Caleb Flynn verdict: Tipp City, Ohio husband found guilty of murdering wife, Ashley Flynn while church pastor was having extramarital affair with church intern, Alleigha Botner, who testified against her former lover, insisting she had no part in wife’s murder, despite incriminating texts, a lost cellphone and laptop as mistress escapes complicity.
How much is your love worth…? A former American Idol contestant and Ohio pastor was on Tuesday found guilty in the murder of his wife at their Tipp City home earlier this year a jury decided.
Caleb Flynn, 40, at the time of his February 20 arrest had insisted that wife, Ashley Flynn, 37, was shot and killed at the hands of an intruder breaking into their home. A jury decided that in fact it was the Dayton, Ohio church pastor locked in an extramarital affair with a glamorous church worker, who had killed his wife.
Jury deliberates only 2 hours before finding former American Idol contestant/Church pastor guilty of murder
Flynn was found guilty of nine charges filed against him, including aggravated murder and three charges of murder, two charges of felonious assault and three charges of tampering with evidence. The jury also found Flynn used a firearm in relation to seven of the charges, which carries a sentencing enhancement to those crimes.
The guilty verdict came after the jury only deliberating for two hours, CBS News reported.
Flynn is set to be sentenced on Oct. 5.
Cheating husband given repeated ultimatums
Prosecutors said Flynn shot his wife twice in the back of the head while she was asleep in bed on Feb. 16. They allege he then staged their Tipp City, Ohio, home to mimic a break-in and called 911 to claim an intruder was responsible for the murder. The gun used in the shooting has not been recovered.
Flynn had claimed he was in another room when his wife of 16 years was killed.
Flynn’s attorney, Patrick Mulligan, told reporters after the verdict was read that Flynn maintains his innocence and, ‘I fully anticipate that there will be a notice of appeal filed, and this decision will be tested thoroughly in the Court of Appeals.’
Sealing Caleb Flynn’s fate was retrieved back and forth texts the convicted husband had with his mistress, Alleigha Botner, 24, who also took the stand last week, revealing that she had given the cheating husband an ultimatum to either ‘leave his wife,’ or that she was ending things.
Incriminating text messages between married church pastor and glamorous church intern
During testimony, Botner discussed the thousands of back and forth texts the two shared, including some in which Caleb wrote he wanted his wife dead.
Botner testified to a roughly 18-month sexual affair with Flynn, whom she met when she was an intern at his church. She described how the two hid their messages, admitted to lying to the FBI at first, and explained how she lost her phone and work laptop just weeks before Ashley’s death.
Asked how she feels about Flynn today, she testified, ‘I hate him.’
In the texts, many of which were read in court, Flynn repeatedly said he wished Ashley was dead.
‘I need her to die, to cheat again, to leave,’ Flynn wrote to Botner about his wife on Feb. 11, 2025, almost exactly a year before she was shot. Weeks later, he texted Botner, ‘I hate her as well and I want her gone.’ On March 24, 2025, Botner wrote, ‘What can I do?’ and he responded, ‘Kill her.’
Flynn once texted Botner, ‘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.’
Doomed forbidden love affair
Botner said Flynn talked about leaving Ashley ‘four or five times’ starting around August 2025, and she set deadlines for October, November, December and possibly January.
Botner said she gave him a final deadline of Jan. 11, 2026, to separate from Ashley, then cut off contact until Feb. 14, two days before the murder. During that gap, he sent her a song he wrote, including the line, ‘Life is now empty since the moment I lost you.’
In his last messages to Botner from the night before the killing, Flynn wrote, ‘It’s happening,’ ‘actions will come tomorrow,’ ‘I choose you,’ and ‘about to be free.’ He also said Feb. 16 would be ‘a day I never forget,’ and ‘Tomorrow is a big day.’ Botner told the court she understood ‘actions’ to mean the divorce.
Of note, Flynn declined to take the stand in his own defense. The defense called no witnesses in the trial.
Offered Miami County Prosecuting Attorney Paul Watkins, ‘He had a lawful way to leave, but he was too greedy.’ Adding, ‘People lie. Evidence doesn’t.’
Glamorous church intern denies complicity in murder of married man she was involved with
While text messages were recovered from Caleb and Ashley Flynn’s phones, none were able to be taken from Botner’s devices. She said on the stand her phone had fallen into the water on a solo trip to Clearwater, Florida, and stopped working. Her laptop, meanwhile, she said was lost on a flight on the way home and never recovered.
‘I genuinely … it was completely innocent … anyone who knows me knows that I lose things,’ she told the court.
Flynn’s defense lawyers argue Botner’s phone and computer being lost is not a coincidence and suggest it could mean she played a role in the murder. However, Ring video shown during the trial showed she was at home during the time the murder was committed.
Botner was not charged in the case, and told the court she was not offered anything for her testimony. She told the court when she texted she wanted Ashley ‘gone,’ she meant divorce.
Caleb Flynn appeared on season 12 of ‘American Idol,’ which took place in 2013.
‘I love my wife more than anything. She is very, very pretty,’ the husband said at the time. ‘I love her.’
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