Mistress testifies in trial of “American Idol” contestant charged in wife’s murder

The Ohio trial of a former “American Idol” contestant and music pastor charged with murdering his wife earlier this year continued Thursday with the testimony of his mistress. 

Alleigha Botner, 24, who had an affair with the defendant Caleb Flynn, 40, concluded two days of testimony by discussing the more than 100,000 text messages the two exchanged before Ashley Flynn’s death. 

Prosecutors allege 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 has claimed he was in another room when his wife was murdered. 

He is also charged with tampering with evidence and intimidating a witness. Flynn, who was on season 12 of “American Idol,” pleaded not guilty to all charges, and his defense has argued that police moved too quickly to accuse him and that the case has been distorted by intense publicity. 

Botner testified to a roughly 18-month sexual affair with Caleb Flynn, who she met when she was an intern at his church. She described how the two hid their messages, admitted lying to the FBI at first, and explained how she lost her phone and work laptop just weeks before Ashley Flynn’s death. Asked how she feels about Caleb Flynn today, she testified, “I hate him.”

Botner testified that Caleb Flynn regularly made hateful comments about his wife. In one Aug. 22, 2025, text to her that was revealed in Thursday’s trial, he wrote that he had stayed up until 4 a.m that night “thinking of ways to kill her and not going to jail.” Botner responded by encouraging him to get a divorce instead.

“I’m not asking that you take her life, obviously, because that’s not what you should do, and I know you actually wouldn’t,” Botner responded in a text. “But to make the divorce happen, it would change everything.”

Botner did not speak to the FBI until four days after Ashley Flynn’s murder, when law enforcement reached out to her for an interview following a tip from her aunt. 

In her first interview with FBI agents, she told them she did not believe that Caleb Flynn had killed his wife, but in her second interview with agents, she said she did, ultimately concluding her death was “way too much of a coincidence,” she testified Thursday. 

In court, Botner claimed there were “a lot of times” when she questioned whether Flynn really hated his wife, citing affectionate messages between the two. Botner said that about a year into the affair, she thought herself in love with Caleb Flynn and resented his wife for the attention she was getting from him, including an incident around Valentine’s Day that resulted in an argument. 

A video played by prosecutors in court Wednesday showed Caleb Flynn recording the home he shared with his wife while loudly stating, “I love Alleigha Botner” with their dog in the frame. 

In a Sept. 30, 2025, text, Caleb Flynn told Botner he was willing to sacrifice his “daughters, a quarter-million-dollar salary job, a place to live, possibly a church I serve at, public shame and humiliation, and way more” to be with her. He then asked Botner to unfollow a man on social media, sarcastically calling it a “big sacrifice.” 

Botner made several ultimatums to Caleb Flynn, demanding that he leave his wife, texting him, “Until she’s gone, I’m gone.” 

On cross-examination about those texts by defense attorneys, Botner testified that “I always meant divorce.”

The day before Ashley Flynn was found dead, Caleb Flynn sent Botner a series of messages in which he claimed he was going to leave his wife the next day, writing that he was “not scared.”

Prosecutors showed texts that Botner sent Caleb Flynn on the morning of the murder in which she wrote, “Caleb, what’s going on? Were you involved? Is this real?” He did not respond, and Botner testified that she deleted the message because she feared police would search his phone and uncover the affair.

Hours later, at a gathering for members of Caleb Flynn’s church hosted by his in-laws, he told her his wife was shot by an intruder. 

“My heart started pounding, and in my mind, it just seemed like too much of a coincident that, the day he’s divorcing her, she’s just dead all of a sudden,” Botner testified Wednesday regarding when she learned of Ashley Flynn’s death.   

The trial will resume Friday.