Police: Boyfriend wanted to kill girl's parents

Carl Johnson, a friend of the family, said the Caffeys moved about two years ago to just outside Emory. He called them good Christians and said he often told the daughter he wanted her soft singing voice to perform at his funeral.

"(The parents) didn't like the boy and were trying to break them up," Johnson said. "They told me at church they didn't have any use for him."

The attack occurred on about 20 acres of pine-canopied, remote land in Alba along a narrow gravel road with just two other homes. The area is so secluded that even the closest neighbors reported only faintly hearing what sounded like thunder early Saturday, and few saw the blaze.

The Rev. Todd McGahee of Miracle Faith Baptist Church, where the Caffeys worshipped and were the house musicians, wept and struggled to stay composed during his Sunday sermon.

"When I first heard, I was like, I don't even think I would have crawled out of the house," McGahee told his congregation. "But God has a purpose for Terry's life. God has a reason. God gave him the strength to get out."

On the Caffeys' wooded plot, the family's black Labrador waited in vain by the ashes of the incinerated house and a burned van for his owners to return.

"There's been a change in this church and a change in this community," McGahee told about 80 worshippers. "And we can't just wish it away. ... It will be the same loss, the same hurt tomorrow. There's been that change in our lives."

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