Erin Caffey, 17, gets 2 life terms in family deaths

EMORY, Texas — A teenage girl charged with capital murder for her role in the deaths of her mother and two young brothers agreed to a plea deal that could make her eligible for parole when she's 59, her attorney said.

Erin Caffey, 17, accepted the agreement Friday, said defense attorney William McDowell. She had been scheduled to be tried as an adult next month in Hopkins County.

"I think it was a just sentence," McDowell said. "Everyone is pleased with it."

Authorities said Caffey, her boyfriend and two other co-defendants plotted to kill Caffey's parents because they didn't approve of her boyfriend. Caffey was 16 at the time of the crime.

Police reports said she and Bobbi Gale Johnson waited in a car down the road from Caffey's home in Alba while boyfriend Charlie James Wilkinson, 19, and Charles Allen Waid, 20, went on a shooting and stabbing rampage before setting fire to the house.

Penny Caffey, 37, and her sons Mathew, 13, and Tyler, 8, died in the attack in March. Terry Caffey, 41, was shot five times but escaped from the burning house, saying he recognized Wilkinson shooting him and his wife in their bed, sheriff's officials said.

Caffey has since recovered from his gunshot wounds.

All four defendants were initially charged with three counts of capital murder. Prosecutors had said they didn't plan to seek the death penalty against Erin Caffey.

Wilkinson and Waid also avoided the death penalty in November by pleading guilty for their involvement in the killings. McDowell said both would likely receive life sentences with parole.

Johnson, named as an accomplice who did not use a weapon, was sentenced to 40 years in prison and may be eligible for parole in 20 years, the Tyler Morning Telegraph reported Saturday.

Alba is about 60 miles northeast of Dallas.

Comments

[rogerse]

Women have the right to capital punishment.

[vjoseph]

She pleaded out, so the death penalty was out. There a lot of women on death row, so don't play the reverse gender card here

[WorldGoneWild]

Today I viewed a YouTube clip where a mom grounded her 18yr old daughter for not coming home after leaving work. The girl meet up with a guy she met on MySpace (nuff said there). She used the
f-word multiple times when talking to her mother and asked her mother did she need to check in with her every f-ing minute of the day. Then she proceeded to yell at the top of her lungs to her mother that she was not a child and that she was 18 yrs old.

Call it whatever you want to, but when I was growing up, my parents put the fear of God in me if I talked backed to them. My father never hit me but he would get in my face to get his point across. If I didn't like it, my father let it be known that he would pack my bags for me if I didn't abide by the rules of the house.

In other words, discipline was discipline in my house. Maybe Erin Caffey could have used a little discipline.

[tomk2434]

Maybe Erin Caffey was disciplined so much for things like naturally developing sexuality that she stapped. Maybe Erin Caffey had way too much discipline and that's why she snapped.

[WorldGoneWild]

True. I don't know enough about the Caffey case but my point is that discipline starts as soon as you can talk and walk not as a teenagers.

[vjoseph]

BINGO. Parents nowadays want to be friends with their kids instead of being the disciplinarian. I would never dreamed of doing such things to my parents because I knew a whooping would ensue.

[carolsstudio]

Amen to that.

[chickasaw111]

Me too! But I also knew that they loved me and my sister more than anything in the world.

[ofcoursejesusisblack]

All "whoopings" today are considered child abuse. Schools teach the kids to call 911 if a parent so much comes near them to discipline them. I have had my share of proper beatings and I am much better for it. I would never as so much dare to look at elder with a screwy eye or raise my voice for fear of a backhanded slap or other punishment.
Recently, on the news they sent a father off to jail because he disciplined his son for coming home with bad grades. He warned his son about doing his homework and when he came home with a bad report card the father proceeded to open a can of whoop a--. so the kid calls 911 and they carted the poor man off to jail.
Mind you, where are the police when the abusive parents really needs to be thrown in jail? How many times do CPS IGNORE valid abusive situations????

[eugeniajp]

There are plenty of ways to discipline your child without resorting to violence. Violence teaches violence, and my guess is that this child had her share of "whoopings" too.

[denicast]

We are a violent culture that believes everything can be solved by striking out with physical violence. Hitting a child is physical violence no matter how you cut it. Children can be so physically abused an still love their parents and want to believe their parents love them. It raises people who think nothing of violence if they feel wronged.

The real problem is parents don't pay attention to their kids and they don't model they expect the kids to follow. They don't take the time to develop a relationship with their child from the earliest time and set boundaries, or set good examples. They only pay attention to their kids when things go wrong, but totally miss things going on in their lives. They let their kids interact with stuff rather than family. They have these big houses where members of the family have no chance to interact.

[kolorkin]

I agree. I grew up under a Communist government and a repressive culture where your elders such as parents and teachers are all to be respected. Though I admit some of the disciplines i endured were undoubtly emotional/physical abuse, but for the most part it was what kept me grounded and respectful of authority and the elders. Discipline would be helpful.

[ofcoursejesusisblack]

You sound like you had a great set of parents.

[AudsMom]

Disturbing­...

[MNmommy]

This is sad and tragic, but why is it here? Shouldn't this be a docudrama on MSNBC or Dateline?

[BannedInBoston]

Huffpost covers everything, from celebrity gossip to the Middle East crisis. It's one of the things I like about it. It's like the New York Times merged with the National Enquirer. All the news that fit to print and a whole lot that's not....

[robXdion]

Would you post that if it was about a black male? Of course you wouldn't.

[vjoseph]

This has nothing to do with race, get off your soapbox

[SpaghettyIrish]

Enough robby-one-note. Enough

[Hirnlego]

How on earth do you serve two life sentences? Whats the point?
Btw, did she play videogames?

[BannedInBoston]

I seriously doubt the blame can be laid on video games....

[Hirnlego]

Someone will try..

[socialdemocracy1968]

That won't stop Jack Thompson from going on another crusade against Grand Theft Auto or the like.

[texasrodeoqueen]

she is lucky she will live in this executing lovin prayin state Psychotic mental patients are allowed to commit heinous crimes down here instead of treatment (the poor psychotic women in Houston who killed her 5 kids) and then go to prison. If only the dorks in this state would get a clue about mental health and stop trying to pray it away.

[timetorevolt]

no..agains­t her religion..

[whatfreshhellisthis]

The deal reached was probably for two life sentences in case something happened, such as an appeal, that might invalidate one of them. The remaining one might hold her in prison for the length of the second sentence. What puzzles me, however, is why there were two life sentences instead of three, since her mother and two brothers were killed. I wonder, also, if there was any charge for the attempted murder of her father. Perhaps the reason that this was a good plea bargain for her is that she is not facing sentences for four crimes, as might have been the case if it went to trial.

[propitiousmoment]

They probably reserved some of the charges to bring against her in case she somehow gets this overturned on appeal. There's no statute of limitations on the m crime, it might be years before she got that kind of a resolution but probably less than the 40 years she has until she's eligible for parole. This way, if she was never charged and tried for one of the crimes, she can be at that time and not get out of it again under double jeopardy.

[tomk2434]

Do we know if Erin Caffey had proper nutrition and healthcare throughout her lifetime?

Maybe we are to blame for not taking care of poor helpless people.

[thaneb]

Tom, your snark is showing.

[adey]

And it's awfully small.

[BannedInBoston]

If you think you're somehow parodying the liberal perspective on a crime like this, you're not even close....

[vjoseph]

She's your kind, not ours

[speckitis]

Tom, to the contrary, she was raised in an untra-conservative environment. She was home-schooled by Baptists with a fundamentalist leaning...­. You can't get much more conservative than that..... In fact, you could argue she is a product of conservative ideology.

So, the next time you attempt to use a crime to mock political views you disagree with, make certain the crime is not in any way closely affiliated to your own political ideology.

Now please crawl back under the rock you crawled out from......

[tomk2434]

You assume I have a political ideology? What ideology do I have?

Being home schooled by Baptist fundementalists who tried to repress me sexually and abused me and called it discipline is another thing we are to blame for. Maybe we should not allow ignorant fundementalists who are closer to monkeys then to smart humans raise kids and hit them and lie to them that their sexual urges make them bad?

[adey]

The rock won't have him.

[aweissnet]

Well, we're a society that responds to issues with violence. Is that what we're teaching (some of the more impressionable and misguided?) our next generation? Michael Moore in "Bowling for Columbine," points out that shooting occurred on one of the most violent days in the Iraq conflict.

Not to say all of them, most of them, but clearly some of them. In time, there will be more.

[SpaghettyIrish]

The Serbian conflict actually. hard to keep track of em all, i know.

[shockmagog]

This is like an A & E or Lifetime thread.

[aztecdiva]

More like Snapped on Oxygen.

[vjoseph]

Yeah, that would fit better

[tomk2434]

I don't think anyone here has enough information to make judgements. Maybe this girl is just like us and got pushed to far or had a mental problem that was outside her control.

"She's a devil child and she floats. Burn her!" makes it easy to not see ourselves in her. "I would of done the same thing with her combination of brain chemistry, hormones, and environmental factors (including ones we may not know about like childhood abuse)." is more true, but most people are too afraid to look at their shadows and see it.

[carolsstudio]

What are you talking about, are you suggesting we should identify with her and somehow justify her actions?

[tomk2434]

I'm saying all these people rushing to condemn her are morons and that we don't have enough information to justify it.

If she was abused by her christian parents who tried to beat the devil out of her, she very well may be justified. I'm not saying we should justify her actions, I'm saying we should withhold judgement.

[fem56]

Really all three of them are just kids. How did they get so wicked. Very scary. Where have we gone wrong?

[vjoseph]

Give me a break, let's stop trying to find outside reasons why this child did this and look inward.

[AprilPA]

What a family tragedy.

[subdued]

Too bad she didn't go with the PMS defense...­....

[deadcustodian]

and yet another angry R epublican

[learnsomething]

I was reading the SF Chronicle this morning and read a story about a 12 year old boy, who shot his mother 8 times because she scolded him and slapped him.

[mytwosense]

I think it's one life sentence short -- she plotted to and killed THREE family members.