Ex-American Idol contestant Caleb Flynn guilty of murdering wife

ABC News posted the full Sept. 29 broadcast of “World News Tonight with David Muir” to YouTube, and the channel’s description says correspondent Alex Perez reports that an Ohio jury found former pastor and one-time “American Idol” contestant Caleb Flynn guilty of murdering his wife after two hours of deliberation.

Flynn, 40, was convicted Tuesday on all nine counts, including aggravated murder, murder with a firearm specification, felonious assault and tampering with evidence, according to coverage of the Miami County trial in Troy, Ohio. Ashley Flynn, 37, a schoolteacher and volleyball coach, was shot twice in the back of the head on Feb. 16, 2026, at the family home in Tipp City. He called 911 around 2:30 a.m. and said a burglar had killed her.

Prosecutors told jurors the killing followed an affair with Alleigha Botner and a trail of texts. The pair exchanged more than 100,000 messages over about a year to 18 months, trial reporting shows. Botner was 20 when she met Flynn at his church in 2022; the affair began in March 2024, and she was 24 by the time she testified. One August 2025 message from Flynn, read in court, said: “I was up until 4am last night crying, literally thinking of ways to kill her and not go to jail.” Another read: “I just want her dead and gone.”

Assistant prosecuting attorney Matthew C. Joseph closed by calling Flynn’s story “a complete fabrication.” Joseph said the defendant’s phones and watch showed movement in the hours before the shooting. “While the defendant told law enforcement that he was sleeping, his electronic devices documented something different. They documented movement and activity in the hours leading up to Ashley’s murder,” Joseph said, according to NBC News. “The defendant said he was sleeping. His devices say he was awake and moving.” Joseph argued Flynn “wanted to be a victim.” “Being the victim allowed him to do that without being the husband who left his wife for a mistress. Instead, he’d be the husband whose wife was tragically murdered by an unknown intruder,” he said.

Defense lawyer Patrick Mulligan said the case lacked hard proof. “Connecting a couple of meaningless dots doesn’t solve the case,” Mulligan told the jury. He pressed the missing weapon: “They can’t find the gun, therefore they blame it on him?” Police who arrived at the house found a garage side door and the center console of Flynn’s truck open; the 9-millimeter handgun he said he kept there was gone. Recovered bullets were 9-millimeter rounds matching that gun, outlets reported. The defense rested without calling witnesses after eight days of prosecution testimony in a trial that ran about two weeks overall.