Ex-mistress delivers bombshell testimony in Caleb Flynn murder trial
Alleigha Botner, ex-mistress of former 'American Idol' contestant Caleb Flynn, delivers emotional testimony during his murder trial. Fox News' Garrett Tenney reports the latest and Fox News contributor Paul Mauro provides his analysis.
Former "American Idol" contestant Caleb Flynn told his mistress he stayed up until 4 a.m. "literally thinking of ways to kill" his wife and "not go to jail," one of a series of messages read to jurors Thursday in his Ohio murder trial.
Alleigha Botner returned to the witness stand for a second day and walked jurors through months of messages in which Flynn allegedly talked repeatedly about wanting Ashley Flynn dead or gone.
In one May 2025 message, Flynn allegedly wrote, "If I could literally kill her and not go to hell, I would do it in a heartbeat."
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Days later, he allegedly wrote, "I hate her, loathe her. I want her dead."
Caleb Flynn becomes emotional in court during his murder trial in Ohio. Flynn is accused of killing his wife, Ashley Flynn, in February 2026 and staging the scene to look like a break-in. (COURTESY: WKEF)
The messages became even more explicit in June, when Flynn allegedly told Botner, "Please hire someone to take [her] out. I need you in my life, I need you."
Botner responded: "So tempting. I can't live without you. And I've had this thought so often lately. How do we figure this out?"
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Botner later became emotional before reading one of her own messages aloud.
"I want to kill her, Caleb," Botner wrote.
Alleigha Botner testifies Wednesday in the Ohio murder trial of former "American Idol" contestant Caleb Flynn. Prosecutors say Botner had an affair with Flynn before his wife, Ashley Flynn, was killed. (CREDIT: WKEF)
Flynn allegedly responded: "That makes two of us."
Flynn is accused of fatally shooting Ashley in the back of the head inside their home Feb. 16 before staging the scene to look like an intruder had broken in. He has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges.
Botner had prefaced the message by telling jurors, "I just wish I didn't say this."
In the same August exchange, Flynn allegedly went on to write that he had been "literally trying to find a way to get rid of her, to be rid of her."
Botner responded that she was "not asking that you take her life, obviously," but said getting a divorce "would change everything."
Botner also testified Flynn once showed her a gun he kept in the center console of his truck, though she could not remember what it looked like. Investigators have never recovered the weapon prosecutors allege Flynn used to kill Ashley.
Caleb Flynn in a 2013 "American Idol" Hometown Interview. Caleb is the husband of Ashley Flynn, who was shot and killed in her Ohio home on Monday, February 16, 2026. (YouTube/American Idol)
Jurors also heard that Flynn and Botner routinely deleted messages throughout their relationship.
Asked when she advised Flynn how to delete data from his devices, Botner responded, "Multiple times."
"One of them being the night before Ashley was murdered," she testified.
Ashley and Caleb Flynn in an undated photo with their two children. (GoFundMe)
Botner also testified that on the night before Ashley's killing, she used ChatGPT to research whether messages documenting the affair could be permanently deleted and sent Flynn screenshots of the results.
She told jurors she feared the affair could surface during a divorce and cost her her job. Prosecutors established that Botner sent the screenshots about 5:47 p.m. Feb. 15, hours before Ashley was killed.
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Caleb and Ashley Flynn are pictured in an undated photo. (Ashley Flynn/Facebook)
The two exchanged roughly 107,000 messages while routinely deleting their conversations.
By January, Botner testified, she had grown tired of waiting and gave Flynn a final deadline: leave Ashley by Jan. 11, or she would move on with her life and end their relationship.
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Flynn did not leave, and Botner stopped communicating with him until Feb. 14 – Valentine's Day and two days before Ashley was killed.
Ashley Flynn, a Tipp City Schools substitute teacher and volleyball coach, was found dead in her Ohio home. (Tipp City Schools)
That day, she testified, Flynn told her he was "filing [for divorce] from Ashley" and was "actually leaving her this time."
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The night before Ashley was killed, Flynn and Botner discussed his plans for the following day, including telling family members about the divorce and obtaining a burner phone.
After Botner suggested he get the burner first, Flynn allegedly wrote, "I think I should pay cash for this so it's not in my bank account."
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Shortly after midnight, Flynn allegedly told her, "It's happening, Ilya."
Then came another message: "February 16th day I'll never forget."
Caleb Flynn, 49, was arraigned in court on Friday, Feb. 20. (Dayton Daily News)
Botner responded, "You're about to be free."
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Flynn replied, "I choose you."
Botner testified those were the final messages Flynn sent her before she learned Ashley had been killed.
At 7:50 a.m., Botner testified she sent Flynn her burner-phone number and told him to contact her there once he obtained his own burner. She later deleted the message.
Caleb Flynn appears in Miami County Common Pleas Court, Troy, Ohio, Monday, March 30, 2026. Flynn is charged with the murder of his wife, 37-year-old Ashley Flynn who was shot to death in their Tipp City home in February. (Matthew Symons for Fox News Digital)
Botner instead learned of Ashley's death after a fellow church congregant sent her a news story that morning.
"My heart started pounding," Botner testified. "It just seemed like too much of a coincidence that the day he's divorcing her, she's just dead all of a sudden."
Botner then messaged Flynn: "What is going on right now? Were you behind this?"
She testified she later deleted the message.
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Botner later saw Flynn at Ashley's parents' home, where family members and church staff had gathered after the killing.
"The first thing he said to me was, ‘It didn't happen the way we thought it would, did it?'" Botner testified.
Botner said she became "very suspicious" and questioned Flynn about what happened. She testified Flynn told her he had been sleeping on the couch before waking to a gunshot and finding "blood everywhere" in Ashley's bedroom.
Botner admitted Wednesday that she initially lied to the FBI about her relationship with Flynn when investigators interviewed her days after the killing.
"I was selfishly afraid that my reputation was going to be ruined and that I was going to lose my job," she testified. "And now that there was a murder attached, I didn't want to be attached to that in any way."
She began revealing more about the relationship after investigators told her they had found text messages on Ashley’s phone, Botner testified.
Josh Ritter, a former prosecutor, criminal defense attorney and Fox News contributor, said Botner's testimony gives prosecutors evidence of motive.
"Motive. She provides motive," Ritter told Fox News Digital. "She gives jurors a reason for why would this man murder his wife."
Ritter said the significance goes beyond Flynn expressing frustration with his marriage or wanting a divorce.
"It's the idea that he's even discussing her being dead," Ritter said. "He went as far as to saying I literally would kill her. That's far beyond someone voicing their frustrations and venting to a lover."
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But Ritter said Flynn's attorneys can argue prosecutors cherry-picked the most damaging language from more than 100,000 messages and that Flynn was talking about leaving Ashley, not killing her, when he discussed what would happen Feb. 16.
The defense can also emphasize that investigators never recovered the alleged murder weapon, there was no eyewitness to the killing and no gunshot residue was found on Flynn, Ritter said.
"In an ideal world, would the prosecution want the murder weapon? Sure," Ritter said. "But ... it's something that the defense is obviously going to lean into."
Prosecutors asked Botner how she feels about Flynn today, and she said, "I hate him."
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When asked why, Botner responded, "Because I believe that he murdered his wife."
Fox News Digital reached out to Flynn's attorney. Prosecutors finished their direct examination of Botner shortly before Thursday's lunch break, and the defense cross-examined her Thursday afternoon before she was dismissed from the witness stand.
