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Daughter, 16, charged in murder of mother, brothers


(CNN) -- A teenager has been formally charged for the killings of her mother and two young brothers, a crime that has left the family's tiny Texas town reeling.

Police are not releasing the daughter's name because she is a juvenile. She and three others -- Charlie James Wilkinson, 19; Charles Allen Wade, 20; and Bobbi Gale Johnson, 18, who is female, were arraigned Sunday on capital murder charges.

Bond was set at $500,000 each, said Rains County Sheriff David Traylor.

The teenage girl's father, Terry Caffey, was shot in the head but survived and is helping police. Caffey, who is in critical condition, was able to crawl 300 yards to a neighbor's home and later identified one of the suspects, said Traylor.

The father is currently out of ICU and is on his way to surgery to have four slugs removed, the sheriff said.

Carl Johnson, a family friend, told The Associated Press he saw the bloody trail left by Terry Caffey who dragged himself to a neighbor's house.

The killings, which police say were prompted when the daughter was forbidden to date one of the suspects, occurred in the Alba, Texas, home of Terry and Penny Caffey on Saturday morning. .

The home was burned as well as a medical supplies van outside, said Traylor.

In the ashes, authorities found the body of Penny Caffey, 37, and the 8- and 13-year-old boys. All victims were shot and stabbed, police said.

"Early on in the investigation it was revealed that the juvenile and one of the suspects were dating and made to break up," Traylor wrote in a release. Video Watch investigators sift through remains of burned home » The relationship was with Wilkinson according to Traylor.

Johnson said the family are musicians and that the boys played guitar and harmonica and the mother is a church piano player. The father often told his daughter that he wanted her to sing at his funeral, Johnson told AP.

"I just thought the whole world of the family," said Johnson, 75. "They were good Christian people. [The father] was like a son of my own."

The killings shocked many in the small east Texas town, the town's mayor said Sunday.

"There hasn't been a murder here in 18 years," said Orvin Carroll, longtime mayor of Alba -- a town of about 430 people east of Dallas.
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"We are all just a little shocked. This is a place where people do not lock their doors. But that is changing," Carroll added.

"We can't believe this could happen to a mother and her children. Not here."



story from CNN: http://us.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/03/02/texas.deaths/index.html
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it's a sad story....
and there are so many things that always astonish us...