An affair, a missing gun and 100,000 messages: What we learned on Day 1 of testimony in Caleb Flynn’s trial

By Nicki Brown, CNN

(CNN) — Ohio prosecutors trying former “American Idol” contestant Caleb Flynn for the murder of his wife opened their case Friday with a shocking revelation: The worship leader was having a yearslong affair with another woman and had messaged her about thoughts of killing his spouse of nearly 16 years.

“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 wrote in one of 100,000 messages with his mistress, according to Miami County Prosecuting Attorney Paul Watkins. “If I could literally kill her and not go to hell, I would do it in a heartbeat,” Flynn wrote in another, Watkins said. “That is how dark and how hateful I feel.”

Flynn sent the texts just months before his wife Ashley, a beloved middle school volleyball coach, was fatally shot in the head inside their family’s suburban home in February, Watkins said.

“Those words tell you what this case is about: motive, intent and the truth behind the lies Caleb told after his wife, and the mother of his two young daughters, was shot to death in their home,” the prosecutor said.

The bombshell disclosure of Flynn’s affair came during opening statements Friday, roughly seven months after he called 911 and told authorities an intruder broke into his home and killed his wife while he was in his daughters’ bedroom. Prosecutors dispute his account and allege he murdered his wife and staged the crime scene, pointing to his affair as a motive for the killing.

Flynn’s defense attorney, however, told jurors the prosecution had little to stand on aside from his infidelity, arguing in her own opening statement the state lacks key evidence needed to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt – including the murder weapon.

“You’re not here to deliberate on whether or not you like Caleb. You certainly are not here to render a verdict on whether or not you approve or condone of his actions,” defense attorney Emily Smith told the jury.

“This is an aggravated murder trial,” she said. “A man can fail as a husband without being a murderer, and a man can make selfish decisions without committing a crime.”

Following opening statements, the sixteen jurors – four of them alternates – visited the crime scene at the family’s Tipp City, Ohio, home and heard testimony from seven witnesses, many of them first responders who testified about their response to the scene around 2:30 a.m. on February 16. They described Flynn as hysterical, and police bodycam footage played in court showed the father of two sobbing as he spoke to police and called his mother and mother-in-law to relay news of Ashley’s death.

Flynn’s mistress, Ashley’s loved ones and the Flynns’ preteen daughters – who are key to their father’s presumed alibi – are expected to take the stand during the trial, which is scheduled to last about two weeks.

An attorney for the mistress declined to comment Friday.

Flynn, 40, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and several other charges. If convicted of the most serious charge, he could face a sentence of life in prison without parole.

‘People lie, evidence doesn’t’

Flynn, dressed in a navy-blue suit jacket, appeared to cry in court Friday as prosecutors began presenting their case by playing his 911 call, in which he said an intruder had broken into his family’s house and shot his wife.

“My wife, she’s got two shots to her head. There’s blood everywhere,” he told the dispatcher, seemingly frantic. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

But Watkins said the evidence didn’t support Flynn’s assertion that a stranger entered the home and “executed” his wife by shooting her twice in the back of the head as she lay in bed.

The bullets that killed Ashley were the same caliber as her husband’s 9 mm handgun, which he stored in the center console of his truck, according to the prosecutor. Officers noted the center console was open when they arrived, Watkins said. The gun was missing.

Investigators still haven’t recovered the alleged murder weapon. But Watkins stressed prosecutors do not need it, outlining other evidence he said supports their case against Flynn: efforts to delete digital information, fabricated damage to a door in the family home and Flynn’s movements in the hours leading up to his wife’s death.

Flynn’s digital footprint also includes the tens of thousands of messages with his paramour, Watkins said, including texts where the music pastor said he wanted a future with her and wished his wife were dead.

“I choose you. I’m free,” Flynn allegedly wrote his mistress, just hours before Ashley’s death. “Actions will come tomorrow.”

Flynn believed if he could successfully frame a “faceless” intruder for his wife’s murder, he would be able to keep his relationship with his mistress, full custody of his daughters, his “lucrative” job at his wife’s family business and his position as a worship leader, Watkins said.

“The evidence will not show that Ashley was murdered by a stranger who vanished into the night,” the prosecutor said. “The evidence will show that Ashley was murdered by her husband, the father of her two young children.”

‘A tragedy deserves more than a theory’

The defense told jurors prosecutors are relying on the salacious affair to prove its case, arguing the decision to charge the former worship leader stemmed from a flawed investigation, rush to judgment and lack of direct evidence.

“The only thing that we know is that Caleb had an affair,” Smith said. “The state of Ohio has pinned its entire case on the flawed claim that simply because Caleb Flynn had motive to leave his wife, that he instead murdered her and manipulated the scene.”

At times, Flynn said “ugly, hurtful, selfish things about his wife Ashley to appease his mistress,” Smith said. But the evidence will also show “a warm and loving text message between Caleb and Ashley regularly.”

Prosecutors used Flynn as a “scapegoat” and charged him without key evidence, the defense attorney argued, pointing out investigators can’t prove which gun killed Ashley or if he handled a firearm at all that night.

“They are merely guessing, and they’re asking you to do the exact same thing,” she said, arguing there was no forensic evidence, no eyewitnesses and no surveillance footage that would link Flynn to his wife’s death.

Smith acknowledged Flynn told his mistress about a divorce but told jurors he was “not on trial for being a bad husband.”

“A tragedy deserves more than a theory,” she said. “And Ashley deserves an investigation that was willing to follow the evidence wherever it may have led, as thoroughly as possible – not simply wherever the story is easiest to tell.”

‘Is she gone?’

Testimony in court Friday largely focused on the immediate hours after Ashley’s death, when Flynn called 911 and waved down a responding officer, initiating an investigation that within days would lead to his arrest.

Police bodycam footage shown to jurors Friday gave them a glimpse into the Flynns’ home as more officers rushed inside and encountered Flynn kneeling in the dining room. They went room to room, footage showed, including the garage. There, officers noticed the center console of Flynn’s truck had been left ajar – as had a door leading outside.

“Is she, is she gone?” Flynn asked one officer, stammering between gasping breaths. “What do I do with my daughters?”

Bodycam footage showed Flynn told police he had a cough, and that Ashley had sent him to sleep on the couch. He woke, he said, when he thought he heard his dogs’ collars, and he went into his daughters’ bedroom and lay down.

“That’s when I heard it,” he said of the gunshots.

The first officer on scene testified he arrived at the home in response to a call about a potential burglary and shooting. Flynn told him his wife had been shot and the intruder was not in the house, Tipp City police Sgt. Corey Rismiller said. He did not consider Flynn a suspect at that time.

During his cross-examination, Flynn’s defense attorney Patrick Mulligan appeared to try to undermine the officer’s credibility: Under questioning, Rismiller acknowledged it had been about 20 years since he last responded to a homicide in Tipp City, a small community of 10,000 people about 15 miles north of Dayton.

Body camera footage showed Flynn weeping, covering his face, and rocking back and forth as police searched his home.

“Ashley’s dead. She’s dead,” he told his mother on a phone call. “Someone broke in.”

When his mother-in-law arrived at the home soon after, Flynn wailed and collapsed on the front porch, bodycam footage showed. An officer helped him to his feet before he and Ashley’s mother embraced on the front lawn.

“The girls don’t know, the girls are sleeping,” Flynn said as he hugged her. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t know what to do either,” the grandmother said through tears. “I’m just – I’m in shock.”

First responders described finding Ashley lying in bed in a sleeping position with gunshot wounds to her head. When Tipp City firefighter paramedic Alex Huels arrived, Ashley had no pulse and was not breathing, he testified, but he did not believe she had been deceased for “hours.” Huels said he did not attempt to resuscitate her, citing protocol.

About an hour after police first arrived at the Flynns’ home, law enforcement deployed a drone and a police canine in hopes of tracking any suspects, according to testimony Friday.

The canine’s handler, Deputy David Laycox of the Preble County Sheriff’s Office, noticed he and the dog, Haze, were leaving prints in the wet ground. Still, he did not see any other prints leaving the area, Laycox said.

Ultimately, the handler testified, the canine did not find a scent trail on the perimeter of the house and had a “negative alert to any suspect … leaving the scene.”

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Eric Levenson, Holly Yan, Elise Hammond and Isa Mudannayake contributed to this report.