Teen explains why she had her entire family killed

A self-confessed “daddy’s girl”, Erin Caffey was just 16, when she organised the murder of her entire family.

*WARNING – Disturbing content*

Her motive? Her mother, Penny, and father, Terry, had told her she couldn’t see her 18-year-old boyfriend Charlie Wilkinson anymore.

“I was shocked, angry and hurt, this was the guy I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with and he loved me,” she told The Sun. “We were going to get married.”

Erin sat outside her Texas family home in a car with friend Bobbi Johnson, 18, while Wilkinson and his friend Charles Waid, 20, (also Bobbi’s boyfriend) stabbed and shot her parents and siblings.

Her mother Penny was shot then stabbed with a samurai sword. Her 13-year-old brother Matthew was shot in the head. Her eight-year-old brother Tyler was cornered hiding in a cupboard and repeatedly stabbed with a sword.

Her father Terry was shot five times but miraculously survived, even after the house was set on fire.

When she was arrested, Erin claimed she had been drugged and kidnapped by her three friends, but they confessed she had planned the killing. This evidence was proven by cell phone records.

Erin is now 24 and serving a minimum of 42 years in prison. She will be 59 by the time she’s eligible for parole.

“When I look back on it now, this was all just stupid,” she says from jail, now aged 24. “I mean, for what? They weren’t beating me, they weren’t starving me to death. I had it made.”

Erin’s father has recovered from his injuries and still visits her once a month. He has forgiven her because he believes her young mind was corrupted by her controlling boyfriend.

Her father Terry does not believe she was the mastermind at all. “I honestly believe she was not the mastermind. This was a vulnerable 16-year-old girl with a controlling, psychopathic guy.”

Shocking. Just shocking!

Share your comments below.

Image via The Sun

We may get commissions for purchases made using links in this post. Learn more.

58 Comments

- - mum300445 said
  - 29 Feb 2024
    10:02 pm
I wish I hadn’t read this article. So deeply upsetting and disturbing

- - mom492156 said
  - 21 Aug 2023
    11:13 pm
I am lost for words. How devastating.

- - mom490681 said
  - 28 Jun 2023
    7:24 am
Such a horrible story! I feel for the dad, unsure how he was able to forgive his own daughter for such a thing

- - My Little Buttons said
  - 15 Jun 2023
    1:43 pm
Oh wow what a terrible story scary and very very sad

- - Frankiielot said
  - 29 Apr 2023
    9:24 pm
Things like this seem to happen quite a lot in the US. It’s just crazy.
I’m shocked the dad still visits her but I guess it’s because she’s his daughter but I still wouldn’t trust her.

- - Mom466555 said
  - 27 Mar 2023
    10:13 pm
Wow that’s super scary

- - Jmac said
  - 28 Jan 2023
    2:50 pm
It’s so scary that young people can be controlled this way

- - mom101628 said
  - 18 Dec 2022
    9:46 pm
A truly horrible thing to have happened. I can understand the father forgiving her – after all what has he left of his family, just his daughter who he once loved with all his heart and soul. She certainly sounds that she has done this tragic thing with her comments. Hope the father can find peace.

- - meedee said
  - 11 May 2021
    12:44 pm
I guess shes all the Dad has left but im not so sure that I would be so forgiving. He is taking the blame from his daughter and placing at the feet of the boyfriend. To me thats not helping the daughter at all. Parents that feel their kids can do no wrong are part of the problem.

- - mom111059 said
  - 01 Jul 2016
    9:40 pm
how horrible. That poor father is in denial, not wanting to think his daughter responsible. this is a shocking story and a shame for everyone concerned.

- - mom183717 said
  - 25 Jun 2016
    5:55 pm
Gosh what a shocking story and how amazing the father still sees her

- - mom111362 said
  - 22 Jun 2016
    11:36 pm
truly shocking, poor family, what a waste

- - mom156049 said
  - 31 May 2016
    9:52 pm
What a psychopath even if she was controlled by a boyfriend or anyone else – her poor innocent siblings – just awful. Glad she’s in jail and not on the streets to do more evil

- - mom186676 said
  - 24 May 2016
    9:19 pm
Ive watched this story on Tv – And Whilst I find this girl to be a liar and manipulator – If someone I was in a relationship with tried to co-erce me into killing their family Id be straight on the phone to the police, this was not just her boyfriend this was two male friends. These kids always had it in them to be killers or they wouldn’t have killed…. I understand why the father has forgiven her, she didn’t actually kill her family – she got others to do it for her….. There is something very wrong with someone who can kill for the sake of another….. The relationship was clearly really messed up!!! and so were they!!

- - tessie said
  - 15 May 2016
    4:26 pm
He’s a bigger person than I could hope to be. I couldn’t forgive her for doing that to my family.