Hope for the rest of us Part One

Part Two

Part Three Betrayal When an unthinkable crime shatters a family, a father is forced to confront the emotional wreckage

Gunshots startled Buz Caldwell from sleep. They filled the room with hot light and blew him from bed. He came to on the floor, his feet toward the headboard. Blood soaked the carpet. Buz shouted to his wife, Rosalyn, who had been asleep next to him in her pink nightgown. “Roz? Roz?” Silence. He tugged open the nightstand drawer and reached for his pistol. It was gone. So was the intruder. Buz never saw the shooter. He checked his digital alarm clock: 11:47 p.m. He struggled to his knees, then crumpled. Somehow, he inched toward the phone across the room. Every breath hurt. When he tried to raise his head, he blacked out again. A light flicked on in the hallway just as he reached for the phone. “Krissi, is that you?” he called out. The shadow of his 16-year-old daughter filled the doorway. “I need your help,” he said. “I’ve been shot.” Krissi called 911. Her words were so matter of fact, so calm, that the Frisco police dispatcher at first believed the call was a hoax. The scene at the Caldwell home bore testament to the crime. The plot What the dispatcher heard in Krissi Caldwell’s voice was not deceit but disappointment. The teenager entered the bedroom expecting — hoping — to find both of her parents dead. Krissi’s relationship with them had been fraying for years. She skipped school, stayed out late, called her mother a bitch. She had illusions of taking her parents’ money and playing house with her 15-year-old boyfriend, Bobby Gonzales. All she had to do was get rid of Buz and Roz. So she plotted two murders. To get Bobby to go along, she lied to him, saying her father sexually abused her and her mother allowed it. She swiped her father’s gun and gave it to Bobby. On March 6, 1992, she and Bobby ditched school after second period and rode around in Krissi’s black Blazer with Buz’s gun under the passenger seat. Bobby played a little basketball that afternoon. After dinner, Krissi told her parents she was going out to see friends. She met up with Bobby instead. Late that night, wearing a polo shirt, jeans and Air Jordans, Bobby stepped into the Caldwells’ bedroom. When the police got to the house, Roz Caldwell, just 41 years old, was already gone, killed by a bullet to her chin that traveled into her brain. Buz, shot twice, was still alive, stubbornly drawing breaths in his bloody T-shirt and underwear. Krissi had committed the worst kind of betrayal. Once, she had been Buz’s baby girl, but now, he grew determined to seek vengeance. He testified against Krissi and demanded the harshest possible sentence. He got what he wanted, but for years after, his heart remained cold. Then something happened to Buz Caldwell. Think of the worst thing a loved one ever did to you. Think of the shock and pain you felt when you saw this person’s other face. How long did you carry that rage, that scar on your heart? Do you carry it still? What would it take you to forgive? Here’s what it took for Buz Caldwell. If there’s hope for him, there’s hope for the rest of us.


School sweethearts For Buz, it all began with Roz. They met on the school bus when she was in fourth grade and he was in fifth, back when Frisco was a patch of dirt in the country. On their first date, in high school, he took her to church, then out for ice cream. He was chocolate and way too serious. She was strawberry and giggles. They were country kids. He was an only child who grew up doing chores on his family’s farm. She baled hay, drove a tractor and put peanuts in her Coke. They got married in 1969, before she finished secretarial school and he got his degree from what is now Texas A&M-Commerce. He would go on to work with military contracts at Texas Instruments. She did bookkeeping and secretarial work. Their daughter Brandi was born in 1972; Krissi, three years later. Buz worked long hours and Roz stayed home, sewing, cooking and singing Charley Pride songs in the kitchen with her girls. Buz and Roz Caldwell, in their 1965 and 1966 yearbook photos, met on the school bus as youngsters. (Frisco ISD) Roz was “the love of my life,” Buz said one morning on the patio of a Frisco Starbucks. He looked away, a catch in his voice. “There are days you look ahead and still expect to see her.” At 67, Buz’s hair has thinned and turned a grayish white, as has his mustache. He often wears a baseball cap and a long-sleeved T-shirt under a short-sleeved one. He’s retired but finds himself busy every day, helping his mother, working in the yard, meeting up with old friends. He likes to have things his way and considers himself "a crusty old bird." A fight with throat cancer has left his voice gravelly and weak; he calls it his “Godfather voice.” He always has a bottle of water so he can keep talking just a little bit longer. When Krissi was a child, she and Buz “were pretty much inseparable,” Buz said. “If I would sit down, and she spotted me, I was going to have company. She was very close, very warm, very affectionate.” He read her Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Alice in Wonderland and Winnie the Pooh. She pointed out if Buz accidentally skipped a word. Years later, Buz sounded both weary and wistful as he talked about those simple times. “I got sick of reading Pooh Bear,” he said. Share your story What is the hardest thing you've had to forgive? Reporters for The Dallas Morning News want to hear more stories about forgiveness from our readers. Tell us your story. Clockwise from leftFrom top: Buz and Roz attended Frisco High’s prom together twice before they married in 1969. Daughter Krissi and her boyfriend, Bobby Gonzales, spent time together in December 1991, three months before the crime. Buz, with daughters Krissi and Brandi and wife Roz, posed with Brandi’s daughter Taylor in 1990. Krissi sits on her dad’s lap during a vacation in Colorado. A sudden change Krissi’s big sister, Brandi, remembers Krissi as “an angel child” who followed the rules and excelled at school. Then, in seventh grade, Krissi’s grades dropped. She failed classes. She lied — about big things, little things. It didn’t matter. Mood swings aren’t unusual for adolescents, but Krissi changed so suddenly and intensely that her own parents barely recognized her. Every disagreement turned into a fight. She would scream and yell for 10 minutes, then retreat to her bedroom and slam the door. She’d return a short time later just as loud and angry as before. Buz had little patience for Krissi’s tirades. “My dad’s temper was way beyond my mom’s,” Brandi said. Buz spanked Krissi when she acted out. Once, he even grabbed her by the hair to pull her away from her mother. “It was absolutely a miserable existence for all of us,” Buz said. The family went to counseling, but any improvement was fleeting. When Krissi was 15, the school nurse called Roz and said Krissi was “out of it.” She had overdosed on Roz’s Valium pills. Buz and Roz had her hospitalized, and doctors diagnosed her with major depressive disorder. When she was discharged, she seemed better. Medical records show Krissi was “in stable condition ... she was nonhomicidal and nonsuicidal.”


Krissi and Bobby Bobby Gonzales was nearly a year younger than Krissi, but they were in the same class at Frisco High. He was the second of five sons born to a truck driver dad and a mom who worked a variety of jobs. Bobby was small, 5 feet 8 and 130 pounds. He played junior varsity football and did just OK in school. He had never been in real trouble. Krissi and Bobby, shown in their 1991 yearbook photos, had dated on and off since eighth grade. (Frisco ISD) Krissi and Bobby had dated on and off since eighth grade, but Krissi always tried to hide the relationship. Her parents didn’t want her dating. They were especially concerned about Bobby because they didn’t think she could handle the complications of dating someone from another culture. Bobby is Hispanic, and the Caldwells are white. Once she was on her own, Buz told her, she could decide for herself. She ignored him. Once, she took a sonogram photo to school and told her classmates she was pregnant with Bobby’s baby. The photo actually belonged to Brandi, who’d had a daughter just after she finished high school. Despite Buz’s strong feelings about Bobby, he’d never actually met him. Somebody had once pointed him out from a distance, but that was it. Intense strain Buz worked 10 to 12 hours a day, leaving Roz to deal with Krissi on her own much of the time. “This really devastated Rozie that one of her kids, one of her children that she loved dearly, could be that difficult,” Buz said. “And the longer it went, the more difficult it became. Difficult almost to the point of becoming debilitating.” Sometimes the couple would escape the chaos by flying their small plane to Longview or Texarkana or some other place. They’d eat lunch and fly home. “It was just kind of a day out. We wasn’t gone but three or four hours total,” Buz said. “But it was always kind of a joke at the house that we went and had our $100 hamburger.” One night, heading home from Greenville, they flew mostly in silence, just listening to the rumble of the engine. Then Roz spoke up. “You know, that really worries me,” Roz said, looking out into the night. “What worries you?” Buz asked. “I feel like I’m being pulled into the blackness,” she said. In all the years they’d been married, she’d never said anything that caught Buz so off guard. Fateful night On the night of the shooting, Roz and Buz got ready for bed early, as usual. Some people check all the locks before they turn in. Some check on sleeping children. Buz usually opened his nightstand, just to see if his 9 mm Browning pistol was inside. It always was. But on this night, Buz didn’t open the drawer. Even today, he doesn’t know why. He and Roz were asleep before 10. A short time later, Buz was awakened by the snap-snap-snap of gunfire in the bedroom. Roz was killed immediately. A bullet struck Buz above the right pelvic bone and traveled to his left shoulder, piercing a lung. Another hit his left arm, just below the shoulder. Bobby ran outside. Krissi, who had been waiting in the living room, joined him, and they sped off. They listened to Metallica, continuously rewinding the cassette tape to hear Bobby’s favorite song, “Nothing Else Matters.” It was the tune Bobby used to build his confidence before football games. Your browser does not support the audio element. “[Roz was] the love of my life. There are days you look ahead and still expect to see her.” — Buz Caldwell Krissi returned more than an hour later and “discovered” her parents shot. At the hospital, doctors put Buz on a ventilator. Friends and family rushed to be with him. Uncles, aunts, grandparents, work friends, church friends. Brandi planned her mother’s funeral, not knowing if she’d need to do the same for her father. Buz missed the funeral. Krissi showed up in a white dress and boots. Bobby came with his mother but left early. Nearly every day for two weeks, nurses summoned Brandi, Krissi and Buz’s mother to his ICU room. “There’s just no way he’s going make it,” they’d caution, preparing them for the worst. Somehow, he did. Once the nurses removed the ventilator, Buz asked about Roz. Brandi told him she had died, but he kept forgetting, so Brandi had to say it again and again. “‘Dad, Mom passed away.” Buz vomited each time she told him. She learned to have a bucket ready. Cracking the case Solving the case wasn’t particularly challenging. Investigators learned about the secret relationship between Krissi and Bobby and showed up on Bobby’s doorstep the next morning. From Krissi’s friends, they discovered she had long talked about wanting her parents dead. One day, Collin County sheriff’s investigator Dave Waldschmidt stopped by Buz’s hospital room. Buz quickly realized that his questions weren’t routine. “Are you sure that Krissi was involved in this?” Buz asked. Waldschmidt’s reply has stayed with him: “At this point in time, I would say they are both the top two suspects.” Buz had to live with that sickening idea — and sometimes with Krissi — for weeks. After the shootings, Krissi stayed with relatives and rarely visited him in the hospital. But after he moved in with his mother to continue healing, Krissi joined them. The tension was thick with the things they didn’t say. Finally, Buz simply asked Krissi if she and Bobby shot him or knew who did. Krissi blew off the question. Buz never detected a hint of remorse or sadness. Nearly a month after Roz’s murder, the principal summoned Bobby from Spanish class. Bobby walked into the hallway, where two deputies in cowboy hats were waiting. They frisked him and cuffed his hands behind his back. Bobby’s classmates poured into the hallway to watch as he was taken to the Collin County Juvenile Detention Center. Detectives were closing in on Krissi. She had confided to a friend at school: “I can’t believe he lived. He was supposed to die.” Some of the most damning evidence was in Krissi’s own handwriting. The cops found letters she wrote to Bobby on school notebook paper about what would happen if her parents died. “Mom & Dad went and updated their will today. So now if they die Brandi & I will live here together on our own for as long we we want. God that would be nice, just think I’d be able to do what ever I pleased w/out anybody bothering me,” Krissi wrote in August 1991. “I think I am wrong to wish something would happen to them, but I can’t seem to help it.” Years later, Buz would change in ways he never imagined possible, and this selfish, calculating teenager would again be his baby girl. Recovering from her betrayal would prove far harder than healing from bullet wounds. Follow Jennifer Emily on Twitter at @byjenemily. In Chapter Two, Buz Caldwell comes to grips with his wife’s murder at the hands of his daughter and begins the climb out of a pit of loneliness. Read Chapter Two: The pit.