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Boyfriend in Texas family ambush sentenced to life

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-01-07 14:37

EMORY, Texas -- A 20-year-old man who helped kill a lovesick girl's family because the two were forbidden to date has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Charlie James Wilkinson was sentenced Tuesday for the March 2008 killings of Penny Caffey and her two sons in their Emory home. His friend, Charles Allan Waid, was also sentenced to life in prison.

Authorities say Caffey's teenage daughter, Erin, and Wilkinson spent weeks planning to kill the girl's family.

The parents were shot while they slept, and the house was torched. Only Caffey's father survived, crawling out of his burning home after being shot five times.

Erin Caffey and 19-year-old Bobbi Johnson, who also pleaded guilty, have also received lengthy prison sentences.