Former American Idol star Caleb Flynn has been found guilty of all counts of murder of his wife, Ashley Flynn. Flynn sobbed when the jury in his murder trial reached its verdict on Tuesday (September 29). The 40-year-old now faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and will learn his fate at a sentencing hearing on October 5.
Verdict and charges
He was found guilty of all nine charges, namely one count of aggravated murder, three counts of murder, two counts of felonious assault, and three counts of tampering with evidence. Prosecutors alleged that Flynn killed his 37-year-old wife by shooting her twice in the back of the head, and staged the scene to make it look like a burglary gone wrong, reports The Mirror US.
Flynn had pleaded not guilty to the nine charges, claiming an intruder killed his wife during a burglary. Ashley had been shot twice in the back of her head while she was asleep in bed in their residence in Tipp City, Ohio, on February 16. The couple shared two daughters, who were asleep in the house when the crime occurred. Flynn's lawyers claimed that he was asleep at the time of the shooting and had woken up to the sounds of the gunshots while he was in their daughter Ava's room.
Mistress's testimony
Prosecutors said hours before Caleb called 911, he had texted his former mistress, "I choose you. I'm free. Actions will come tomorrow." The former mistress, Alleigha Botner, had testified in court for over two days. The 24-year-old testified that Caleb told her he intended to talk to Ashley about divorce on February 16, and she thought his phrasing, "Actions will come tomorrow," meant that.
When Botner learned his wife was dead, she told the court, "My heart started pounding. In my mind, it seemed like too much of a coincidence that the day he's divorcing her, she's just dead all of a sudden." She stated that she had once thought she loved Caleb, but when the prosecutor asked her to label her feelings for him now, she replied, "I hate him." When asked about the shift of her emotions, she explained in court, "Because I believe that he murdered his wife."
Text messages and motive
Botner additionally testified that she met Flynn in 2022 while interning at their church, and their sexual relationship occurred for about a year, starting in May 2024. She noted that she knew he was married. In Botner's testimony, she said that Flynn would regularly voice that he wanted Ashley "gone" or "dead," and that he referred to her as "d-----bag," "wh-re," "sl-t," and "spawn of Satan."
"He said that he wishes if he could kill her and not go to jail or get arrested -- I forget exactly what he said -- that he would do it," Botner testified. She read some of their over 100,000 text message exchanges, in which Caleb expressed wanting Ashley dead. One of those texts Caleb sent to Botner in August 2025 read, "I was up until 4 a.m. last night ... trying to think of ways to kill her and not go to jail. If I could literally kill her and not go to hell, I would do it in a heartbeat."
In one July 2025 text, Botner read, she had mentioned wanting to kill Ashley. She cried as she read it, saying she regretted the message and she "didn't mean it." In another text to Caleb in August 2025, Botner had stated that she wanted him to divorce Ashley and not kill her. "I'm not asking that you take her life, obviously, because that's not what you should do, and I know you actually wouldn't," she wrote. "But to make the divorce happen, it would change everything."
Botner was not charged in the case nor accused by authorities of any crime. She also told the court that she had not been offered anything for her testimony.
