← UNMARKED: A True Crime Podcast
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- [00:01]
Daniel Pierce
Wait.
- [00:01]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
You don't need an hour to burn calories.
- [00:04]
Courtney Caffey
TikTok has short workouts that get your
- [00:06]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
heart rate up fast.
- [00:08]
Courtney Caffey
Download now and get moving.
- [00:12]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Want to keep up with everything trendy? From breaking news to shareable jokes, pop culture bites to viral food spots, it's all on TikTok. Download TikTok now to explore.
- [00:30]
Daniel Pierce
I had a hard time just getting anyone to talk because the town is trying to forget it.
- [00:36]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
There are some crimes so awful they stain a community long after the headlines disappear. The people who live there spend years trying to understand how kids they knew, kids they watched grow up devolved into violence. 911, what's the address of your emergency?
- [00:54]
Terry Caffey
I've got a man that's been shot out here at my house.
- [00:58]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
On March 1, 2008 in rural East Texas, 16 year old Erin Caffey was accused of orchestrating the murder of her family. Her mother and two younger brothers are killed. Her father barely survives after crawling from their burning home. Today, erin Caffey is 34 years old and according to the Texas inmate database, she becomes eligible for parole in 2038, meaning she could be released before the age of 50.
- [01:31]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Saucer Sanders, the Rains ISD Police Department. I'm here with Erin Caffey who's 14 years of age.
- [01:38]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Was Erin Caffey a teenager manipulated by a psychopath? Was she the architect of the murders? Or is this something more disturbing? Is this the perfect storm of four young people reinforcing each other until fantasy becomes violence?
- [01:56]
Charlene Pence
I don't think one person by themselves would have gone out and done that.
- [02:01]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
As part of our investigation into this case, we've uncovered never before heard audio from the original investigation recordings made only days after the murders.
- [02:12]
Brandon Breimer
Well, this was talked about a month ago.
- [02:14]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
I've gone through these interviews piece by piece and when you hear these conversations for yourself, the case becomes far more complicated than the headlines ever suggested.
- [02:26]
Brandon Breimer
There was no Charlie and he said, well, Aaron was talking about murdering her parents.
- [02:34]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
I'm James Buddy Day. This is unmarked. There are rare cases when someone kills their entire family. Criminologists call this filmicide, a form of mass murder that occurs within a family unit. It's among the rarest forms of homicide in Canada. Researchers identified only 25 familicide cases across a 10 year period. Period? On average, that's roughly two and a half cases a year in the United States. Broader estimates place family annihilation style murders at roughly 20 to 25 cases annually, depending on how that term is defined. And in nearly every case, the perpetrator is an adult male. But insight is often found in the outliers. And the murders of the Caffey family defy almost every convention.
- [03:39]
Daniel Pierce
It was the most talked about story in town. And today, I mean, I remember whenever I was doing it, no local person had gone back out there to try and do another piece on it.
- [03:49]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
I believe that's the voice of Daniel Pierce. He's an investigative reporter who grew up in East Texas. Years later, while working in Tyler, he revisited the Caffey murders on their anniversary a few years ago. I met Daniel while traveling through Tyler, Alba and Emory, Texas, retracing the aftermath of the murders and the trials that followed. The interviews you'll hear in this episode are ones that we recorded during that initial reporting.
- [04:21]
Daniel Pierce
I spent, you know, a week trying to get law enforcement to release an interrogation video and the most I ever got was mug shots. And then just trying to get anybody in the, in the town. I reached out to Aaron, Charlie and Charles. They all declined, you know, to talk.
- [04:37]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
While in Texas, I spent my weekends filing multiple public records requests with the Rains ISD Police department. And eventually I obtained the original police recordings from the case.
- [04:50]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Raines ISD Police Department. It is 10:45, March 1, in the emergency room at Sulphur Springs Hospital.
- [05:00]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
These tapes provide invaluable insight into the case. And using these records, along with court documents, interviews and original reporting, we're going to move beyond the sensational retellings and examine the question at the center of the case. Who is responsible? Erin Caffey, the 16 year old daughter accused of setting everything in motion. Charlie Wilkinson, the boyfriend her father would later describe as a psychopath. Or was it the group itself? Four young people reinforcing one another until fantasy becomes murder. In this episode, it's not about choosing the easy answer. It's about testing all three. So before we go too deep, let me catch you up. On March 1, 2008, police respond to a rural property near Alba, Texas, after reports of a shooting and house fire. The home belongs to Terry and Penny Caffey and their three children, Aaron, Matthew and Tyler. Only Terry Caffey survives, later describing a violent home invasion allegedly carried out by his daughter's ex boyfriend, Charlie Wilkinson. Within hours, Wilkinson is arrested alongside two friends. Soon after, the Caffey's 16 year old daughter, Erin Caffey is also arrested and accused of helping to plan the murders.
- [06:36]
Daniel Pierce
Erin still hasn't admitted or accepted the fact that she did orchestrate all this. She's still saying, you know, I, I could have stopped it. I could have done this and that, but I don't think at any point she's ever said, I did this.
- [06:51]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
What Daniel is describing gets to the center of this case. Over the years, people have tried to force the case into a simpler narrative with claims like Aaron Caffey is a psychopath capable of directing violence through others. Or that she herself fell under the influence of her psychopathic boyfriend Charlie Wilkinson. Or that a group dynamic is to blame. Those are the questions hanging over everything. And to answer them, we need to understand who these people were before the murders, the homes they grew up in, the relationships that began pulling them towards each other. So to understand how this comes together, we have to go all the way back to the beginning. I've spent a lot of time in Texas. I lived in Austin for years. It's where I fell in love with Whataburger, Buc EE's and Torchy's. But Texas is massive, and every region has its own unique identity. East Texas in particular, it feels like a different universe entirely. The highways. Narrow pine forests swallow the horizon. Rusted farm equipment is visible in the tall grass. Small towns bleed into long stretches of woods where everybody knows everybody, or at least they think they do. In 2006, two years before the murders, the the Cathey family moves to Rains county, near the small towns of Alba and Emory. I actually drove out to the former Caffey property. The house sits deep in the woods along a narrow gravel road that bends through dense pine trees.
- [08:46]
Daniel Pierce
Growing up in East Texas, I, you know, I understand the dynamic of the family because they were homeschooled. They were very, you know, churchgoing, God fearing people.
- [08:56]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
I want to push back on that framing because over the years a kind of mythology has grown up around this case. The idea that the Caffeys were simply a normal God fearing family, that's just too reductive. The Caffeys are not casually religious. Terry Caffey and his wife Penny, they meet at a revival. They're deeply embedded in a fierce fundamentalist environment centered around Miracle Faith Baptist Church. Everything about their family life orbits around the church. In fact, reportedly, they moved to Alba specifically to be closer to it, attending services and church functions multiple times every week. So for the Caffey children, faith is not just something practiced on Sundays. This is the environment their three children grow up in. Matthew, known as Bubba, 13 years old. Tyler, who's 8, and their 16 year old daughter Erin.
- [10:02]
Charlene Pence
We met when we were. I was 12 and she was 13. So we met each other relatively young and were pretty inseparable when we first met.
- [10:13]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
This is one of Erin's closest friends at the time, Charlene Pence.
- [10:17]
Charlene Pence
We met at my dad's karate class, so I, I took karate. I really didn't. I wasn't into it at all, but my dad taught the class, so I went and Erin and her brother started the class. And like I said, we just kind of became instant best friends and, and just kind of went on from there. And we're pretty inseparable from that moment.
- [10:41]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
In the years since the murders, pseudoscience commentators and television personalities have speculated that Aaron Caffey was a psychopath. TV shows like Dr. Phil and various body language analysts have pointed to her affect in interviews as evidence of emotional detachment or manipulation. But that's clickbait. There's no science to any of these claims. What we know is that at 16 years old, there's no documented evidence suggesting Aaron Caffey displays the precursors of. Of psychopathy. Quite the opposite, according to people who knew her. She formed strong attachments easily.
- [11:24]
Charlene Pence
She was really quiet when you first met her, but then she was loud. She was fun. We always had a good time. We got along really, really well. We were always really goofy. I mean, your typical teenage girls, I guess.
- [11:37]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
That doesn't mean Erin is innocent, but it does complicate the idea that she fits neatly into the profile of a calculating teenage narcissist.
- [11:47]
Charlene Pence
Her brothers were like my brothers. We would, you know, pick fights with each other, we would play jokes on each other, and it was a really cool family dynamic. I mean, Penny was like my second mom. I mean, I talked to her as much as I talked to Erin at the time.
- [12:03]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Erin and her brothers are being homeschooled by their mother, Penny. And this is key to what comes next.
- [12:09]
Charlene Pence
When you're homeschooled, you get the questions of how do you have friends? And oh, but you're so social. And oh, you're so. So we kind of bonded on that aspect of, you know, we both had to deal with our moms as teachers.
- [12:23]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
The Caffey's homeschooling is another aspect of this case that often gets flattened into something simpler than it actually was. Erin is not homeschooled from childhood as part of some carefully planned educational philosophy. According to investigative notes, when the Caffeys relocate to Rains County, Erin and her brothers initially attend public school. Then, only about a month into the school year, the children are abruptly withdrawn and placed into homeschooling under a Bible based curriculum. And according to later accounts, the catalyst is striking. Erin Reportedly encounters a girl at school who attempts to kiss her in the hallway. Psychologically, this is a family highly focused on self imposed religious boundaries. Rather than treating Aaron's encounter as an uncomfortable but ordinary part of adolescence, the solution is total withdrawal. This is social isolation. And research on adolescents raised in highly insular religious environments such as suggests that this kind of restriction, it can intensify identity conflict rather than resolve it. And for Aaron, that means by the time she meets Charlie Wilkinson, she's not entering the dating world gradually. Like many teenagers, she's encountering an entirely different social identity all at once. It's July of 2006. 7 Erin Caffey gets her driver's license, an old Chevy pickup and a job at the Sonic on Emory's main drag.
- [14:13]
Daniel Pierce
You see, you know, people who maybe grow up in a really, you know, Christian home that they maybe don't get the experience of the outside world a little bit. And Aaron working at Sonic, she was able to, to get a little bit of that. Not like, not like her parents were, were keeping her, trapping her inside her home, but she was able to mixing with people who maybe had different views of the world or different attitudes toward life than she had.
- [14:39]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Teenagers flirt openly. Older kids are drinking. Public school social dynamics are at play. Sexuality, independence, rebellion, entire ways of living her family has spent years trying to keep outside their home. For the first time in her life, Erin is not just observing the outside world at a distance. And for someone raised in a highly insulated environment, that kind of exposure can feel less like ordinary adolescence and more like psychological whiplash. As though an entirely different universe has suddenly opened up in front of you. This is where Erin Caffey is when she meets Charlie Wilkinson, the older teenager who will later carry out the murders alongside a friend. When I speak with investigative reporter Daniel Pierce, he tells me that people in the community still talk about Charlie carefully.
- [15:43]
Daniel Pierce
I had a hard time just getting anyone to talk because the town is trying to forget. You can see photos of him in the yearbook growing up as a kid. And so he grew up in this town interacting with the people there. They knew him. It's not like he was a criminal. He was just a kid that marched to the beat of his own drum, was rebellious, did what he wanted to do.
- [16:06]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
At the time they meet, Charlie and Aaron are in very different places. Charlie is two years older, a senior in public school, and has recently returned from boot camp at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, on with his Texas National Guard unit. That doesn't make him responsible for everything that follows, but it does establish a power dynamic.
- [16:29]
Charlene Pence
When you're a teenage girl and you get a boyfriend, you get slightly obsessed about your boyfriend and how cute his hair is and how cute this is. And I mean, it was pretty much typical teenage girl conversations about boys. So I mean, of course she was infatuated with him, but who isn't when they're a teenage girl?
- [16:50]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
The conflict between Charlie and the Kathy family, it begins about two months before the murders when Aaron introduces Charlie to her father, Terry.
- [17:00]
Daniel Pierce
Terry in his book and you know, interviews and just even in talking with people that knew Terry and that knew Charlie, it was always, you know, he just didn't take those extra steps to be a gentleman to the family. You know, if a dad walks into a room, you stand up, you shake his hand. That's just you grow up learning that. And apparently he, you know, didn't really do that. He just kind of sat there and said, who are, who are you?
- [17:25]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
But it's more than simple disrespect. Charlie Wilkinson exists outside the moral and social bubble the Cathys have built around themselves and their children. He's not part of their church community. He's not homeschooled. He doesn't share the same expectations around authority, family hierarchy or religious identity. So when Terry meets Charlie, he's not just evaluating a teenage boyfriend. He's evaluating someone who represents an entirely different worldview, entering his home through his daughter. And from Terry's perspective, Charlie immediately fails that test. This is audio of Terry Caffey speaking with investigators on March 3rd. In this interview he's describing his first impression of Charlie.
- [18:15]
Terry Caffey
They came going out for maybe four, six months, I guess not long. And when we first met this guy, I just had funny people. First of all, it was just because he was annoying. You talk all the time, you just do everything about everything.
- [18:31]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
We can start to see the emotional triangle forming a deeply controlled religious environment. A 16 year old girl just beginning to experience independence and an older boyfriend who represents everything outside the boundaries of her family's world. And in this case the question becomes whether that emotional pressure begins pushing everyone towards something dangerous. Dangerous.
- [19:00]
Daniel Pierce
Aaron, over that six months period, that's whenever he noticed, just looking at the dynamic of her, she was becoming more rebellious, more distant from, you know, the family that she grew up in that, that displayed, you know, love and affection and in this God fearing family of trying to, to mold this young, young girl.
- [19:20]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
This again is Terry Caffey describing his concerns to police.
- [19:24]
Terry Caffey
I was afraid they're going to run off together or something. I was Trying to give a little slack there, keep an eye on Paige. But we just started thinking we could tell. She started changing the last few months.
- [19:39]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
According to Terry, his daughter begins to change rapidly during this time, he says, Erin stops taking care of herself the way she used to, stops washing her hair, stops dressing the same way. Erin is not just changing her appearance. She is reorganizing her identity around Charlie Wilkinson, around his approval, his values, and increasingly, his conflict with her parents. Research on adolescence raised in highly controlled environments suggests that the first romantic relationship can become psychologically oversized, especially when it represents freedom and access to the outside world.
- [20:22]
Terry Caffey
He seemed to be controlling. He like, he wanted to know everywhere she was. Oh, but he like, showered her with shower curve with, like, roses all the time, real protective gifts. And they ran. He's on each other a month.
- [20:36]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
From Terry's perspective, Charlie appears possessive and controlling. And there are elements here that do resemble coerce of attachment. Excessive gifts, constant monitoring, emotional intensity. But again, we have to be careful because we're already seeing this situation through the eyes of a father who already sees Charlie as outside his moral world, and he's watching his daughter drift away from the family's religion in real time. So this evidence does not settle the questions. It complicates it, because by this point, we still don't have the full picture. And that's because the murders involve two other people. Charles Wade and Bobby Johnson, 19 and 18 years old, respectively.
- [21:29]
Daniel Pierce
Aaron was. Was the youngest of the group. And so whenever you're the youngest of a group like that, just in my. My personal experience, being a young person hanging out with a bunch of older, older guys or girls or a group of people, it. It's something that is just a cool
- [21:47]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
feeling, you know, Most people imagine murder as a solitary act. One offender, one motive, one pathology. But criminologists have long understood that groups can be more dangerous than individuals. Responsibility diffuses, loyalty begins, replacing morality. And violence can become normalized inside the group, each member helping to reinforce behavior that none of them might commit alone. And this is especially true among teenagers and young adults. And that brings us back to the central question of this case. Is Aaron Cathy driving the violence and using this group as a mechanism to carry it out? Or is Charlie Wilkinson the dominant personality, pulling everyone to understand we have to pull apart the final weeks leading up to the murders. And that begins with a promise ring given to Aaron by Charlie. According to investigative notes and interviews, Charlie gives Aaron this ring shortly after Christmas of 2007. It's roughly three months before the murders. This again is Terry speaking to detectives.
- [23:05]
Terry Caffey
We was at church one night, and my wife came up and said, did you see what Erin's out of her finger? I said, no, she got a wedding, man. I said, no, she don't. So I went, look. Sure enough, she did. So I pulled him to the side, and I confronted him about it. I said, she's just 16. You realize that Y' all moving way too fast.
- [23:22]
Daniel Pierce
He had given her an engagement ring. And then Terry, Aaron's father, saw it and just basically flipped out and said, you're giving that ring back to him. This is not happening. Once you move out of my house, then you can. You can. You can do whatever you want to do, but here on my roof, you're not.
- [23:41]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
At 16 years old, a promise ring carries enormous emotional weight. It's not just jewelry. It represents identity, a future self. And for Aaron, the ring symbolizes something even larger. A life outside of her church and family.
- [24:00]
Daniel Pierce
Here you have a kid in high school who meets this. This girl who's 100%, you know, different than him. Fall in love, of course. Yeah, you're going to propose and try and marry her.
- [24:11]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
This again is Terry Caffey speaking with detectives.
- [24:15]
Brandon Breimer
Bring my lops.
- [24:16]
Terry Caffey
Set them down. A couple days after we found the ring, we had him come over and we handed the ring back to him. We said, this is not appropriate. And I said, and that was disrespectful how you talk too much. Church and the man. I said, because if you're not going to respect me, how are you going to respect my daughter?
- [24:31]
Daniel Pierce
The ring basically just set off to, hey, no, we're putting an end to this now, because I can't remember if Terry had tried to stop it beforehand. She continued to see him. Then, after telling Aaron that she couldn't see him again, they caught her talking to him on the phone.
- [24:50]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
This becomes the turning point. Once Terry and Penny insist the relationship end, Charlie is no longer just a boyfriend to Aaron. Losing him now threatens the future she's emotionally attached herself to. So, predictably, Aaron and Charlie begin communicating secretly, reportedly using MySpace to stay in contact.
- [25:13]
James Pence
Penny had accessed Charlie's MySpace page, and they saw some things on it that as parents and as Christian parents, they just. They didn't really approve of.
- [25:26]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
That's James Pence, one of the Caffey's friends at the time, who later co wrote a book with Terry Caffey called Terror by Night. And again, I think the term Christian parents undersells what's happening here. The Caffeys are Not simply religious in the casual cultural sense. Their church is the center of their family life. Aaron has already been pulled out of public school. Now, through Charlie, that outside world is re entering the home on the computer through MySpace.
- [25:58]
James Pence
I think there were tensions there. Again, probably not more than any parent would interpret as typical adolescent, you know, issues with a daughter who you might not like the boyfriend.
- [26:14]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
We're seeing a recognizable adolescent pattern intensified inside a highly controlled environment. An increasingly polarized relationship between teenager and parent.
- [26:26]
Daniel Pierce
That's what's hard at, you know, such a young age.
- [26:29]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
You.
- [26:29]
Daniel Pierce
You feel infatuated with somebody, you know, the first person that you're able to talk to that has different views than you, and you. You fall head over heels, you say you're gonna get married, and then this happens.
- [26:41]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
And that's how we arrive at the key question, the decision to act. Over the years, the case has been framed in radically different ways. Some portray Aaron as the mastermind. Others point to Charlie as the driving force. So let's look at the evidence. According to reporter Danielle Pierce and others, it's Aaron who first introduces the idea of killing her parents.
- [27:07]
Daniel Pierce
Apparently, a couple weeks before that, Aaron had been talking, you know, just whether it be venting or she was actually serious, talked about, you know, I just want my family dead. You know, I wish that they were dead. Which, I mean, if you have ever been mad at your parents or, you know, at that age to where they just kind of contain you or they tell you you can't do a certain thing and you want to do it, of course you're going to lash out and say stuff like that. You vent. And that might have. Who knows if that might have been what she was doing in the moment with Charlie, but then just kept building and building.
- [27:37]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Now, that directly contradicts claims that Erin Caffey has made over the years, specifically that Charlie Wilkinson is the first person to introduce the idea. But according to multiple witness statements taken immediately after the murders, Aaron is the one floating the idea of murdering her parents. This is a police interview with Brandon Breimer, a close friend of Charlie Wilkinson's, recorded within days of the murders.
- [28:07]
Brandon Breimer
So this was talked about a month ago between them, and Charlie talked to you about it? Charlie was telling me, asking, you know, he came over, and it was just a typical hangout night, because we hang out, you know, once class, always try to. I said, what's new, Charlie? And he said, well, Aaron's talking about murdering her parents. And I was like, no way. He was like, yeah, she is. I was like, she trying to get
- [28:30]
Terry Caffey
you to do it.
- [28:31]
Brandon Breimer
He was like, yeah, but I can't. Dude, they got three little kids in that house.
- [28:36]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
It's difficult to know exactly what weight to give this evidence. Teenagers inside emotionally intense relationships often engage in catastrophic fantasy language. I hate my parents. I wish they were dead. We can't be together because of them. But the deeper I dig through this evidence, the more I've come to question whether Aaron is truly originating the plot or simply reflecting back ideas that are already circulating inside the relationship and the group around her. Because there are other witnesses from the time, and they describe something very different.
- [29:14]
Charlene Pence
Wanna be a star? No problem. Anyone can shine on TikTok. Post your first video today.
- [29:21]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Real life, real story, real you.
- [29:24]
Charlene Pence
Download TikTok and get started.
- [29:29]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Yes, you can. A five minute quick and easy calorie burning workout. Give it a try. Come join our sweat sesh on tick Tock. This is a police interview with Aaron's cousin, Courtney Caffey.
- [29:45]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Did Charlie ever say how he wanted him to die? Or did he ever go into detail about them dying? I mean, did he ever. Did he ever say anything?
- [29:55]
Courtney Caffey
He told me once that he. He wanted to get somebody or himself to do something to her parents or something like that, so I guess they could be together or whatever.
- [30:12]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
According to this witness and others, it isn't Aaron introducing the idea. It's Charlie.
- [30:18]
Courtney Caffey
He is, like, saying stuff like he just wished that they would die so that they could be together and stuff. And I was like, you know, that's my family.
- [30:27]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Charlie would tell you that.
- [30:28]
Courtney Caffey
Yeah. And then.
- [30:31]
Officer Zoster Sanders
So he's told you before that he wishes that they would die?
- [30:35]
Courtney Caffey
Yeah, but I never thought that he would do something like this.
- [30:42]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
So is Erin Caffey encouraging these fantasies or is she reflecting back what Charlie is already saying?
- [30:49]
Courtney Caffey
Her parents got mad and they were just like, well, I don't think you should see Charlie anymore. So then Erin kind of got upset, but then she, you know, did what her parents said and she broke up with them.
- [31:00]
Officer Zoster Sanders
When was Leia?
- [31:01]
Courtney Caffey
I think it was. It was Friday. Thursday or Friday.
- [31:05]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Thursday or Friday. So that's very recent in the end. Just a couple days ago.
- [31:09]
Courtney Caffey
And then.
- [31:09]
Officer Zoster Sanders
So she broke up with Charlie.
- [31:11]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Mm. According to Aaron's friend from the time, Charlene Pence, there are no obvious warning signs from Aaron leading up to the murders.
- [31:20]
Charlene Pence
Could I have done something? Could I have seen the signs? But looking back, every memory I ever had of going over there, of being with Aaron, of being with her family, it was all good. I never had any negativity I never saw her slamming her bedroom door and getting mad at her parents, so I never really saw anything.
- [31:40]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
So what we can say is this. Both Aaron and Charlie appear to be openly discussing the idea with a other people while simultaneously framing the other person as the one driving it, all the while maintaining an intense secrecy within the relationship. And at a certain point it becomes impossible to untangle where the idea truly begins. And this is when the two other members of the group are pulled in. Charles Wade and Bobby Johnson. This again is investigative reporter Daniel Pierce.
- [32:17]
Daniel Pierce
I never understood why Charles and Bobby went through with it though. I never understood that by this time,
- [32:25]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Charles Wade is 20 years old. Like the others, he comes out of an East Texas Christian household. But his life is already more complicated. He's married, recently separated from his wife, and has an infant daughter. Some reports I found suggest he may have had more than one child. Wade and Charlie Wilkinson are close friends with multiple accounts describing nights spent drinking and driving around, occasionally getting into fights. In other words, Wade is not connected to the Caffey's insulated faith based world any more than Charlie Wilkinson is. He enters the story through Charlie Wilkinson
- [33:07]
James Pence
in Charles was promised $2,000. The Aaron said that they had or that, that Terry and Penny had $2,000 in a safe in the house. And so they promised Charles that money. And so that was his motive for, for plugging in, according to the, the you know, police records and interviews.
- [33:35]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
They also bring along Charlie Wade's girlfriend, Bobby Johnson, described by people who knew her as outgoing, bubbly and largely unprepared for the reality of what is unfolding on the night of the murders. The group is driving her silver Dodge Neon.
- [33:53]
James Pence
Bobby was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Honestly, it's one of those things where I, I don't think she fully appreciated or understood what was, what was going down.
- [34:12]
Charlene Pence
I don't think one person by themselves would have gone out and done that. I think it was a group thing. They all got wrapped up into it and it happened.
- [34:24]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
People can reframe violence as justified, necessary or even loving. In the Cathy case, the murders are repeatedly framed inside the group as a way for Aaron and Charlie to be together. That emotional framing helps reduce guilt and blur moral boundaries. Psychologists sometimes refer to this process as moral disengagement. This again is Brandon Breimer speaking with detectives.
- [34:53]
Brandon Breimer
I'm friends with all four of the
- [34:54]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Pay for my ball.
- [34:55]
Brandon Breimer
Okay. All right. Some a little bit better than others. Any indication that this was going on? No, sir. I mean I've seen I think Bobby and Charles, I think Friday night or was it Thursday night? It was Thursday or Friday night. I can't recall clearly, but they were, you know, just happy as bluebirds. Didn't show, no sign of anything. Okay. When I seen Charlie on Thursday, he didn't show like he was gonna do it. I mean, he was just happy to go lucky.
- [35:25]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
On March 1, 2008, Terry Cathy arrives home around 9pm he watches television, goes to bed, and sometime later he wakes up to the sound of the family dog barking
- [35:41]
Terry Caffey
some palomel. And I heard my dog barking. Bartin was what? Shut up. But he'll bark with the black lab and he'll bark anyway. I'll get up and go outside. Sh light. You will have a cum tree or certain squirrel or you're barking anything.
- [35:56]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Waiting outside is the group of Charlie Wilkinson, Charles Wade and Bobby Joe Johnson. But at first, according to investigators, they lose their nerve.
- [36:08]
Daniel Pierce
They drive up to the house, the dog's barking. Then Charlie, Charles and Bobby drove away. And Aaron's like, no, come back. Like, I'm going to hold the dog and everything's going to be fine.
- [36:19]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Regardless of where the original idea comes from, this is an active decision point. According to phone records and witness accounts, Erin is not simply present. She is participating, looking at it too. She held the dog.
- [36:35]
Daniel Pierce
The phone record showed that she was calling them to come back to the house to finish it. But I mean, just to carry it out, just get it over with. I mean, you just don't do that without thinking like, okay, this is gonna work. We're gonna do it. Tonight's a night
- [36:52]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
not long after the three return to the Cathey property at Aaron's behest. According to police reports, Erin Caffey exits the house and she and Bobby Johnson remain outside in Bobby's car while Charlie Wilkinson and Charles Wade enter the house through the front door, which Aaron has left unlocked. Both Wilkinson and Wade are armed with.22 caliber pistols at this point and a large blade described in media reports as a samurai sword.
- [37:25]
Daniel Pierce
Aaron sat in the car with Bobby and Aaron held an actual dog to keep it from, you know, running off, making noise while Charlie and Charles went inside the house.
- [37:35]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Within minutes, the Caffey family is attacked inside their home. Investigators later describe the scene as chaotic and extremely violent. The gun jams during the assault, the attackers move room to room. Terry and Penny are shot in their bedroom while the younger boys attempt to hide elsewhere in the house.
- [37:57]
Daniel Pierce
Even if you look at it, it was, it was, you know, the autopsy report and police investigators it, it was sloppy. It's like you could tell this family was. Was butchered.
- [38:06]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
And it's Aaron Cathy's actions immediately afterward that become important. According to investigators, she does not flee from the others. She doesn't call for help or attempt to separate herself from the crime. Instead, she leaves with the group.
- [38:23]
Daniel Pierce
Not only did she leave the house with them, they then went and dumped the sword off into a creek, which is about, I mean, maybe 10 miles from the house, then drive back across town over to Charlie Wilkinson's brother's house.
- [38:39]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
But unknown to Aaron, Charlie, or the others, Terry Caffey survives the attack. This is Terry's friend and co author James Pence, alongside Terry's police interview, describing the events that happen next.
- [38:54]
James Pence
He said the first shot kind of blew him out of the bed. And it was a very tight, narrow bedroom. And Terry's side of the bed there, there wasn't much space between him and. And the wall.
- [39:08]
Terry Caffey
The next day, I remember waking up, it was hot, and I tipped my bed to put it. My bed is on fire. Our club rack was through firing. I hear a rolling fire.
- [39:20]
James Pence
When he woke up, the house was engulfed in. So he climbed over the bed and he saw that Penny was very clearly dead. At that point, he was kind of in survival mode and not really knowing what to do.
- [39:36]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
But he's bleeding at this time.
- [39:38]
James Pence
He was bleeding. He was wearing his, I believe he said, pajama pants and a T shirt. He would walk a few steps and then, you know, fall down and then catch his breath and then crawl a few feet further, and then he'd get up and stumble a little further.
- [39:59]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
At this point, terry crawls roughly 600 yards to the home of his nearest neighbor, Tommy Gaston. He's been shot multiple times and is bleeding heavily. At one point, according to later accounts, he falls into a creek and nearly drowns. Before or continuing on.
- [40:18]
Daniel Pierce
That was the shocking part for me whenever I went out to the scene was seeing how far Terry had to crawl. He had been shot several times in the back and the face. He then crawled out of his house, you know, crawled along, you know, 500, 600 yards of land just to get to Tommy Gaston's house.
- [40:36]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
This is the actual 911 call that night placed by neighbor Tommy Gaston. 91 1.
- [40:43]
Courtney Caffey
What's the address of your emergency?
- [40:45]
Terry Caffey
This is Tommy Gaskin. I've got a man that's been shot out here at my house.
- [40:51]
Daniel Pierce
The first thing Terry says is, they're all dead. Penny and the kids are dead. And the 911 tape is him saying, there's a massive fire out here. I got a guy who's been shot. I need help.
- [41:03]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
When did this happen?
- [41:04]
Terry Caffey
I don't know. Just a little bit ago. And we've also got a house on fire out here.
- [41:09]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
And the house is on fire.
- [41:11]
Daniel Pierce
The 911 tape says, you know, sir, who shot him? How, where is he bleeding? And he said, Tommy Gaston, whenever he talked to me, said, he's bleeding everywhere. He's bleeding from all over.
- [41:23]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Okay, what part of the body was injured?
- [41:25]
Terry Caffey
I don't know. I don't know, but I've got to go.
- [41:27]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Sir. I need to know where he was shot. I need to know where he was shot at.
- [41:32]
Terry Caffey
I don't know.
- [41:34]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
He's right there. And you don't know where he was shot?
- [41:36]
Terry Caffey
Yes.
- [41:36]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Where is he bleeding?
- [41:43]
Daniel Pierce
Terry thought that all of his family was dead. He thought that he was the only person to make it out.
- [41:46]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
It's important to keep one thing in mind at this point. Terry Caffey believes his entire family has been murdered by Charlie Wilkinson, including Aaron. Police are dispatched almost immediately and quickly locate Charlie at his brother's home nearby.
- [42:04]
Daniel Pierce
Within hours, they were at Charlie Wilkinson's brother's house. And as investigators were looking through the house, they actually saw Aaron.
- [42:16]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Before the police locate Aaron, Charlie Wilkinson denies all involvement, though investigators reportedly notice blood spattered boots in plain view and quickly obtain a search warrant. That's when one of the officers noticed what appears to be straw colored hair beneath a pile of clothes.
- [42:36]
Daniel Pierce
They thought it was a doll at first until they moved the hair. Aaron moved. And they said, oh my gosh, that's Aaron. And then she mentioned how she woke up in a house of smoke. She was forced out of the house, kidnapped. She didn't know what was going on. She was drugged.
- [42:53]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Of all the evidence I received, received from authorities, this tape, it may be the most important. This is the actual police interview with Aaron Caffey on the day of the murders. What you're about to hear is Kathy being interviewed by investigators from the Rains ISD Police Department.
- [43:13]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Zoster Sanders, the Reigns ISD Police Department. I'm here with Aaron Caffey, who's 14 years of age and, and we were in the emergency room speaking in reference to the incidences that occurred last night. Today is March 1, 2008. Aaron, you said that you woke up and smoke was everywhere. Is that right?
- [43:41]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
To put this in context, this recording is only audio. Aaron hasn't been arrested or. Or charged, having been discovered at the Wilkinson home only hours earlier. And from the beginning of the interview, the investigator is treating her less like a suspect and more like a traumatized child. I'm going to play one line again. Listen carefully.
- [44:05]
Officer Zoster Sanders
I'm here with Aaron Caffey, who's 14 years of age.
- [44:10]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
The officer incorrectly states that Aaron is. Is 14 years old, and Aaron, who's actually 16, never corrects her. And that detail is revealing because throughout the interview, Aaron appears to regress emotionally while simultaneously maintaining this false story that's meant to protect the group's involvement. She's almost inaudible at times, crying softly, speaking in fragments, sounding far younger than 16. It's as though the reality of the murders has collided with the fantasy that preceded them. And Aaron retreats into a more childlike emotional state while still trying to hold on to the narrative she's constructed.
- [44:54]
Officer Zoster Sanders
And you said that two guys were with swords. Are you okay? Tell me again what they told you to do.
- [45:15]
Courtney Caffey
You know, and stay down. Face down.
- [45:19]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Get down. And stay down. Face down.
- [45:21]
Daniel Pierce
Aaron makes up the story of. I was kidnapped by people. They had a. You know, had a sore up to me. I woke up in a house of smoke.
- [45:29]
Courtney Caffey
I was in this house that was, like, full of smoking.
- [45:33]
Officer Zoster Sanders
You were in a house full of smoke? Was it your house? You don't think it was. Were you in a bedroom or a living room or.
- [45:41]
Courtney Caffey
It was a couch.
- [45:42]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Did you see any guns?
- [45:45]
Courtney Caffey
Yes. TV or something?
- [45:47]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Did you hear any gunshots? What were they wearing?
- [45:54]
Courtney Caffey
They were in all black. All black?
- [45:56]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Black.
- [45:57]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
The story is incoherent. The details are vague. The explanations sound improvised and childlike. It's not calculated in the way that adult psychopaths perform emotion. Instead, it suggests panic, emotional collapse, cognitive overload. None of this makes Aaron Caffey innocent. In fact, quite the opposite. But it does debunk the innocence image of a cold, fully formed mastermind calmly executing a plan.
- [46:27]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Charlie's your boyfriend? Is he your boyfriend? Or was he.
- [46:30]
Courtney Caffey
Or he was.
- [46:31]
Officer Zoster Sanders
He was. Why isn't he now?
- [46:34]
Courtney Caffey
I don't know. We just. My mom really didn't rock in, and so she was.
- [46:40]
Terry Caffey
Brooklyn.
- [46:41]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Okay? She didn't like him yet, so she made y' all break up.
- [46:44]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
It's easy to forget how young Aaron Caffey is until you hear hear the full tape itself. This interview is 15 minutes long, and I'm gonna let you do just that. I'll post the full recording on Patreon inside unmarked case files.
- [47:01]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Can you remember anything else? Okay, we're gonna end the interview at this time. You did good. Okay.
- [47:10]
Daniel Pierce
At what Point do you think, okay, this. This isn't gonna. This isn't gonna blow up in our faces. This we're gonna get away with it? And that's. That's the part that you. You don't understand. I mean, these right here are just kids just going on a rampage. And that's one thing that I never understood why I think that they could get away with it.
- [47:30]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
And then the story shifts again, because once investigators begin separately interviewing Charlie Wilkinson, Charles Wade, and Bobby Johnson, the blame immediately starts moving towards Aaron. Aaron Wilkinson in particular begins implicating Aaron almost immediately. This again is the police interview conducted with Charlie Wilkinson's friend Brandon Breimer, after Wilkinson calls him from jail. This recording takes place within roughly 72 hours of the murders.
- [48:03]
Brandon Breimer
It is Tuesday, March 4, 2008, at 8:13am this is Detective Richard Almond. Rains County Sheriff's office is present in the room with me is Brandon Brimer. We did not call you, correct? No, sir. You came of your own free will? Yes, sir. Why'd you come this morning? To tell you some information that we thought you might need. What information is that? Well, I got a collect phone call from Mr. Charlie Wilkinson. Yesterday?
- [48:30]
Terry Caffey
Yes, sir.
- [48:31]
Brandon Breimer
Okay.
- [48:32]
Terry Caffey
He.
- [48:33]
Brandon Breimer
He mentioned a lot, little bit about Aaron talking him into doing it. He said she was kind of behind the whole real scheme. Had he ever mentioned it to you before, that this had been talked about or anything like this? About a month ago, he was telling me that his girlfriend was thinking about it. Who was his girlfriend?
- [48:51]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Aaron from jail. Wilkinson repeatedly frames Aaron Cathy as the driving force.
- [48:58]
Brandon Breimer
You ask him a question? What was the question? Oh, about the shooting? Yes. I asked him if he pulled the trigger. What did he say? He said, yes, I shot the mom and the dad, but I did not shoot the kids. He said he couldn't pull the trigger on a little kid. I asked him why he did it. He said Aaron talked him into doing it. And then we went to a conversation about how he told her to just run away and she wouldn't do it, and he didn't know how she talked him into doing something like this.
- [49:29]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
So we're left in an uncomfortable place. The evidence shows Aaron is not merely a passive bystander, but it also does not support the image of a sadistic teenage psychopath orchestrating murder with detached precision. Instead, what emerges is something messier. Adolescent fantasy, emotional fusion, coercion, loyalty, resentment, group reinforcement. It all collapses into real violence.
- [50:04]
Daniel Pierce
Even in interviews, you know, post what happened, he talked about how he still loved her. And what's sad Is Aaron says, oh, I just. I don't feel that way anymore. And it's like you. It took the death of your mother and your two brothers to find that out.
- [50:23]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Police now face the impossible task of telling Terry Caffey that his daughter is alive, but involved Terry because he was
- [50:32]
Daniel Pierce
still in the hospital. He found out that his daughter was alive, and then investigators come in and, you know, say, you know, Aaron had something to do with this. And then Terry asked what was her involvement? And they say her involvement was great.
- [50:51]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
This is the actual police interview of that moment recorded with Terry two days after the murders, while he's still recovering in hospital. Today is 3rd day of March, 2008,
- [51:05]
Terry Caffey
and the time now is 12 3pm
- [51:09]
James Pence
do you mind a portfolio?
- [51:12]
Terry Caffey
I don't want to know a whole lot of detail, but yeah. What kind of embalment would she in the inquiries? Her vomit?
- [52:04]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
And maybe that's the real horror at the center of this case. Not simply that a familicide occurs, but that even afterwards, nobody can fully agree on what Aaron Caffey actually is. Because the whole situation is psychologically messy. A teenager raised inside a highly controlled religious environment where family morality, education and identity. Identity are tightly intertwined. It suddenly collides with romance, rebellion, sexuality and independence and a social group willing to reinforce fantasy instead of restraining it.
- [52:43]
Daniel Pierce
You can imagine this father's struggle too. You know, he wants. He wants them to pay. Almost like Aaron wanted her family to pay for the shelter that they had brought her up in, or her blaming them. And so you kind of see Terry was so angry. But then after, you know, especially religiously, people, you know, praying as often as you can, that's what. That's what he did. And ultimately led to him saying, you know, writing letters saying, I don't want them to die.
- [53:12]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Wade, Wilkinson, Johnson and Kathy, they're each charged with capital murder. All are tried as adults, and all accept plea deals for. For life terms with the possibility of parole. Over the years, Terry Caffey becomes an advocate for forgiveness. He publicly opposes the death penalty for the people responsible, including his own daughter. And maybe that's the final contradiction of this story. The same faith, obedience, and tightly controlled family structure that helped create these emotional conditions surrounding the murder. Murders. It also allows Terry to survive them. It's sentiments like that that make the Cathie case so unsettling. It's not just that it defies convention. It's that it doesn't stop. Strip away the headlines, the brutality and the spectacle, and underneath we find dynamics that exist in countless homes and communities. Overprotective parents, teenagers searching for identity, love, social isolation, rebellion, peer pressure, fear of the outside world. And maybe that's why people in East Texas still hesitate when they talk about the case. Because fully confronting what happened inside the Caffey home means confronting all of the underlying forces that actually made this possible.
- [54:42]
Terry Caffey
Possible.
- [54:48]
Narrator (James Buddy Day)
Before we wrap a few show notes, we covered a ton of evidence in this episode and we're going to be posting a lot of it inside our research portal, Unmarked Case Files on Patreon, where you can examine the evidence for yourself. Next. As many of you know, I am an independent author. I have two books out right now. The first is Charles Manson the the Last Words. This covers my 10 years of research on the Manson family, including all the conversations I had with Charles Manson himself. The best place to get it is Amazon, Kindle or Kindle Unlimited. And if you're a reader like me, I read voraciously. I'm deeply into dark, grim dark fantasy and I've written my first novel. It's called A Plague of Steel and likewise, it's available on Kindle, Amazon and Kindle Unlimited for a limited time. This episode of Unmarked was produced by John Nadeau and edited by Dave Alderson. Our additional producer is Jesse Demery. Until next week, this is Unmarked.
- [55:52]
Officer Zoster Sanders
Hate cleaning, Hate scrubbing, Hate dishwashing.
- [55:56]
Charlene Pence
Bro.
- [55:57]
Officer Zoster Sanders
We got you millions of videos about smart cleaning hacks will make your chores feel like a breeze. Download TikTok and check it out.
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Courtney Caffey
Wait. You don't need an hour to burn calories. TikTok has short workouts that get your
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Narrator (James Buddy Day)
heart rate up fast.
- [56:15]
Courtney Caffey
Download now and get moving.
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