Former ‘American Idol’ Contestant Caleb Flynn Found Guilty of Murdering His Wife

Caleb Flynn, the former American Idol contestant accused of fatally shooting his wife, has been found guilty of murder.

An Ohio jury reached the verdict Tuesday (Sept. 29) after about 2.5 hours of deliberation, determining that the 40-year-old musical pastor is guilty on all charges, which span aggravated murder and multiple counts of murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence in connection with the death of his wife, Ashley Flynn. Going into the trial, Caleb had pleaded not guilty.

Following the court’s decision, defense attorney Patrick Mulligan told reporters, “While we respect the system, certainly we’re disappointed … there’s a lack of evidence on prior calculation and design.”

Caleb was charged in February with murdering Ashley — with whom he shares two daughters — after she died via gunshot in their Tipp County home earlier that month. After the shooting, he’d called 911 and told the dispatcher that a burglary had taken place and that the intruder had been the person who killed his wife.

Text messages read in court, however, showed that Caleb had been having a 1.5-year affair with now-24-year-old Alleigha Botner, who worked at his church as an intern and gave hours of testimony during the trial. “If I could literally kill her and not go to hell, I would do it in a heartbeat,” Caleb texted Botner in May 2025, according to CNN. “That’s how dark and hateful I feel.”

The exchanges also showed Botner asking Caleb to get a divorce from Ashley so that they could be together instead. On Feb. 15, the day before the shooting, Caleb — having told Botner that he was planning to tell Ashley he was leaving her the following day — sent in a message: “It’s kind of crazy. I’m not scared tomorrow. I mean, I’m not looking forward to it, and it’s about to be a crap-fest here moving forward, but I’m not scared of it.”

Caleb made it as far as the televised judges’ auditions on the 12th season of American Idol in 2013, but did not advance to the main competition. In his “Road to Hollywood” interview for the TV show, he repeatedly mentioned his love for Ashley, his marriage to whom lasted about 16 years before her murder.

“I love to sing, so that’s why I auditioned — and my wife kind of nudged me a little bit too,” he said in the clip. “I love my wife more than anything. She is very, very pretty.”