TROY, Ohio (Court TV) — A former “American Idol” contestant known for his displays of emotion in court sat dry-eyed on Monday as prosecutors showed the jury an interrogation and digital evidence they say shows the defendant lying about killing his wife.
Caleb Flynn sits in court on Sept. 28, 2026. (Court TV)
Caleb Flynn, 40, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he murdered his wife and then staged the scene to convince police that she was killed by an intruder. While prosecutors say the defendant used his 9mm handgun to kill Ashley Flynn, 37, investigators have never been able to find the weapon.
Prosecutors played a video of one of Caleb Flynn’s interviews with detectives after the shooting, in which detectives repeatedly asked the defendant to walk them through the timeline of what happened in his home.
Caleb Flynn said that he fell asleep in bed, but that his coughing prompted his wife to ask him to sleep downstairs. He slept on the couch until he was woken by his dogs; then, he said, he went up to his daughters’ room and fell asleep beside one of them. Caleb Flynn said he was awakened again by the sound of gunshots and ran into his bedroom, where he found his wife unresponsive.
While the weapon used to kill Ashley Flynn has never been found, Caleb Flynn owned a 9mm handgun that he typically stored in the center console of his truck. His truck was in the garage when police arrived, but inside they found the console open and the gun missing. Detectives asked the defendant in the recorded interrogation, “Can you explain? Because that’s a big thing. Do you have any explanation for how your gun was used that was in your truck? Somebody broke in and stole your gun and then came back and murdered your wife with it?” “I didn’t touch my wife,” Caleb Flynn countered.
“You wanna tell me maybe somebody got your gun—” Caleb Flynn cut the detective off. “I didn’t touch my wife.”
Det. Sgt. Mike Morgan asked the defendant during the interrogation what should happen to his wife’s killer. “What do you think should be done with this person?” he asked. “What does justice look like for you? Do you think they should ever see the light of day?” Caleb Flynn quickly responded, “No.”
Caleb Flynn is seen in a police interrogation video. (Court TV)
Under cross-examination, Morgan admitted that none of Ashley Flynn’s blood was found on her husband, and investigators did not test Caleb Flynn for gunshot residue. “It was not done because he stated he only took four to six seconds to get in the bedroom,” Morgan testified on Monday. “The gunshot residue would be there, present on his body, and we didn’t want to rush to judgment.”
While the defendant appeared calm and composed in the video shown to the jury on Monday, other videos of interviews at the Tipp City Police Department showed him crying repeatedly; he also has cried in court on multiple occasions and described himself as “kind of a crybaby” in an interview while he was competing on season 12 of “American Idol.”
Prosecutors emphasized digital evidence in their case against Caleb Flynn on Monday afternoon, as analyst Samantha Reeb from the Ohio Bureau of Investigation testified that the defendant frequently sent messages to his mistress about wanting his wife to die.
Reeb analyzed the defendant’s device activity and found that the same photos that were on Caleb Flynn’s phone were used to create an Instagram account for “Derrick Hammett,” who then messaged the defendant’s lover. In the final days and hours before his wife was killed, Caleb Flynn sent his mistress a song he wrote for her. Reeb noted that while Caleb Flynn told police he had been sleeping in the hours before his wife was killed, his device showed constant activity.
Caleb Flynn’s attorneys had Reeb read messages found on Ashley Flynn’s devices, which included a note about her relationship with her husband. “How I would say our marriage is struggling,” it read. “Zero intimacy, respect, fondness, appreciation, nothing. We really need Jesus to intervene.”
