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Terror by Night: The True Story of the Brutal Texas Murder That Destroyed a Family, Restored One Man’s Faith, and Shocked a Nation
Copyright © 2009 by Terry Caffey and James H. Pence. All rights reserved.
Cover photo of burned house copyright © by AP Photo/The Tyler Telegraph/Mark Roberts. All rights reserved.
Cover family photo used by permission from the Caffey family collection.
Cover flap photos of Penny, Matthew, and Tyler are used by permission from the Caffey family collection.
Designed by Stephen Vosloo
Edited by Susan Taylor
Published in association with the literary agency of WordServe Literary Group, Ltd., 10152 S. Knoll Circle, Highlands Ranch, CO 80130.
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. NKJV is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Caffey, Terry.
Terror by night : the true story of the brutal Texas murder that destroyed a family, restored one man’s faith, and shocked a nation / Terry Caffey ; with James H. Pence.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-4143-3476-9 (hc)
1. Consolation. 2. Suffering—Religious aspects—Christianity. 3. Murder—Religious aspects—Christianity. 4. Murder—Texas. 5. Caffey, Terry. I. Pence, James H. II. Title.
BV4909.C34 2009
364.152’3092—dc22
[B] 2009028694
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Printed in the United States of America
15 14 13 12 11 10 09
7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Penny, Bubba, and Tyler
To Michelle Lynn Pence (6/1/87–6/8/87)
and
Elaina Michelle Pence (6/10/09)
God, in His sovereign grace and wisdom, took our first child, Michelle Lynn, on June 8, 1987, when she was one week old.
Almost exactly twenty-two years later—just as I was finishing this book—He gave us our first grandchild, Elaina Michelle.
Our God is a God who restores.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 A Gathering Storm
Chapter 2 Charlie
Chapter 3 The Last Good Times
Chapter 4 Night Terrors
Chapter 5 Darkness
Chapter 6 911
Chapter 7 Critical
Chapter 8 Recovery
Chapter 9 Homeless
Chapter 10 Suicidal
Chapter 11 Funeral
Chapter 12 Job
Chapter 13 The Elephant in the Room
Chapter 14 Larry and Virginia’s
Chapter 15 A Message from God
Chapter 16 Finding Purpose
Chapter 17 Starting Over
Chapter 18 Ministry
Chapter 19 Home Again
Chapter 20 Crises
Chapter 21 Certified
Chapter 22 Sonja
Chapter 23 Forgiveness
Chapter 24 Face-to-Face
Chapter 25 Plea Bargain
Chapter 26 Facing Reality
Epilogue The Sounds of Home
Appendix A Terry’s Journal
Appendix B Terry’s Victim Impact Statement
Appendix C Terry’s Letter Regarding the Death Penalty
About the Authors
Terry’s Acknowledgments
I want thank my church, Miracle Faith Baptist, and the communities of Emory and Alba for all your prayers and support. I couldn’t have made it without you.
To Tommy and Helen (Paw and Maw) Gaston: Thank you for all your love and support for Penny and the kids down through the years.
Brother Andy Russell of Martin Baptist Church in New Albany, Mississippi, you have been my brother in Christ, mentor, and friend. Thanks for giving me the boost that I needed in my ministry.
Many thanks to Rodney Gipson and family for all you have done. Our fishing trip in May of 2008 changed my life. You have been there for me when so many were nowhere to be found. Thanks for listening when I needed an ear.
No words can express my love for you, Brother Terry Dowty. You have become the brother that I never had. Thank you for being there so many times when I needed a friend, even at three in the morning.
I want to thank Penny’s parents, Larry and Virginia Daily. We have been through so much together, and by God’s grace we will carry on. You raised a wonderful daughter, and it showed by her devotion to me and her love for our children. I’ll always be thankful for the years we all shared together.
Last, but certainly not least, I want to thank my new family: Sonja, Blake, and Tanner. I couldn’t imagine going through this without your love and support. You have seen me through so much. You have helped me realize what it means to love again. You were there as I spent long hours and reopened many wounds while working on this project. For that I will be eternally grateful.
James’s Acknowledgments
The longer I write, the better I understand that, while mine is a solitary profession, I would never be able to bring a project to completion without the help of countless others.
Thanks to my agent, Greg Johnson, for doing a great job in representing both Terry and me, and for all your hard work in finding a home for Terror by Night.
Thanks to Carol Traver and all at Tyndale for working so hard to produce Terror by Night in record time.
During the writing process, I had to step back from my Karate for Homeschoolers classes in order to have more time to write. A special thanks to my wife, Laurel, and my daughter Charlene for taking over the administrative duties. Also thanks to my black-belt assistant instructors: Glen Dempsey and Ruger Carstens, and to the brown belts who helped them: Alec Barrett, Gary Casey, Joseph Lostritto, Rachelle Lostritto, and Hannah McKinney. The classes didn’t miss a beat, and I have you all to thank. You did an awesome job.
To my mentor, Cec Murphey: Thanks for believing in me and for challenging me to grow as a writer.
To my wife, Laurel: Thanks for being my number one encourager, first reader, and editor. I couldn’t do it without you.
Thanks to everyone who prayed for Terry and me while this project was ongoing. Your prayers were a constant source of encouragement.
Finally, thanks to Terry Caffey for choosing me to help you write your story. I’ve had the joy of knowing both of your families, and it was a great privilege for me to be a part of this project.
Introduction
You have delivered my soul from death,
My eyes from tears,
And my feet from falling.
I will walk before the LORD
In the land of the living.
—PSALM 116:8-9 (NKJV)
AFTER I LOST my precious wife and family, along with everything I owned, the last thing I wanted to hear was t
hat God would work all things together for good because I loved Him and was called according to His purpose. I wasn’t angry with God. Not at first, anyway. But I did feel like He’d abandoned me. In the weeks following the brutal murders of my wife, Penny, and my two sons, Matthew and Tyler, and the arrest of my daughter, Erin, I entered into a time of spiritual and emotional darkness that I wouldn’t have dreamed possible only a few months before. I felt as if the doors of heaven were shut and God was the One who’d closed them.
I couldn’t understand that. I had dedicated my life to serving Him.
Despite some struggles with our daughter Erin and her choice of boyfriends, Penny and I had entered into 2008 very optimistic about the future. Soon after we were married in 1989, we’d started working with the youth in our church. That continued when we were at Miracle Faith Baptist Church several years later. During that time, I sensed God calling me to a broader ministry. I did some pulpit supply for local pastors, and the more I preached the more I felt that God wanted me to move in this direction. After I’d been preaching for several years, my church made plans to formally ordain me for ministry. They set the time of my ordination for April 2008. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to be a pastor or an evangelist. All I knew was that I intended to serve God.
I wanted my family to serve Him, too. When we moved out to our twelve-acre property in Alba, Texas, our neighbor and dear friend Tommy Gaston presented us with a split cedar log. On it, he’d inscribed our family name, “The Caffeys,” in large letters. Below that, he added the Bible reference Joshua 24:15.
I knew the verse well. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” I love that Scripture verse because in it, Joshua took a stand on serving God. I felt that since God took a stand for us when Jesus died on the cross, my family and I would also take our stand for Him.
But in the aftermath of March 1, 2008—my personal 9/11— I didn’t understand what was happening. I’d taken my stand for God, but God had allowed something terrible to happen to my family. Where was He? Had He turned His back on us? Had He forgotten us?
I felt like the writer of Psalm 88:
I suffer Your terrors; I am overcome.
Your burning anger has passed over me;
Your terrors have destroyed me.
They have surrounded me like water all day long;
They have encompassed me altogether.
You have removed lover and friend far from me;
My acquaintances are in darkness.
—PSALM 88:I 5-I8
I wandered in a black fog that offered no hint of clearing. And there I would have remained, were it not for the gracious hand of God.
Some may wonder why I’d want to write a book about what happened to me. To be honest, there were times during the process that I wondered that myself. As I worked through the various chapters of Terror by Night, I dredged up memories, thoughts, and experiences that I would have preferred to leave buried. There were times when I simply had to stop working and cry for a while. It would have been very easy to quit. Nevertheless, I wrote this book, not because I wanted to, but because I had to.
Terror by Night is not about my loss and personal tragedy; it is about God’s faithfulness. I walked through horror so great I can’t imagine anyone else living through it, let alone me. But all the time, God was there. I did not always sense His presence, especially not at the beginning. At times I didn’t even want His presence. And, yes, there was a period when I became angry at His silence. I’m not proud of it, and I’m not saying it was right to feel that way. But that’s how I felt.
And yet as I faced profound loss, God never left my side. As I look back, I can see His hand in everything that happened. And I have dedicated the rest of my life to sharing with others how God has used this tragedy to bring about good.
I know that by writing this book, I open myself to the charge of trying to profit from my tragedy. God knows my heart. That is the farthest thing from my mind. I have no desire to profit from my family’s deaths. I’d give anything to have them back. I wrote Terror by Night so that God would be glorified and so that those who read it would understand that no matter what comes into their lives, God still cares. I want everyone to know that God loves them and that even in the worst tragedies they can trust Him, because He has everything under control.
Finally, I want this book to be Penny, Matthew, and Tyler’s legacy. Their lives were cut short in a terrible tragedy, but through Terror by Night, they will continue to have an impact in this world for Jesus Christ. To borrow from the author of the New Testament book of Hebrews, “Even though they are dead, they still speak.”
—Terry Caffey
Chapter 1
A Gathering Storm
You will not be afraid of the terror by night,
Or of the arrow that flies by day. —PSALM 9I:5
THE DAY MY WORLD started to collapse was about as pretty as they come. The sun shone in a crystal clear, blue sky, and the air had just enough nip in it to remind you that it was February. North Texas winters are unpredictable at best. One day you might scramble to keep your car from sliding off an icy highway, and the next day lounge around in shorts and a T-shirt. This wasn’t a shorts-and-T-shirt day, but it was beautiful all the same.
Around 10:30 a.m. on February 20, I pulled my van into the parking lot of King Place Apartments to check on my father. He had just been released from the hospital a few days before, and I wanted to see if he needed anything.
My sister and I had moved him to Greenville, Texas, from his home in Garland the previous year. He had been struggling with diabetes and heart trouble for several years, and it was not unusual for us to receive several emergency calls a month. This meant we drove an hour and a half from Alba to Dallas each time he called 911. When the emergencies became more and more frequent, my sister Mary and I had finally sat him down and told him that he had to move closer.
I wanted him to move to Emory, a small town of about twelve hundred only a few minutes from Penny and me, but he dug in his heels.
“Emory is too small. There won’t be anything for me to do there.”
I understood. After living his whole life on the outskirts of Dallas, my dad thought a move to a rural farming community was too much to ask. Greenville became our compromise. It was about halfway between Emory and Garland and shortened any emergency drives to about forty minutes. Its population of about twenty-five thousand was more suitable to my dad. True, it wasn’t Garland or Dallas, but at least there would be things for him to do. And because I worked in Greenville, I could check on him regularly.
This day, he didn’t answer when I rang the doorbell.
I knocked on the door and waited. Still no response. I wasn’t particularly worried. Daddy had made some friends in the months since he’d moved to Greenville. Maybe one of his buddies had picked him up and taken him out to coffee at the Royal Drive-In, a local Dairy Queen clone and a regular hangout for many of Greenville’s senior citizens.
I decided to make a few more deliveries and check on him later.
But when I stopped by again after lunch and still couldn’t get a response, I knew something was wrong.
“Daddy, are you okay?” I called his name and knocked again.
Then I pounded.
No answer.
Fear welled up inside me as I walked around to the back of the building. I tried the sliding glass door, but the metal burglar bar was still in the track. I cupped my hands around my eyes and peered through the glass but couldn’t see my father anywhere.
I had to get in there.
I went around to the front and used my spare key to unlock the door, but the metal security chain kept the door from opening more than a few inches.
“Daddy? Clarence?” I called through the crack.
Silence.
Finally, I kicked the door in. Fear gave way to panic as I ran through the apartment, calling his name.
I found him lying facedown in his bedroom. My throat tightened as I
crouched down and touched his hand. I checked his wrist for a pulse but knew I wouldn’t find one. His body was already cold.
That was the first time I had ever seen a dead body that wasn’t in a funeral home.
At first I fought back the tears. I’m not sure why. Maybe I felt the need to be “strong” or “responsible” because I was the one who found him. But this was my dad. And as the reality of his death began to sink in, I gave in and let my tears flow.
Daddy had suffered so many health problems over the past few years that on some level I think I knew his death was coming. But that didn’t make it any easier when the time came. It just hurt so much, especially because it had happened so suddenly. I cried not only for the loss of my dad but also because I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye, to say all the things a son needs to say to the father he loves before they part for the last time.
My one comforting thought in those moments was that I knew where my daddy was. He loved the Lord and had trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior many years before. I knew without a doubt that one day I would see him again.
I pulled out my cell phone and called 911. Then I called my wife, Penny. She had loved Dad, too, and needed to know that he was gone.
UNPLANNED EXPENSES
Even though funerals can be expensive, you don’t really think about the expense when you lose loved ones. You want to show one last time how much you cared about them and how much you will miss them. You want them to have a nice funeral. It’s not too much to ask.
We knew that my father had a small life-insurance policy that would cover his funeral costs, so we weren’t worried about money. But when we met with the funeral director, we learned that my father had cashed in the policy without telling any of the family. There was no money to pay for his funeral.
Penny and I walked past a line of expensive caskets costing thousands of dollars each. We weren’t poor, but we had only a few thousand dollars in savings. I felt a twinge of guilt as I said, “Could you show us the least expensive one you’ve got?”
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