Forgiving father whose 16-year-old daughter murdered her mother and two brothers after row over boyfriend says he's desperate to live long enough to see her walk out of jail

Forgiving father whose 16-year-old daughter murdered her mother and two brothers after row over boyfriend says he's desperate to live long enough to see her walk out of jail

In 2008, 16-year-old Erin Caffey convinced her boyfriend to brutally murder her entire family in their sleep after her parents banned them from being together. He and an accomplice broke into the house and went on a horrifically bloody killing spree while she waited in the car.

They shot her father multiple times before decapitating his wife with a sword, shot 8-year-old Tyler in the face, and took turns hacking 13-year-old Matthew to death with the sword before looting the house and setting it on fire.

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Terry Caffey was the sole survivor when attackers murdered his wife and two young sons on the night of March 1 2008.

Caffey’s 16-year-old daughter, Erin, was then discovered to have orchestrated the slaughter of her entire family after her parents told her she could no longer see the boy she was dating.

Now Mr Caffey has spoken out about why he has forgiven the killers and his daughter, who was convicted of three counts of murder.

Determined not to become 'angry' and 'bitter', Caffey decided to forgive his daughter, the two men who carried out the killings and another female accomplice.

He now visits his daughter in prison and prays that he will live long enough to be able to fetch Erin when she is released from jail. She will not be eligible for parole until she is 59-years-old. He will bein his 80s.

‘I want to get Erin. I want us to walk away, arm in arm, and never look back,’ Caffey said during his interview ABC for their Final Witness show. 

Terry Caffey is a survivor of a brutal murder attempt. He survived being shot five times and the arson that burned down his Alba, Texas, home. His wife Penny and their two young sons, 13-year-old Matthew, whom everyone called Bubba, and 8-year-old Tyler, did not. ABC's new TV series, "Final Witness," recreates the 2008 tragedy Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET from court documents and interviews with those involved, and Caffey detailed what happened that fatal Friday night for "Nightline." "I am sound asleep in my bed and just immediately the gunshots went off," he said. "It was so loud and it's even hard to describe. I mean, can you imagine someone standing over you and shooting when you're sound asleep and now you're being attacked in your bed?" Caffey said his wife had been shot first. She was found facing their bedroom door. "The first few bullets hit her and then I raised up and I threw my body out and I took a few rounds in the upper body part and the chest and I got shot in the face

The programme details the tragic events of March 1 2008, which happened two days after Erin's parents told her she could no longer see her 19-year-old boyfriend Charlie Wilkinson as they believed he was a bad influence.

After Wilkinson, 19, and Charles Wade, 20, broke into the family’s Alba, Texas, home they began their executions by shooting Caffey’s 37-year-old wife, Penny.

Caffey recalls how he was awoken by the gunshots before being shot in the upper body then the face.

The house also been set on fire at this point. Bleeding from five gunshot wounds, Caffey tried to escape but flames and black smoke forced him to stay in his bedroom.

It was then he found his wife. He recalls the horror: 'When I saw her, it was a terrible scene, her nearly decapitated head. I knew she was gone.'

Their 13-year-old son, Matthew, who was affectionately known as Bubba, was shot in the face when he left his bedroom to see what was happening. The couple’s youngest child, eight-year-old Tyler, was stabbed to death.

Caffey describes how Tyler's murder was the ‘ hardest thing’ he heard. The young boy was hiding in a closet when the killers found him and took turns stabbing him to death.

‘I just couldn't believe that's how they did [it], and it goes back to that guilt and I felt I should have been able to save them and I couldn't,’ Caffey told ABC.

He was then able to crawl to a neighbour’s house 300 yards away. The neighbour called 911 and Caffey was airlifted to hospital.

It was lying in a hospital bed, knowing that three of his family were killed, that Caffey discovered that his daughter had been arrested and charged with the murder of her mother and two brothers. 

He remembers screaming from his bed when his sister told him the news. Caffey admits that initially he wanted the murderers to die, to 'pay for their crimes'.

But then Caffey, a preacher who now travels the country telling his story, decided to forgive. When the case went to trial he pleaded that the murderers be spared the death penalty.

He saw himself becoming an angry bitter person and ‘that’s not who I am’, he explains.

Caffey decided that to stop becoming a person consumed with anger he must move on: ‘It's time to forgive. It's time to enjoy life again. Life does go on.'

Charlie Wilkinson, and his two accomplices Charles Wade and Bobbi Johnson were convicted on the same murder charges as Erin.

Caffey says that his daughter is ‘very remorseful’ about her role in the murders but she argues it was Wilkinson not her who initiated the plot to kill her family.

Prosecutors believe that it was Erin who plotted the crime but Caffey refuses to believe that.

Knowing that he will never be able to walk his daughter down the aisle reduces him to tears.

Caffey has remarried and now lives with his new wife and two stepsons in Wills Point, Texas.