“I sure wish I knew what book it was from,” I said. “I’ve been trying to figure it out for months.”
“It sounds like Jim Pence’s book Blind Sight,” Jim said, and Marcia agreed.
Jim Pence was a former pastor who lived in the Greenville area and was now involved in prison ministry. He supported his ministry by writing and also by teaching a karate class for children being home-schooled. In fact, Erin and Tyler had actually been in his karate class for a couple of years, and I vaguely remembered that Jim had given Penny one of his books, although I didn’t remember the title.
Pastor Corbet went to his bookshelf and got his copy of Blind Sight, and I went out to the car and brought back the burned page. We sat together and flipped through the pages, looking for a match. We didn’t have to look very long. Near the end of the book, Pastor Corbet found the matching page. And I had my answer.
God had preserved page 348 from Blind Sight and used it to send me a message I desperately needed to hear. 4 As I read the back cover and leafed through the book, I was even more amazed. Blind Sight was a novel about a man who had lost a wife and two children and was trying to understand how a good God could have allowed his family to die. Not only was the page a message to me, but the book could have been written about me.
I called Jim Pence from the Corbets’ house and gave him a capsule version of my testimony. I told him that I had found a page from a book and wanted to read it to him because God had used it to turn me around. As I read the words from that burned page and explained how God had used those words to assure me of His presence with me, I heard a sound on the other end of the of the phone.
Jim was crying.
NEGOTIATING
Christmas 2008 was my first without Penny and the boys.
I knew there would be painful memories, but the holidays would have been almost unbearable if God had not blessed me with a new family. It was such a joy to sit with Sonja on Christmas morning and watch Blake and Tanner open their presents and to see the joy and delight on their faces.
But although I spent Christmas and New Year’s with my new family, Erin’s upcoming trial loomed like a thunderhead over everything I did. I was to go to the Rains County Courthouse on Friday, January 2, for Erin’s final pretrial hearing. Jury selection would begin on February 2; the first day of testimony would begin one week later. Throughout the month of December, I had been preoccupied with thoughts of what to do about Erin. But by the time I went to the courthouse on January 2, I had come to a decision.
When I spoke to Mr. McDowell, I told him, “I’d like to seek a plea bargain for Erin.” The others agreed to talk with us, and minutes later I was once again sitting across the table from experienced prosecutors, this time negotiating Erin’s future as if we were haggling over the price of a new car.
Lisa Tanner was a tough negotiator. Her offer was three life sentences plus fifty years. That was essentially the same as life without parole.
I knew that Bobbi Johnson had accepted a plea deal that gave her forty years with parole eligibility in twenty. She had received a lighter sentence because although she was an accomplice, she didn’t use a weapon and didn’t participate in the killings. Personally, I wanted to see Erin get the same sentence that Bobbi received, but I knew the prosecutors would never agree to that.
“Look,” I said. “I’m the victim here. I didn’t have a choice when those two men came into my house and shot my family. I didn’t have a choice when they burnt my house down. I know I don’t have a choice about whether or not Erin goes to prison. Please. Give me something.”
The prosecutors left the room. After some discussing, they came back with an offer of two life sentences plus fifty years.
“That’s not acceptable,” I said. “I want Erin to have some hope of getting out someday. I want her to have something to look forward to.”
I think the prosecutors might have become a little irritated at this point, but after talking about it some more, they came back and asked, “What do you think is fair?”
“Where can I meet you halfway?” I asked. “I’d like to see Erin get what Bobbi got, but I know that’s not going to happen. How about we go somewhere in between the guys and Bobbi? Two life sentences and twenty-five years.” That sentence would allow Erin to become eligible for parole when she was fifty-nine years old.
There was more discussed, but finally the prosecutors agreed. Instead of having to stand trial, Erin would be allowed to plead guilty to murder and would receive two life sentences plus twenty-five years.
Lisa Tanner and the other prosecutors made sure that I understood the reason they were agreeing to a lesser sentence for Erin: “We’re doing this because of you, to spare you the pain of going through a trial. All four of these young people owe you something. If you had not survived, we’d have gone for the maximum on all four of them.”
Then they said, “Are you sure Erin will agree to this? We can talk about this deal all day, but if Erin doesn’t sign off on it, it won’t do any good.”
“She’ll agree,” I said.
Mr. McDowell backed me up. “Erin will take whatever Mr. Caffey says. She trusts him and knows that he will get the best deal possible for her.”
The prosecutors agreed and went to draw up the papers.
While they were gone, I asked Mr. McDowell, “What do you think of this deal?”
“I can’t tell you what to do,” he said, “but I think it’s the best you’re going to get. It’s better than I’d have gotten if I’d taken it to court.” He shook his head in amazement. “I’ve never seen an attorney general back down like that.”
“Never underestimate the power of God,” I said.
Mr. McDowell nodded. “Amen to that.”
DADDY AND DAUGHTER AGAIN
Mr. McDowell and I went back to another office, and Erin was brought in. When the prosecutors returned, Mr. McDowell went over the plea deal with her and explained the terms. Erin agreed and signed the papers.
“I’m glad it’s not going to trial,” she said. “I don’t want to put you through that. I’m ready to go start serving my sentence.”
Mr. McDowell went to hand over the paperwork to the judge, and he left Erin and me alone in the office. I was a little surprised, because there were no guards or deputies with us. It was the first time since the murders that we’d been together alone.
As we sat in that little office, we began to talk. We didn’t discuss the sentencing or the prospect of prison life or anything related to the case. We just talked.
We talked about shopping, her grandparents, her friends.
For about twenty minutes while we waited for her paperwork to be processed, we sat together and were just daddy and daughter again. We were practically on the edge of our seats. Over the past year we had visited, but it was always with the knowledge that our conversations might be recorded. On top of that, we had talked through a static-filled phone with a piece of Plexiglas between us, guards overseeing us, and a room full of other people who also were trying to talk.
And we were never able touch.
It didn’t dawn on me until later that these twenty minutes might have been the last time Erin and I would be able to just sit together and enjoy each other’s company. We relaxed, we smiled, we laughed, and we enjoyed that brief time together.
We would get to visit again when Erin went to prison, but the next time we would be able to visit alone, to sit together by ourselves and talk about whatever was on our minds, wouldn’t come until I was at least eighty-four years old.
We were talking and laughing when Mr. McDowell came back and said, “The judge is ready. It’s time to go out there.”
STANDING WITH ERIN
Instantly the relaxed atmosphere evaporated. Erin began to cry, and so did I.
“I’m scared. I don’t know what to say,” Erin said through her tears. “What if the judge asks me something I don’t know how to answer?”
Mr. McDowell told her not to worry. “Your respons
e will be ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘No, sir.’ He’s not going to ask you to elaborate on anything. He’ll ask if you agree to these terms, and all you have to give are yes or no answers. It’s all going to go very quickly,” he added. “The judge will come out and ask you some questions, you’ll answer yes or no, and we’ll be done. If we’re out there ten minutes, I’ll be surprised.”
“It’ll be okay, Erin,” I said. “I’ll be right there with you.” I looked over at Mr. McDowell. “Is it all right if I stand beside her?”
“Oh, by all means,” he replied.
And so we went back into the courtroom for the last time. Erin stood at the defendant’s table, with Mr. McDowell on her left and me on her right. As the judge handed down the sentence, I reached over and took her hand.
I stood with my daughter as she received two life sentences and twenty-five years for her involvement in the murders of her mother and two brothers. I wanted to run and hide, to find a place to cry, but I stayed by her side.
I will always stay by her side.
At that same hearing, Bobbi Johnson was also sentenced for her part in the murders. In the entire pretrial process, I never got to talk to Bobbi. The prosecutors never asked for my input about her sentence, but I did not object to the sentence she received. I thought it was fair.
When sentencing was complete for both Erin and Bobbi, the judge turned to me and said, “Mr. Caffey, is there anything you would like to say?”
“Yes, your honor,” I said. “I would like to say a special thanks to Erin’s lawyer for all the hard work he’s done, all the time and effort he’s put in. I’d like to thank the district attorney and the attorney general’s office. We may not always have seen eye to eye during this process, but I want to thank you for showing my family and me dignity and respect and for listening to us and following your hearts with this. I want to thank everyone from the sheriff to the local police departments for all their efforts. I’m sorry for all the pain this may have caused some, but I want to thank you for what you’ve done for me, and for Penny and the boys.”
After the judge had adjourned the court, Erin and I embraced one last time.
Tears flowed down our faces.
“I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you, too, Erin.”
Then I watched as Erin was led out of the courtroom and on to her new life.
4 In the subsequent printings of Blind Sight, the burned page is 348.
Chapter 26
Facing Reality
We know that God causes all things to work together for
good to those who love God, to those who are called
according to His purpose. —ROMANS 8:28
MY ALARM CLOCK RINGS about five. Saturday mornings are supposed to be times for sleeping in, but it’s visiting day at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), and I’m going to see Erin. She lives in Gatesville, where most of the women’s prison units in Texas are located.
This will be Erin’s home until she is at least fifty-nine years old. I will be eighty-four when she becomes eligible for parole.
Gatesville, near Waco, is about a three-hour drive from Wills Point, so if I’m going to get there close to the time visiting hours start, I need to be on the road by five-thirty or six. Visitation at all TDCJ units runs from eight in the morning till eight in the evening on Saturdays and Sundays. I suppose I could get there later, but the three-hour drive home would make for a late evening.
Erin’s unit isn’t easy to find, but once you know where it is, you can’t miss it. High double fences and razor wire surround the prison, and everything is a drab gray. Imposing guard towers stand at every corner.
When I arrive at the first checkpoint, I have to pop my hood and open my trunk for a visual search. While correctional officers search my car to make sure I’m not transporting any contraband, I go to a second building. There I identify myself and tell the officer that I am there to see Erin. Once she verifies my name on Erin’s visitor list, she gives me a piece of paper that clears me to enter the prison.
I park my car and walk up to a double gate, called a sally port, which is unlocked remotely by an officer in either a control center or a guard tower. I step inside the first gate and close it behind me. The metal gate makes an unsettling metallic clang as it locks. Seconds later there’s a buzzing sound as the inner gate unlocks. I pull it toward me and walk through. When I close the gate, I hear that clang again. I am now inside Erin’s prison unit. But I’m still not through with security checks.
I follow a sidewalk to another building, where I have to remove my shoes, my belt, everything in my pockets, and any metal item I might have on me. Then I stand on a rubber mat with my arms outstretched while a male correctional officer pats me down and then “wands” me with a metal detector.
After I clear security, I go through another sally port into the visiting area, a small metal building, where I will wait for Erin to be brought in. Sometimes she comes right away. But if I have arrived during count—when the officers count the inmates to make sure everyone is still there—I can wait an hour or more. Erin will not be allowed to come out until count clears throughout the entire prison.
When she does get there, we have exactly two hours to visit. Not a minute more.
I am not allowed to bring paper money into the prison, but I am permitted to bring in enough change to buy Erin some soda and candy from the vending machines in the visiting areas. I can’t bring anything to her from the outside, not even simple things like soap or toothpaste. She must buy everything through the prison commissary.
Erin enters the building from the other end, dressed in white pants and a white pullover top—the standard uniform for all TDCJ inmates. When she sees me, she smiles. It is the bright smile I had been so used to but hadn’t seen for such a long time. We embrace and find an empty table.
Even her eyes are smiling now. For most of the last year, even when she did smile, her eyes told a different story—one of pain and loneliness and sorrow.
For her own protection, Erin had spent much of 2008 in administrative segregation, more commonly known as solitary confinement. As the months passed in the county jail, the twenty-three-hour-a-day solitude took its toll on her mentally and emotionally.
Now that she was out of the county and into the state prison system, her appearance and mental state had been consistently improving. Because Erin would still be a juvenile until July 2009, she was being kept away from the general prison population with three other girls about her age.
Usually Sonja comes with me when I visit Erin, but today I’ve come alone, and Erin knows why. It’s time for us to clear the air, to discuss what went on that night. Time for me to learn what she knew and when she knew it.
It’s time for both of us to face reality.
FORGIVENESS AND DENIAL
When I first learned that Erin had been involved in the attack on our family, I didn’t want to believe it. What father would?
If Erin had been a delinquent or had been difficult most of her life, the knowledge might have been easier to accept. If our family members had always been at each other’s throats, I might have understood what happened. If there had been abuse or violence in our house, the events of March 1, 2008, might have made sense.
But none of those things was true.
We were a happy family. We loved each other. Erin got along well with her brothers, and with us. The only signs of trouble we had were in that last year as she began to go out with boys. But although we struggled with Erin over the kinds of boys she wanted to date, neither Penny nor I had any idea that the problem was anything more than typical teenage rebellion, the kind parents across the country face every day.
So when Texas Rangers came to my hospital room and told me that Erin’s involvement was “great,” my world collapsed. I simply could not comprehend how that could be possible, or why it would happen.
As more evidence came to light and as I met with the Rains County district attorney and the repres
entatives from the attorney general’s office, a portrait of Erin that was totally foreign to me began to emerge. Lisa Tanner and Detective Almon portrayed Erin as a calculating mastermind who had initiated, organized, planned, and executed the murder of her family.
Through the months between Erin’s certification, plea, and sentencing, I grappled with questions about my daughter’s involvement, wanting to believe her because she was my daughter and because none of what I was hearing fit her personality. This was not the Erin I knew.
What had frustrated me most was my inability to ask Erin direct questions. There were so many things I wanted to know about what had happened that night. I wanted to find a way to reconcile the prosecutors’ accusations with the loving daughter I had known for sixteen years. But because the case was ongoing and the judge had issued a gag order, those questions were off-limits.
So from March 2008 to January 2009, when Erin was sentenced, I was left largely in the dark. I heard the prosecution’s case against Erin but heard very little of Erin’s side of the story. I knew only that I couldn’t comprehend how she could even have been involved in the murder of her mother and brothers, let alone how she could have masterminded the crimes. Even in the early months of 2009, as Erin was being processed and assigned to a TDCJ unit, we didn’t have much opportunity to talk, and when we did, I didn’t probe very deep. Each time I saw Erin, I asked her only one or two questions about what happened because I didn’t want our visits to feel like an interrogation.
But now that the books were closed, so to speak, it was time to clear the air and address the hard issues. I’m not talking about the question of guilt or innocence. Long ago I had accepted the fact that Erin had some knowledge of, and therefore involvement in, the murders. What I couldn’t believe is that she was the mastermind and driving force behind the crimes.
Terror by Night Page 19