A former American Idol contestant accused of murdering his wife and staging a fake home invasion allegedly sent a series of disturbing messages to his mistress before the killing — including one in which prosecutors say he admitted he was thinking about how to kill his wife without going to jail.
Caleb Flynn, 40, went on trial Friday in Miami County, Ohio, over the Feb. 16 shooting death of his wife, Ashley Flynn, 37, inside the couple’s Tipp City home.
Flynn has pleaded not guilty.
During opening statements, Miami County Prosecutor Paul Watkins told jurors that investigators uncovered more than 100,000 messages exchanged between Flynn and a woman with whom he was having an affair during the year before Ashley’s death.
Some of those messages, prosecutors argue, reveal far more than an unhappy marriage.
“I was up until 4 a.m. last night crying, literally trying to think of ways to kill her and not go to jail,” Flynn allegedly wrote in one message read aloud in court.
In another message, he allegedly said that if he could kill Ashley without going to hell, he would do so “in a heartbeat.”
Then came what prosecutors portrayed as one of the most significant exchanges.
Hours before Ashley was killed, Flynn allegedly told the other woman, “I choose you. I’m free. Actions will come tomorrow, February 16, a day I’ll never forget.”
The woman has not been accused of participating in Ashley’s death or charged with any crime.
Prosecutors say the messages will help establish Flynn’s motive and intent. His defense team says they prove only that he was unfaithful — not that he was a killer.
“A man can fail as a husband without being a murderer,” defense attorney Emily Smith told jurors during opening statements.
Smith acknowledged Flynn’s affair but accused investigators of deciding Flynn was responsible after discovering it and then attempting to fit the remaining evidence around that conclusion.
The defense also told jurors they should expect to hear that investigators have no direct or forensic evidence proving Flynn fired the shots that killed Ashley.
That dispute is now at the center of what is expected to be a closely watched trial.
According to prosecutors, Ashley was sleeping in bed when she was shot twice in the back of the head during the early morning hours of Feb. 16.
Flynn then called 911 and reported that someone had broken into the home and shot his wife.
“Oh my God. Somebody broke into my home,” Flynn told the dispatcher, according to previously released portions of the call.
He said he had been in another room with the couple’s daughters when Ashley was shot.
Police arriving at the house found Flynn visibly distraught, behavior that was captured on officers’ body cameras. But investigators soon began questioning whether the supposed intruder existed at all.
Prosecutors told jurors Friday that investigators found no evidence showing an outsider had approached or entered the house.
“The only evidence of an intruder is Caleb’s own words,” Watkins told the jury, according to local coverage of the opening statements.
The prosecution also highlighted a potentially important missing piece of physical evidence.
The 9mm handgun believed to have been used to kill Ashley has never been recovered.
Prosecutors say Flynn was known to keep a 9mm handgun inside the center console of his truck. When officers inspected the vehicle after Ashley’s death, the console was allegedly open and empty.
The defense is expected to challenge how much jurors can reasonably infer from that evidence, particularly without the murder weapon or forensic evidence directly placing the gun in Flynn’s hands at the time of the shooting.
Jurors are getting an unusually close look at the alleged crime scene themselves.
The jury visited the Flynn family home as part of the trial, allowing jurors to see the layout of the property rather than relying entirely on photographs, diagrams and testimony.
Flynn was arrested three days after his wife’s death.
A Miami County grand jury later returned an 11-count indictment that included aggravated murder, three murder counts, two felonious assault counts, three counts of tampering with evidence and two misdemeanor witness-intimidation counts, according to court-record reporting. He entered not-guilty pleas.
The case attracted national attention in part because of Flynn’s brief brush with television fame.
He appeared during Season 12 of American Idol in 2013, identifying himself at the time as a music pastor from Tipp City.
In an official American Idol interview that remains online, Flynn spoke repeatedly about his Christian faith and praised Ashley, describing her as his “very, very pretty wife” and saying he loved her deeply.
The original American Idol interview can still be watched here:
Thirteen years later, prosecutors are using Flynn’s private communications to present a dramatically different picture of the marriage.
Watkins told the jury that the messages repeatedly showed Flynn saying he hated Ashley, wanted her gone and wanted to build a future with the other woman.
The defense, however, has warned jurors not to turn marital betrayal and ugly private messages into proof of homicide.
That distinction is likely to become one of the central questions of the trial: whether the texts, alleged staging of the home, missing firearm and other circumstantial evidence prove Flynn planned and carried out Ashley’s killing, or whether prosecutors have built a case around suspicion without physical proof tying him to the shooting.
Flynn remains presumed innocent unless and until he is convicted.
Testimony began Friday following opening statements, with responding officers among the first witnesses called. The prosecution is expected to continue presenting digital evidence, police testimony and witnesses connected to Ashley and Flynn as the trial moves forward.