East Texas

By LAUREN GROVER
Staff Writer

ALBA — Blood dripping from his body, Terry Caffey hobbled across a 300-foot field just after 4 a.m. on Saturday morning pleading for help. He had been shot multiple times.

As neighbors Tommy and Helen Gaston called 911, they could see the Caffey house burning, where his 39-year-old wife, Penny and their 13- and 8-year-old sons would soon be found dead.

On this quiet, dusty 1800 block of County Road 2370, where three neighbors share more than 100 acres, a gruesome murder was carried out that led Rains County Sheriff’s Department on Saturday to arrest four people — three of them high school students — and charge each with three counts of capital murder.

“It was a scary scene,” Traylor said, his voice shaking at a 5 p.m. press conference in front of the sheriff’s office.

Terry Caffey was listed in critical but stable condition at East Texas Medical Center in Tyler on Saturday evening, the sheriff said.

The Caffey’s teenage daughter is alive, but her whereabouts at the time of the murders and throughout the day Saturday are not being released, the sheriff said.

Three arrests were made within an hour and a half of the murders, and another came in the early afternoon, Traylor said.

The names of the four suspects, two of them male and two female, should be released Sunday, he said. They are being held at the Rains County jail.

The sheriff declined to comment on motive, or cause of the deaths or fire.

Emory volunteer firefighters arrived at about 4:20 a.m. to find “a crazy scene,” the Caffey house fully engulfed with flames and three bodies still inside, said firefighter Johnny Spikes.

Terry Caffey’s medical supply van carrying oxygen tanks caught fire and exploded in the driveway just after their arrival, he said.

John Wright, who lives about a half mile from the Caffeys, said he was awakened by the “loud boom” at about 4:30 a.m.

“There’s nothing like it — we’ve never had something like this,” said Spikes, who was still blocking traffic from entering one end of CR 2170 at 5:25 p.m after helping fight the fire that morning.

“It’s terrible, that someone could wipe out that family like that.”

The Caffeys were members of the Miracle Faith Baptist Church, where family friends Jeanie and Diane Dunlap enjoyed Penny Caffey’s talents as the church pianist and her cooking.

Terry was about to be ordained as a Baptist minister, they said. The children attended Rains Independent schools.

“It’s devastating,” Diane Dunlap said.

“Horrible, horrible. Maybe God can touch those (perpetrators), can show them his grace, so they might be saved through this.”
The Dunlaps saw the Caffeys at Wednesday night service, where Penny played piano. On Saturday she would have cooked up a meal to bring to church the next day, Jeanie Dunlap said.

“Unless she was sick, she didn’t miss one service,” she said. “I don’t know if I could forgive those people who did this, but I think Terry will — he’s just that kind of person.”

At sundown, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms investigators were still shoveling through charred piles at the Caffey home, where fire officials brushed a handcrafted wooden sign etched, “The Caffeys” and “Joshua 24:15.”

“They were wonderful people,” Kay Smith, the Gastons’ daughter, said while standing on the porch next door. “My parents sort of took them in like their children. The Caffeys called them, ‘Mom and Pop.’”

In the ambulance, Terry Caffey looked up at Helen Gaston and said, “Don’t leave me Mom,” Smith said. Her parents are still shaken by the tragedy that exploded upon their family friends next door.

Prayer is a must, the Dunlaps said, and everyone who can should be ready to help the Caffeys who now have no clothes or shelter.

“These were folks who didn’t have to say anything, you could just see they were Christian people,” Diane Dunlap said.

“Maybe God can touch those boys, and show them His grace, so they can be saved.”
In town, TJ’s Café served up 16 pies on Saturday, and folks gathered throughout the day to eat and discuss what had happened.

“It’s amazing — it’s just too sad — this is a small place, and I can’t believe this,” said waitress Connie Mize.

Alba resident Gary Bohannan saw an ambulance race by early in the morning, but didn’t get word of the murders until nearly 11 a.m.

“Last night I was sleeping like a baby, didn’t know what was happening across town, my door was unlocked,” he said. “And it’s gonna be unlocked again tonight. We’ve had murders around these parts, but not like this. It’s shocking.”

Resident Gerald Taylor agreed.

“Most of these sorts of things are drug-related up here,” he said. “Not like this, not on good folks.”

The bodies of Penny Caffey and her two sons were sent to the Southwest Institute of Forensic Sciences in Dallas for autopsies.

Investigating agencies include Rains County Sheriff’s Department, ATF, Smith County Crime Scene Investigators, Longview Fire Marshal, Smith County Fire Marshal and the Department of Public Safety.

Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearm investigators from Rains and Smith Counties shovel and pick through charred remains of a rural Alba home on Saturday evening. A mother and two children were killed during a predawn attack on their remote East Texas ranch where police said another man was critically injured by gunshot wounds and the family's house burned to the ground.
((Staff Photo By Herb Nygren Jr.))