Piers Morgan revealed the interview that unsettled him the most in his decades-long career.
The British broadcaster has interviewed dozens of celebrities, politicians, and controversial pop culture figures.
The 61-year-old journalist began his career in 1988 at the tabloid The Sun. He has since worked for TV networks such as ITV and CNN, in addition to hosting his YouTube talk show, Piers Morgan Uncensored.
Highlights
- Piers Morgan called Erin Caffey "probably the most dangerous person" he has ever interviewed during his long career.
- At 16, Caffey orchestrated an attack against her entire family at her Texas home.
- Caffey's father survived the attack and believes she was a vulnerable teen manipulated by her controlling boyfriend.
Image credits: PiersMorganUncensored
Trigger warning: this article contains graphic details that may be distressing to some.
At one point in his career, Morgan focused on covering crime stories with shows such as Confessions of a Serial Killer and Psychopath.
The interview that made him feel least at ease was conducted in 2016 while filming his series Killer Women.
That year, he met a woman named Erin Caffey, who orchestrated the annihilation of her entire family.
Image credits: TrueCrimeCentral
When she was just 16 years old, Caffey persuaded her 18-year-old boyfriend, Charlie Wilkinson, and his friend, Charles Waid, to take the lives of her family, allegedly because her parents disapproved of her relationship.
Morgan encountered Caffey at Hilltop Unit, a women’s prison in Texas.
In a recently resurfaced interview with Lorraine Kelly, the journalist described Caffey as "probably the most dangerous person" he has ever met.
Image credits: TrueCrimeCentral
"She basically masterminds the annihilation of her family. They k*ll the mother, they riddle the father with bullets, they go and k*ll the two younger brothers, and there was no warning, no suggestion of anything coming,” Morgan said in 2016.
"And I have no explanation after an hour of interviewing her for why [she] did this."
Morgan also described the woman as the “nearest to pure evil I’ve ever seen” and remarked that she looked “apparently normal.”
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In 2008, Caffey’s boyfriend and his friend entered her residence in Emory, Texas, where they fired at and stabbed her mother, Penny, and her brothers, Matthew, 13, and Tyler, 8, with a samurai sword.
The father, Terry, sustained multiple wounds but managed to escape the house before it was set on fire.
When police arrested Wilkinson, Waid, and another associate, Bobbi Johnson, who acted as the getaway driver, the teens told authorities that Caffey had plotted the crime.
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Speaking to Morgan, she said, "I was shocked, angry and hurt, this was the guy [Wilkinson] I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with and he loved me. We were going to get married.
“When I look back on it now, this was all just stupid. I mean, for what? They weren't beating me,” she said of her parents.
“They weren't starving me to d*ath. I had it made."
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Caffey and Johnson received sentences of at least 40 years, while Waid and Wilkinson were sentenced to life imprisonment.
The criminals escaped capital punishment at the request of Caffey’s father, who wished for them to "find remorse.”
He also described his daughter as "vulnerable,” questioning her role in organizing the crime.
He stated, "I honestly believe she was not the mastermind. This was a vulnerable 16-year-old girl with a controlling, psychopathic guy. I do forgive her. I have to forgive her."
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Terry told Morgan in 2016 that he visited his daughter regularly despite the crime.
According to an NBC News report from 2008, Wilkinson told police that his girlfriend wanted to execute her parents because they forbade their relationship.
“Wilkinson stated that he and (the girl) were in love and the only way they could be together is to k*ll the parents,” the arrest affidavit stated.
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The crime stunned the town of 1,500 in rural East Texas, where the Caffeys were known as deeply religious and kindhearted, the report stated.
Caffey and Wilkinson were students “who had not been in trouble a great deal," school district superintendent David Seago said at the time, adding, "Maybe some tardies and absences, but that's it."
Carl Johnson, a friend of the family, told the outlet that Caffey’s parents “didn't like the boy and were trying to break them up.” According to Johnson, the parents reportedly told him that “they didn't have any use” for Wilkinson.
Image credits: TrueCrimeCentral
Speaking to GQ, Morgan recalled another of the most challenging interviews he has conducted.
"I think Robert Blake, who was an actor who'd been accused of k*lling his wife many years ago, a kind of comeback interview, and he completely lost it with me, ripped off his jacket, ripped off his earpiece and began hurling ab*se at me and began calling me Charlie Potatoes for some unfathomable reason,” he shared.
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