Caleb Flynn, former American Idol singer, convicted of murdering his wife

Former American Idol singer Caleb Flynn was found guilty Tuesday of murdering his wife, who was killed in their Ohio home in February.

It took the jury just over two hours to convict Flynn of nine counts of murder, assault and tampering with evidence.

After the verdict was read by Judge Jeannine Pratt in Miami County Common Pleas Court in Troy, Ohio, Flynn broke down in tears and was seen repeatedly wiping his nose and eyes. He was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

Sentencing will take place on October 5, where he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Flynn, a former music pastor, told a 911 dispatcher that his wife, Ashley Flynn, who worked as a teacher and volleyball coach, was shot several times in the head by an intruder. He told the dispatcher he didn’t know if the intruder was still in their Tipp City home.

In interviews with police in court, Flynn told officers he was sleeping on the couch when he woke up to the sound of gunshots. He said that the day before the murder, a man came to their home and handed his wife an American flag while making a “weird sales pitch for America.”

When police arrived at the home the day of the shooting, the garage door, a side door and the center console of Flynn’s pickup truck were open. Flynn told police he kept a gun in the console, but no weapon was found there.

Prosecutors alleged that Flynn, 40, staged the home invasion to mislead investigators and shared his thoughts about killing his wife, 37, in text messages to his then-mistress. Authorities never found the gun used in the murder.

“The evidence proved that the defendant’s story was a complete fabrication,” Matthew C. Joseph, an assistant prosecutor with the Miami County Prosecutor’s Office in Troy, Ohio, said Tuesday.

“While the defendant was telling 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. “The defendant said he was sleeping. His devices indicate he was awake and moving.”

Joseph told the court that Flynn “wanted to be a victim” and wanted to “keep his mistress and have his daughters all to himself.”

“Being the victim allowed him to do this without being the husband who left his wife for a mistress,” Joseph said. “Instead, he would be the husband whose wife was tragically murdered by an unknown intruder.”

Over eight days, the jury heard from 40 prosecution witnesses, including Alleigha Botner, who said she met Flynn when she was 20 and an intern at his church. She said they had been having an affair at the time of Ashley’s murder.

Botner, now 24, said Flynn made remarks that he hated his wife and planned to kill her. Botner sobbed on the stand as she read some of their text messages, telling the court she regretted telling him in a message: “I want to kill her, Caleb.” »

Botner said Flynn responded, “That makes both of us.” »

In other text messages played in court, Flynn talked about wanting his wife dead.

“Last night I cried until 4 a.m. literally trying to think of ways to kill her and not go to jail,” he reportedly wrote in a text from August 2025, about six months before the murder.

In another text, Botner said she wasn’t serious. “I’m not asking you to take his life, obviously, because that’s not what you should do, and I know you wouldn’t,” she wrote. “But for the divorce to happen, it would change everything.”

Botner told the court that her feelings toward Flynn had since changed and that she hated him. When a prosecutor asked her why, she replied: “Because I believe he murdered his wife.” »

The defense rested Monday without calling a single witness.

Flynn’s attorney, Patrick Mulligan, said in his closing argument that being “unfaithful does not equate to murder.”

“This case completely lacks concrete evidence. Connecting a few meaningless dots does not solve the case,” he said.

Flynn sang during the televised auditions in Chicago for season 12 of American Idol in 2013, but did not advance to the main competition.