Police: Teen Lovers Plotted Triple Murder

A high school couple forced to break up spent weeks plotting what became a bloody spree of gunfire and stabbings in the girl's home, leaving her mother and two brothers dead and her father wounded, according to police reports released Monday.

The graphic narrative of the ambush - which includes the 16-year-old daughter allegedly having sex with her boyfriend after he helped kill her family - brought fresh anguish to this remote East Texas town still reeling from the Saturday massacre.

At the heart of the criminal complaints from the Rains County Sheriff's Department is Charlie James Wilkinson, 19, allegedly telling investigators his girlfriend wanted her parents dead because they forbade their relationship.

"Wilkinson stated that he and (the girl) were in love and the only way they could be together is to kill the parents," the complaints stated.

From there, the detailed reports allege Wilkinson offered a friend $2,000 to join the plot, say Penny and Terry Caffey were shot repeatedly in their beds and 13-year-old Mathew Caffey received a fatal bullet near his head.

His brother, 8-year-old Tyler, was killed after allegedly being stabbed with a sword, according to the complaints. Terry Caffey, the father, was the lone survivor of the attack.

The family's daughter, whose name is being withheld because of her age, is charged with three counts of capital murder and is being held on $1.5 million bond. According to police reports, she waited in a car with classmate Bobbi Gale Johnson, 18, down the road while the killings took place.

Johnson, Wilkinson and Charles Allen Waid, 20, are also charged with three counts of capital murder. They are being held on $1.5 million bond at Rains County jail; the Caffeys' daughter is at a juvenile detention facility in neighboring Hunt County.

A Rains County jailer said Monday there was no indication the suspects had attorneys. Family members of the suspects did not return messages or could not be immediately found for comment.

At Rains High School, students returned to campus Monday with three of their classmates - the Caffeys' daughter, Wilkinson and Johnson - notably absent.

"These were students who had not been in trouble a great deal," Rains school Superintendent David Seago said. "Maybe some tardies and absences, but that's it."

Terry Caffey remains at East Texas Medical Center in nearby Tyler. The hospital would not release his condition but Tommy Gaston, his neighbor and close friend, said Monday that Caffey's health was improving.

Authorities say despite being shot five times, Terry Caffey crawled 300 yards through a wooded pasture to reach Gaston's front door for help. Behind him was a bloody trail and his burning house; the affidavits state that Waid and Wilkinson set fire to furniture and laundry before leaving.

"I can't describe it," Gaston said Monday. "It just hurts."

Authorities also released the nearly 3½-minute 911 call Gaston made after Caffey crawled to his home. Gaston tells a dispatcher that Caffey is bleeding and awake but that he doesn't know where he was shot.

"Where's he bleeding from?" the dispatcher asks.

"He's bloody all over."

"He's bloody all over?"

"Yes."

According to the complaint, the four suspects met Friday night to hatch a plan. Wilkinson allegedly told investigators that he and his girlfriend talked about killing her parents for about a month. He said the Caffeys decided they could no longer see each other and took away their daughter's cell phone.

"Waid stated that (they) met last night ... and it was decided to just walk in there and take care of business," the report reads.

The fire was started to cover the crimes, the complaint states. Waid and Wilkinson allegedly took cash and jewelry before calling the girls to drive back toward the house and pick them up.

Afterward, "Wilkinson stated that he and (the girl) had sex and slept," investigators wrote.

Seago, the school superintendent, said the Caffeys' daughter had enrolled in the school just six weeks earlier. Classmates and Emory residents have said she previously had been homeschooled.

The Caffeys lived in Alba, a neighboring town even smaller than Emory and about 60 miles northeast of Dallas. The family's house was one of only three on a pine-canopied, gravel road a few miles off the main two-lane highway running through the county.

The area is so secluded that surrounding neighbors only reported faintly hearing what sound liked thunder early Saturday, and few saw the blaze. By late Monday, the Caffeys' black Labrador remained near the rubble - far from the food and water onlookers have left under the yellow police tape cordoning off the property.