Big Trouble in Wills Point, Texas

Charlie Wilkinson and Erin Caffey

The Sunday Times June 21, 2009

The Texas (Caffey) Family Massacre

When A teenage girl’s parents banned her from seeing her boyfriend, she asked him to kill her entire family. He complied, with a little help from a friend.

Alex Hannaford

Three hearses stand outside the funeral home by White Rose Cemetery on the outskirts of the historic town of Wills Point, Texas. A low black fence circles the lawns and has little eulogies welded into the metalwork: to Amy Louise Harris, town sweetheart; to all the business and professional women interred here. The headstones in White Rose are not imposing — just small, simple slabs dedicated to mothers, fathers and, sometimes, children.

Terry Caffey drives through in his white Chevy truck. He turns down a path, takes a left and pulls up in the shade of a small tree. Since March last year he has made this journey many times. He gets out and walks up to three inconspicuous stones. One reads: Penny Lynn Caffey, and has an engraving of a keyboard and musical notes. Another reads: “Bubba” Matthew Ryan Caffey, son of Terry and Penny. It has an engraving of a guitar. The last reads: Tyler Paul Caffey, son of Terry and Penny. This one has an engraving of a toy cart. All have the same date of death: March 1, 2008.

That was a Saturday and the sun had not yet come up. Terry and Penny were asleep in their two-storey wooden cabin, nestled in 20 acres of woodland near the small town of Emory. Thirteen-year-old Bubba and 8-year-old Tyler were also asleep, upstairs, as was the Caffeys’ 16-year-old daughter, Erin — or so they thought.

Shortly after 3am, two men armed with guns and a samurai sword let themselves in. By the time the sun rose, Bubba and Tyler were dead, their bodies riddled with bullets, Penny had been decapitated and the house had been burnt to the ground. Terry, bleeding profusely, had managed to escape from the burning cabin and crawled for an hour through the woods to his neighbours’ house. A few days later, while recovering in his hospital bed, he was told the unthinkable — that his daughter had masterminded the entire thing.

Erin had been dating an older boy from school, Charlie Wilkinson, but her parents thought Wilkinson was arrogant and a bit of a thug and told Erin they didn’t want her seeing him.

Around one or two in the morning, Erin called Wilkinson. It was time. A month earlier, she had asked her boyfriend to kill her family. It was the only way, she said, they could ever be together.
Wilkinson pulled up outside the Caffey house in a silver Dodge Neon with his schoolfriend Charles Waid and Waid’s girlfriend, Bobbi Johnson. Erin came out in her pyjamas and got in the car while Wilkinson and Waid entered the house. According to Johnson, Erin was saying she “couldn’t believe it is actually going to happen” and that she was “so excited”. Johnson says she didn’t know what to do. So she did nothing, except drive to a nearby layby and wait.

Erin and Bobbi waited in the car around the corner until they got the phone call from Waid. Johnson says Erin kept asking: “Are they dead, are they dead?” When they reached the car, Johnson saw the sword. “It’s something I will never forget,” she says. “They put it in the trunk. It had blood on it. I was freaking out but Erin was jumping up and down in her seat, excited.”

At first, police told Terry that his 16-year-old daughter had escaped out of a window and was found hiding in the woods. When they felt he was strong enough, just before he left hospital, they told him the truth — that far from being a victim, Erin had been involved from the beginning.

When police found Wilkinson in Waid’s brother’s trailer, the gun was beside him. He said it was meant to be given to someone to clean and hide. Wilkinson says this person knew what was going to happen that night — in fact, he was originally asked to commit the murders but backed out.

From prison, where he is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole, Wilkinson says,“I have nightmares about that night. The night continues to run over and over and over, but little things change… they live and I die. Terry fights me and in the struggle I get shot. If I could go back and change it and give my life up for the three that I took, I would.”

Wilkinson’s father, Bobby, hasn’t spoken to the press before. He still lives in Emory and says, for the most part, people are courteous and don’t blame him for what happened. He writes to his son but hasn’t yet visited him in prison. He says Wilkinson had enlisted in the National Guard and planned to train as a diesel mechanic. “Some are good kids and will do anything you want. Some are total screw-ups. I felt Charlie was somewhere in the middle. We had a few minor problems, but mostly he was a normal teenager.

Except when he wasn't.

Better Late Than Never, I Guess. After a Quarter of a Century Does the Ruling Have Any Meaning?

Montana Judge Rules After 24 Years in Forgotten Case

By Debra Cassens Weiss

A retired Montana judge issued a ruling this week in a case apparently put on hold in 1985 when he was diagnosed with cancer.

On Monday, former District Judge Ronald McPhillips of Toole County ruled against the plaintiff, who had contended his partner swindled him out of his share of natural gas revenue, the Great Falls Tribune reports. McPhillips told the newspaper he was searching his home for the case file after the newspaper wrote about the unresolved dispute.

Elda Nichols, who had worked for McPhillips before his retirement in 1994, told the newspaper she thinks her former boss discovered the case file in an old briefcase in his home, and made the ruling based on his “copious notes,” taken during a bench trial.

McPhillips ruled after the Montana Supreme Court said he could proceed, the story says.

Nichols told the Great Falls Tribune in a prior story that the problem was due to McPhillips’ illness.

"My recollection is that Judge McPhillips ended up resigning because of a malignant tumor the size of a football on his hip," she said. "He got very ill, and my recollection is that he took that file home to do a ruling on it."

Clerk of Court Sandy Peers told the newspaper that the lawyers in the case were supposed to make proposed findings of law, "but it never shows that was done."

It seems unbelievable that one of the parties, the Plaintiff, would not have sought a final ruling from the court before the lapse of 25 years according to a lawyer, who declined to identify himself because he wasn't certain he might not be one of the attorneys.

Fly Naked - It's the Only Way to Fly. Go Naked With Naked Air.com

Plane diverted to Albuquerque after passenger disrobes mid-flight

July 2, 2009

A passenger stripped naked during a US Airways flight and resisted a flight attendant's efforts to cover him with a blanket before two off-duty law enforcement officers on board subdued and handcuffed him, authorities said Wednesday.

Keith Wright, 50, of the Bronx in New York, was taken into custody after he disrobed while sitting in his seat in the back of Flight 705 on Tuesday evening, authorities said. The plane was carrying about 148 passengers from Charlotte to Los Angeles, the airline said.

Wright was unresponsive when a flight attendant asked him to put his clothes back on, said Dan Jiron, a spokesman for the Albuquerque airport. "She asked him on more than one occasion to put on his clothes. She covered him with a blanket and he took that off," Jiron said.

Wright punched and kicked the flight attendant, who asked two off-duty law officers for help, according to a criminal complaint. A Los Angeles police officer and sheriff's deputy helped the flight attendant subdue and handcuff Wright before the flight landed, Jiron said.

The flight attendants also were dealing with an unrelated onboard medical emergency at the same time, which exacerbated the situation, the FBI said. The aircraft was diverted because of the medical emergency, and Wright's actions were a secondary reason for the unplanned landing, the complaint said.

Wright is in federal custody on a federal charge of interfering with flight crewmembers and attendants. He is expected to appear in federal court in Albuquerque on Thursday.

Man Doesn't Have to Get Off Bar Stool to Drive Home

Drunk crashes motorised bar stool

April 1, 2009


Authorities in Ohio say a US man has been charged with drunk driving after crashing his motorised bar stool.

Police in Newark, 30 miles east of Columbus, say when they responded to a report of a crash with injuries on March 4, they found a man who had wrecked a bar stool powered by a deconstructed lawn mower.

Kile Wygle, 28, went to a hospital with minor injuries. Police say he was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated after he told an officer at the hospital that he had consumed 15 beers.

Wygle told police his motorised bar stool can go up to 38 mph.

Wygle has pleaded not guilty and has requested a jury trial. He says he was only kidding around when he told the officer at the hospital he had drunk 15 beers.

No intoxilator or blood alcohol level tests were obtained by the arresting officer. The officer subsequently was dismissed by the Chief of Police and now works as a window washer in Tucson, Arizona.

Palin Challenges Obama to Thumb Wrestling Match for 2012 Presidency

July 1, Nome, AK

In a bid to keep her name in the public eye, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin today challenged President Barack Obama to a race, a marathon to be precise. The Governor opined that she believed she could outrun (no pun intended) the President, who she described as a life-long smoker. Governor Palin actually has completed a marathon, in just under 4 minutes, after which she vomited profusely and was taken to the infirmary for rehydration.

The Governor, in an obviously feisty mood, also challenged Mr. Obama to a thumb wrestling match for the Presidency in 2012. "Let's just get it over right now and save everyone a lot of money and stress from a long Presidential campaign," said the Governor.

"I'm sure I can take the President in a thumb wrestling match, too," she declared. "Thumb wrestling was my special talent when I won the Miss Alaska title. He wouldn't last five seconds against me. And then I'd be the most powerful woman on the planet," she beamed.

Reporters quietly began to slip away as Governor Palin began to sing softly, "God Bless America." Her husband, Todd, steered her towards the Governor's mansion, where she had no business to attend to and no unanswered calls.

Worker Employs Drastic Tactic To Avoid Lay-Off in Tough Economy

Colombians


One man’s attempt to keep job?

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Here's a short lesson in effective things you can do to help prevent being laid off.

1) Be a model worker. Don’t surf the Internet, hang around the coffee machine, leave early, etc.

2) Take on extra responsibilities and learn new skills; make yourself indispensable.

3) Offer constructive suggestions for cutting costs in other ways.

4) Have your boss killed!

Of course the most effective, sure fire technique is No. 4. The boss can't fire you if he's busy pushing up daisies. And that was the technique picked by a worker who learned his job was on the chopping block. Then he was arrested after the police suspected he hired contract killers to murder his boss in a desperate bid to avoid being laid off. Trouble is, the killers got caught.

It seems the suspect, through his sister, contracted a team of six Colombians who planned and carried out the killing of the boss, who had planned to lay off the arrested man as part of a restructuring project. The Colombians only had experience killing drug dealers. So they waited for the boss to leave work and gunned him down in the parking lot, in front of about 150 witnesses.

What can you, as an employer, do to protect yourself from something like this?

Well, before you make your downsizing plans you may want to ask all your employees if they know any hitmen. Make it sound real casual but make note of the names. You also might want to find a better euphemism than “restructuring project,” which doesn’t fool anybody these days.

Although somewhat cynical, you might designate one of your subordinates as the individual charged with making layoff decisions, and circulate this information to all employees by placing a note in their paycheck envelopes.

Staying at home is probably not a good option because you might return to find you had been laid off.

Hey Operator, Lil Wayne's a Big Star, One of the Biggest. You Dig?

Police Escort To Visit Lil Wayne?

"We don't just send helicopters up for rappers," 911 caller told

JUNE 29--A Florida man last week called 911 seeking a police escort to the Miami home of the rapper Lil Wayne. Michael Kruse, 20, was arrested on a misdemeanor charge for making false emergency calls, according to the below St. John's County Sheriff's Office report. When Kruse, who was calling from his Ford Taurus, requested the escort, a police operator asked, "You want a police escort to take you to Miami?" He answered, "Or, do you have a helicopter?" The 911 operator replied, "We don't just send helicopters up for rappers." Kruse, pictured in the mug shot above, did not respond to an interview request left on his cell phone. A neighbor said he believed Kruse was moving to Rwanda.