Erin Caffey and her boyfriend Charlie had sex just after carrying out their murderous plan. If this doesn’t send a shiver down your spine, maybe this will—it was the very first thing that they did after committing the murders, right where all the bodies were!
The meeting between the boyfriend and a girl’s parents is considered to be a crucial one. When Erin told her parents about Charlie, they immediately wanted to meet the boy who had wooed their daughter. Talking about Charlie, he came with too many red flags that were evident to Erin’s parents right away!
In an interview with The Tyler Morning Telegraph, Terry Caffey told the reporters about his first interaction with Charlie. He welcomed him to his home, extending his hand. “You must be Charlie,” he said, only to be met with a different response—“Yeah, and you are?” This is exactly how you should NOT talk to your girlfriend’s father!
After Erin was sentenced to prison for devising the heinous crimes, she wrote her father a letter. It seems like that the sheer intensity of her crimes dawned on her, and she thought it was time to take some responsibility. “None of this was your fault,” she wrote. “If anything, it was mine. I never wanted any of this to happen.”
Her letter engulfed some more confessions “I was just going with what he was telling me. He was feeding me all these lies, I got caught up in him, and I feel so guilty. Even though this has happened, I still feel sad, but at the same time glad that I’m free from the pressure that was being put on me. I miss Mama and the boys! But I know where they are!” Blaming her boyfriend might be her coping mechanism, but the truth won’t change, and the departed won’t magically start breathing again!
After all of them were arrested by the authorities, Erin took a plea deal, and she is currently serving two consecutive life sentences, plus an additional 25 years. Talking about the charges, she was charged with three counts of capital murder while the rest of the crew received similar sentences.
Having nearly escaped death penalties, Wilkinson and Waid are now serving life sentences without parole. Bobbi Johnson, Waid’s ‘innocent’ girlfriend, received 40 years for being involved without using a weapon. After this ruthless incident, you would expect Erin to own her mistakes, but as it turns out, she still would not take the responsibility that she was supposed to! So, what did you think of this story? Don’t forget to drop a comment and share it with your friends!
