Piers Morgan Interviews Woman who Killed her Entire Family | Serial Killer Women

I was told that you you do a particularly good Amazing Grace that that was like your go-to song is that true it might be do you still sing it oh yeah could you sing it now sure amazing [Music] how my view on Aron Cathy is um she's a murderer pure and simple I've never come across anyone as dangerous as Aon and I hope that I never do found were H blind but now [Music] wow you have a great voice thank you I mean have a really good voice you can properly sing thank you I have to ask this because just having spent some time with you I can't picture you as somebody that would want her family annihilated it doesn't make any sense to me that you would want that to happen a mother 39 years of age two male children aged 8 and 13 have been found in the residence that has been [Music] burned we were just a normal All American Family living day by day did you shoot them kids no they just got caught in the fire no I'm not the one that did it my mind's thinking if I die they may never know who did this I've got to stay alive long enough so I can identify the killers my heart completely broke for Aaron I believed her story initially it was [Music] convincing [Music] I was on my way to meet Erin's father Terry at the scene of the murders the cafes were a churchgoing family and Penny homeschooled Erin and her two younger brothers Matthew and Tyler Terry has not been back to a sight of his old house for years I suppose my first thought Terry walking down here is it's so beautiful and it's so peaceful peaceful you would never dream that something so tragic happened somewhere so beautiful it's so quiet when you come out here but that night it was so chaotic so loud the gunshots what is the first thing that you hear or experience that night that makes you realize something awful is about to happen it's quiet we're peacefully asleep in our bed then all of a sudden our bedroom door flies open and you can hear the door hitting the wall like bam and I'm thinking maybe my youngest Tyler had a nightmare or something he flew into the bedroom but just as quickly as the door flew open Bam Bam Bam the gun blast went off and we're being riddled by gunfire then I knew immediately we're being attacked you recognize one of the two people have come in right Charles Wilkinson so you suddenly realize that the person that is causing this Mayhem or one of the two people is your daughter's boyfriend the guy who until two days before has been her boyfriend correct had been in our home many times I knew immediately why he was there he he was to get revenge because we made him break up with our daughter I heard my son Matthew cry out he said Charlie Charlie why are you doing this no Charlie no please why are you doing this and then I'm trying to get up and all a sudden bam bam I heard the gunshot so I realized Matthew's being shot so I finally I managed to get to my feet I'm trying to get out the bedroom door to get upstairs to my children but by this time the house is totally engulfed I'm hit hit by a wall of flames forced back into my bedroom and there's Penny Lander and when I saw her I immediately knew she was gone because not only did they come in and shoot that he also came in with this Samurai type sword and she would nearly be decapitated and I guess it's just a shock that I'm in because I'm thinking if I could just get to my neighbors somehow we can fix this we can get them out everything's going to be okay and that's I'm not thinking r I'm just I just got to get help got to get them out then my thoughts went to If I Die Here I may not be able to tell who did this I've got to stay alive long enough so I can identify the [Music] killers 911 what's the address of your emergency this is Tommy Gaston I've got a man that's been shot out here at my house okay s been shot yes and we've also got a house on fire out here an attack on a rign County family left a mother and her two sons dead and a father in the hospital the victims were found in a burning House near Amry 60 Mi east of Dallas the crime has rocked the rain County area no one here can remember a tragedy of this magnitude or a crime this horrific Terry was fighting for his life in hospital but he told police that ain's boyfriend Charlie was one of the murderers he was arrested along with the other accompass at the house the bodies of Penny Matthew and Tyler had been found but there was no sign of Erin when police searched Charlie's trailer they made an unexpected Discovery the search of the house was kind of it was a standard deal the bedroom was very cluttered uh mattress on the floor clothes everywhere uh I came across something that I looked like a wig hair wig blonde hair wig thought it was kind of strange moving it aside you know pull it by the hair and it was Aaron Cathy opening her eyes kind of startled us a little bit so not a little bit a lot you know Erin claimed she'd been drugged and kidnapped from the house but after just two days the disturbing truth had emerged the police went to the hospital to break the news to Terry that his daughter was involved in the murders Cy I'm fer I'm the chief for Sheriff's Office guess know how myter is they won't tell me a whole lot and won't let me watch the mov she she is she's doing I don't want to know a whole lot of details but what kind of involvement is she in her mama great [Applause] [Music] I'd been granted an hour to interview eron caffy at the hilltop unit in gate ville Texas investigators remain convinced it was all her idea to kill her family but Arin has always denied [Music] this hi nice to meet you Erin Hi it's good to meet you good to meet you you're much smaller than mother I thought you'd be how tall are you 411 411 and how old are you now 24 24 and you've been inside here for how long eight going on eight years now you were 16 when this all happened when you look back can you quite believe that that person was you that got caught up in such a a terrible thing no not really I mean just from the way we lived you know who we were and the church and all that you know I was voted when we went to a youth camp you know most likely to succeed you know and best funloving person and never did I think I'd be sitting here see that's extraordinary isn't it most likely to succeed most funloving person you're from a very loving family and yet it ends in this terrible catastrophic mass murder what what the hell happened I guess what it all pulls down to when I think about it and I think about other young kids that have came in after me and people that'll come in even when I die you know young kids um it's all about choices and the choices I made at a young age didn't think that it would affect you know I just thought it was just affecting me and the little stuff that I was doing but the little stuff adds up and then it just you know blows up and we don't think about choices when your dad looked you in the eye and said did you do this were you involved in this what did you say to him the first time he asked you that question he first he told me he love me and then he said you know did you have any involvement in this and when I saw him there I was like no no no no and I saw her screaming he just said okay just don't talk about it I guess just it hit me hard when I saw his arm in that sling that was reality for you yeah you realized this was not a game right your dad and N died and everybody else was dead this was real [Music] I thought it was the most disturbing thing I'd ever seen I had seen things where there were more victims I had seen cases that were more heinous I had seen cases that were more premeditated but when you took the totality of all the circumstances it really was the most disturbing thing I had ever seen I just can't believe she do something like this her own brothers are your mom when I look back on it now this was all just stupid I mean for what you know they weren't beating me they weren't starving me to death I had it made you know Daddy bought me a car let me have a job what is your view of Aaron [Music] Cathy going to have to think on that a little bit Ain seems to be one of those people that everybody has to think about for quite a bit because what she did is apparently so out of kilter with her upbringing her parenting the schooling there's nothing there to suggest mass murder it didn't Jive at all it never has jived um as it didn't with any of the other three um it didn't it didn't fit Charlie it didn't fit Charles it didn't fit Bobby um and that was part of what made this case so perplexing all along was um what in the world made them think a that this was a good idea B that they could get away with it or see that there weren't obvious long-term ramifications for this it just defied all logic it it still does a community east of Dallas is still coping tonight with an attack that left a mother and her two sons dead and a father in the hospital in custody are 18-year-old Bobby Johnson 20-year-old Charles Wade and 19-year-old Charles Wilkinson he's the boyfriend of 16-year-old Aaron Cathy I ask you a question you shot her dad right yeah did you shoot them kids no I told him I could see you shooting her dad because you're hoad couldn't see you shooting them two little kids that don't make no [Music] sense trying to make sense of how this could have happened comes down to this question is Aaron Cathy a cold calculating murderer or is she a vulnerable young woman who just got caught up in the Romantic thr of a controlling [Music] boyfriend when you look back on life before this atrocity do you think of any moments now when you look back and think maybe that was a warning sign that that was something you must agonize over this when you have you been able to identify anything one thing is that when Aaron began to date Charlie I noticed Aaron begin to change you know before this happened Aaron was a very happy young lady but when Charlie came around I know she begin to change you know but there was just something about Charlie that just it like when you looked him in the eye you could see right through his soul was like you could see right through him even though he's trying to be overly polight in some areas but I just sense that something didn't seem right as the relationship with Charlie Wilkinson develops and you and Penny get more and more concerned and Penny goes to the library finds his Myspace page and sees all this stuff about drinking and having sex with multiple people any parent seeing that with their little girl being 16 you know pretty innocent girl from all accounts is going to freak out of it m we knew we had to do something it was time to have this sit down talk there was no more denying this or thinking there's not a problem or allowing Aaron to resolve this issue because it wasn't being resolved because it's ongoing but she took it surprisingly well when you said you can't see him anymore right somewhat she held held her head I remember her holding her head down and te eyed a little bit and she said that she'd been trying to she had been wanting to end it but didn't know how and I didn't really know how to take that at that time and I said well just consider it done I was shocked um Angry hurt um this was the guy I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with and he loved me you loved him yeah like properly loved him I don't know if at 16 I knew what proper love was but at the time oh yeah I was in love and we were going to get married and he said since that he felt the only way he could get you back was to do what he said he wanted which was to kill your family I can't put words in his mouth I can't uh did you remember saying that to him no um what conversation did you have with him about killing your family he said it like it was a game he had a name for it and uh what was the name Fubar Fubar Fubar and he would always I mean there was no really serious planning he would always just say I just want a f are and I would what does that mean like to kill your family and I would like laugh joke about it okay and didn't take him seriously I mean he he kind of had anger problem you know and just kind of blew him off [Music] Bobby Johnson and Charles Wade picked up Charlie Wilkinson and they went out to Aaron's house at around midnight and Aaron was home with the family and they they had a black lab that was outside and the dog started barking and they ended up leaving and then after that was when Aaron was calling Charlie where are you I'll take care of the dog I'll keep the dog quiet you need to come back they picked Aaron up and the four of them then went to a cemetery and sat in the car for an hour or so and talked about what they were going to do and talked about how they were going to commit the murders and that was always the point in time where I was just so perplexed why why didn't someone say hey wait this is a bad idea ultimately nobody did and so they turned around and they went back to the home the boys parked the car out on the road Aaron and Bobby sat in the back seat Charles and Charlie went up to the house and of course Aaron had left the front door unlocked Charlie shot Terry first and then he shot Penny and the gun jammed he grabbed the sword and stabbed penny with the sword and almost cut her head off then the boys heard the Ruckus downstairs they were upstairs yelling and Charles Wade shot up and shot Matthew then Charlie Wilkinson went and took the knife and stabbed Tyler to death as he hid in the closet which was probably of all the things that were done that night the most disturbing to me and then after that they set the house on fire with big lighters they had purchased earlier in the evening and then they left Charles Wade and Bobby dropped Aaron and Charlie off at Charlie's brother's trailer where they then had sex and um Charles and Bobby went on home later that morning the police arrested Charlie under interrogation he told them the murders had been instigated by Erin but she was in hospital still insisting that she'd been drugged and kidnapped from the house I made contact with the female officers there requested them to have a full tox screen toxicology done on Miss Cathy and I requested the officer to gather her clothing and tell me if it smelled like smoke because if you're in a room that's full of smoke you're going to smell like smoke and the officer advised me that there was no smell of smoke anywhere Aaron you said that you woke up and smoke was everywhere is that right and you said that two guys were with swords are you okay um tell me again what they told you to do they get down and stay down place down where were you at when you first saw them I was in this house that and then that's the last thing I remember until this morning I guess when the cops me up and I can't even remember where you've been identified as the the ring leader the master of this operation it was all your idea you driving it you were the one that wanted this to happen you wanted your family to be killed the media you know when things first happen the media takes something and runs with it and I just think that when this first happened the media took something somebody said and then just blew it up how do you measure that against what happened on the night because you're inside the house you make over a dozen phone calls to him you then go out you sit in the car they've got guns they've got swords they go in you know what they're going in to do as you're sitting in that car and you know they've gone in to do this what's going through your mind then um I guess you can hear her right you you couldn't hear it couldn't hear the gun no you knew what they were doing all right um I guess I wasn't thinking what people found extraordinary and made many extraordinary things is that you went back and eventually end up with your boyfriend and you have sex together after this has happened after you know this guy has killed your family it's um the best way I can explain it is when you make one bad choice it's like when you I guess maybe if you tell a lie I don't know this this is a good way of explaining it when you tell a lie it's not just that one lie then you covered up with this lie and then this lie and the lies get caught up one of the investigators said you were the best liar that ever met I don't know if that's true or not what I feel as you're telling this story is that you're honest to a point I mean it's almost like a barrier comes up where you don't want to admit that you were that person because it's easier that it's hard to admit what probably [Music] happened [Music] you you want to stay with that story that's fine that's what I heard last night is when she said Charlie get rid of my parents I'm tired of being beat well I'll tell you I've seen her today and she don't have a beat mark on her you see beat mark on her I didn't either I ain't seen a mark on her she said that her mom been pushing her and stuff like that slapping her and bunching her is it worth killing no anybody say anything in the car after y'all left the house mhm what uh there said holy that was awesome I wish sh that was awesome the accomp stories matched they all said it was Erin who'd been behind the killings but in the 8 years since the murders aarin has continued to deny that she was The Mastermind let me ask you a really difficult question because it is a difficult question do you believe the version that eron's giving you or do you feel like you have to believe it at this stage I think for the most part I believe there there's some details that that maybe not that's not completely out there but for the most part I believe you know you know your children I'm not saying that our children are Innocent but you get to know your kids what they're capable of what they're not Aaron had responsibility that night she really did but I didn't really know how to take all this back then but looking back now I honestly believe that she was not the Mastermind and I'm not saying that out of denial because it's my daughter but I don't believe my daughter is evil and I don't believe that she was the driving force she was a contributor yes but you got to understand this was a vulnerable 16-year-old girl this is this controlling psychopath sociopath guy you mix that together this is what you ended up with Charlie Wilkinson came from a broken home but often spent time here at the house of Theresa Meyers he became good friends with her son and confided in her he called her mom there are two schools of thought one is that he was the driving force with his friend that he wanted to somehow impress Erin MH maybe win her back whatever it may be and it was all from him the other school of thought is it was all driven by Erin she's this malevolent evil young woman who compelled him to do this what do you think um I think because I know Charlie um he wasn't an evil person I don't think that he had an A A an evil bone in his body but the times leading up to what happened um I had many conversations with him you know where he felt like she was in danger in danger how I remember a time when my son was with them and um he they were supped they were do home and Charlie always made sure that he got Justin home on time but they were late and um I reached to my what is going on he's like I'm at the police station with Charlie I'm like what are you doing there and he said um he's up here because Aaron said that her mom hit her I mean I was upset with Charlie I said do you know I mean do you know that she was hit well she said and I told him I said you know she said doesn't show proof have you seen marks on her have you seen her mom hit her have you you know done anything like that and he's like well no and I said then you're taking her word and from that moment I kind of felt like she was pulling you know she had a hold and she was trying to manipulate him in into believing that all these things were were happening when they weren't you were trying obiously in a delicate way to get Charlie to leave her to move on oh yeah but he just truly in his heart felt like he loved her and um and love can be a really scary thing let me ask you a question when you went there shooting at Mom and Dad what was your intention what were you intending to do I guess I was attempting to kill him cuz I thought I wasn't [Music] T she worth all this [Music] um the very first day we had court um we went up to Reigns County and that was the first day we met Terry he was just out of the hospital you could still see the holes in his face and we sat down and we had a meeting said that um we don't have to talk about the issue of the death penalty yet it's too early there's no sense in not in doing it at this point and I'll never forget he just looked at me and he said he ate at my table and I was taken back by that and he said I want the death penalty and he was adamant as to Charles Wade and Charlie um and I said okay I remember my pastor coming to me say we need to pray for these young men and blah blah blah I'm thinking why they can just write and hell is what I told him and that's how much anger I had I remember every month they would have these pre-trial hearings and I remember one time setting two or three benches back and I could see the backs of their heads and I thought how easy it would be to sneak in there with a gun and just blow their heads off and I contemplated that for a whole month and that was my thought I'm going I'm going to do it I'm going to go take their life I went out and purchased a gun but when it came down to it I even had the gun in my truck when I went to the court that day I remember backing my truck up in front of the court and I went to go get my gun and I just begin to shake and it's was like this is not the answer this is not going to bring your family back while the court hearings continued a new witness came forward Erin's former boyfriend Michael wasburn his testimony was absolutely pivotal to nailing the lies of eron caffy and finally proved that she had been The Mastermind behind the is in doing the investigation here we' learned that um that you and Aaron had uh dated at one time what caused the the breakup her mom and dad didn't want me seeing her now as I ask questions if I ask a direct or hard question I I need a grownup man's response okay to help solve what truly happened that night I'm going to tell you the truth okay and and she told me that she was going to hire somebody to go out there and kill her parents why was she wanting to have somebody go out to the house and uh kill the parents cuz she told me that every time she gets a boyfriend that she really likes her mom and dad tries to break them up let me ask you some tough questions you can answer them however you want but I think you're in a position now in your life and you've had a lot of time to think about this well you can probably be more honest than you could have been maybe eight years ago it what's pretty clear is that you certainly told people that you wanted your family dead why was that well I've talked to several young ladies in here and you know they've said well I said one time when I was you know your age uh you know I wish my parents were dead and you know we say things when we're young and if we're mad not realizing that you got to be careful what you say and especially you know to whoever as you sit here now and you look back over what happened how much personal responsibility do you now take well I'm still I'm still working on that and please hear me say I'm not you know I first got looked up I do the the blame game but I know I need to for myself and then for others take responsibility for my actions and U like I said it's what are those actions what are you taking responsibility for it's just uh I don't know we I've still got some things I got to process and work out do you accept that your family would still all be alive if you had wanted them to be alive in other words you could have stopped this at any time yes oh yeah you accept that yes that in itself must be a terrible burden on you that you had that power to stop this happening that you never chose to take that choice that option for me the most extraordinary part of his story is that Terry and Erin still have any relationship at all and the Terry has found a place in his heart to keep loving his daughter to my opinion Daddy's in total denial he wants her still out of jail the way I have always viewed Terry is that Terry has to do and he is entitled to do whatever he needs to do to get through and if that requires him to um have denial about Aron I don't fault him for that and he has every right to do that [Music] [Music] your dad's a remarkable man he stood by you through th then knowing what you did what was the first moment when you were able to say to him I did have something to do with this um it was about the second or third visit um he came by himself and for some reason that day we were emotional from the start and he had showed me where he got shot and I just started crying and rubbing his arm and told him I was sorry and then that's when we got into it we talked about things what was his reaction to that coming out of your mouth for the first time you know um my dad said from the very beginning that even if I was the one that had came in that night and stood over his bed he would still love me and come to see me and she said no matter what I could do it would not change his love for me and I just didn't believe it and uh for a long time I just worried one day I wake up and he would just decide you know I don't want to have nothing to do with you and uh he just rures me over and over again you know he loves me and uh no matter what he's going to be by my side and talks about unconditional love I mean it's an extraordinary thing for him to do it's attracted lots of reaction good and bad for him some people think it's amazing and the power of his faith other people think it's ridiculous and he shouldn't be standing by someone that killed his wife and his two sons I as a you know father of four kids I can understand why he's taken this decision why he stood by you you're all he's got from that family in the awful months after the murders Terry chose to come back here and live in a camper van the fire had completely destroyed his home and few traces remained of the life that he once shared with his [Music] family it seems to me a strange thing to do like the last thing I'd want to do what pulled you to stay here for those four months I felt this is this is my home and I'm trying to make sense of what happened I'm thinking if I could go back to the property I still in a sense still have my family with me have the memories and uh not just the memories of that night but I I have the memories of my children playing I came back because I needed to to get my healing and those were some terrible terrible months slept with a I I still sleep with a loaded gun but I have it close by in a nightstand but then I was actually sleep with the gun on my chest every I mean I just lay there really wouldn't sleep much and when I would those off I would wake up here bam I hear the gunshots and I would I would wake up and I would just be drenched with sweat you've said that you feel a sense of guilt or you did for a long time about what happened no rational person looking at this situation could level any guilt your way at all quite the opposite have you been able to yourself acknowledge that actually it's not your fault that you don't need to feel guilty finally you know folks F will ask me people will say how what was your process of forgiveness who do you who did you forgive first you know and and I always say Aaron you know that was my daughter that was still a struggle but I was able to re to forgive her rebuild this relationship and then it was going forward to the boys forgiving them and uh you know I forg I forgiven them and I was still struggling I had this heaviness and realized I had to forgive myself I didn't cause this I didn't make those boys come here and do that I didn't pull the trigger I didn't set the things in motion that night for this to happen if I knew they were coming I would have stopped them um I would have protected my family by all cause and so it was a struggle that very shed over there there's a few things that would sa because it was in the shed and not in my home and I came to one letter where penny has said you're such a great father and she says she said that you're my hero you're my hero and at that moment I just broke because I thought your hero I'm opposite of a hero and that was during those times I was really struggling with this with myself cuz I said I should have protected you and the kids that night and I began to go through all the other the letters and the cards and brought back so many emotions in that same tote she had saved little baggies of the children's first haircut lots of their first haircut so I'm opening this up and I'm smelling and I'm picking up their hairs my boys it just was such an emotional day that day you know to think about that but so so it has been a struggle to finally get to that place where I could forgive myself thank you ter thank you appreciate it bless you [Music] Terry eventually requested the accomplices be spared the death penalty Charlie Wilkinson is serving life without parole Charles Wade is also serving life without parole Bobby Johnson will serve a minimum of 20 years and Aaron caffy will serve a minimum of 42 years for murder have you had any contact with the other three members of the group nothing no sir not for the moment no everyone got arrested that was it right do you think you ever will again I don't know I don't think so I mean Charlie's said on record that he thinks he'll always love you do you love him still I mean I forgive I mean you know we all it's all about forgiveness it's a different thing it's about whether you love him whether that burning passion that you have for each other is still there for you no not not that way what do you feel about him I feel I feel bad for him um I don't know what it's like at the men's unit I heard it's horrible um and I think about his family you know do you feel guilty for what happened to their son do you feel like without you pushing him it would never have happened I've never thought about that now I'm asking you do you think that's something you should feel that actually you could have stopped him doing this if you wanted to yeah what do you think the first things that you'll do will be when you do get out have youever thought about that day yes me and my dad have talked about it um we talk about the first thing I want to do is uh go pay my my respects to the graveyard what do you think you will say when you have that moment I don't know if I'll be able to say anything I'm just tearing up now um my dad said that the first time he went there he he couldn't speak um so I can imagine you know it might be like that for me too but it's something you really want to do it's part of the healing process right [Music] yeah well AR it's been fascinating talking to you thank you you're not what I expected I I haven't interviewed many monsters or mass murderers but I've got a much better insight into into you the human being M what happened and I I wish you all the very best here in in the future and trying to make yourself a better person so thank you for your time thank you for coming thank [Music] you [Music] [Music] oh

Channel: True Crime Central

Views: 2,211,138

Keywords: Australian Crime, Crime Stories, Jeffrey Dahmer, Serial Killers, Ted Bundy, True Crime, True Crime Central, asmr, cases, cold cases, community, crim, crime, crime recaps, doco, documentary, full episodes, gangsters, murder, murder mystery, podcast, podcasts, recap, treu crime, true crime, true crime addict, true crime asmr, true crime podcast, true crime recaps

Id: Co75ug5wf7g

Length: 46min 10sec (2770 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 27 2024