TROY, Ohio (Court TV) — Caleb Flynn sat crying in court on Friday as he watched his interrogation with police, during which he also sobbed while telling investigators that he found his wife dead.
Caleb Flynn cries in court on Sept. 25, 2026. (Court TV)
Caleb Flynn, 40, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he murdered his wife, Ashley Flynn, 37, in their home on Feb. 16, 2026. Caleb Flynn called 911 early that morning to report that someone had broken into his home and killed his wife.
In the interrogation video, played for the jury on Friday afternoon, Caleb Flynn appears red-faced and in tears as he walked Det. Sgt. Mike Morgan through what happened. In the video, the defendant claimed he fell asleep in the living room but was woken in the middle of the night by what he thought were his dogs moving around. Caleb Flynn said that he went to check on his two daughters and had lain down on the bottom bunk with one of the girls when he heard a loud noise from the house. When he went to the master bedroom to check on his wife, he said he found her dead in their bed.
Caleb Flynn said that he saw the side door to the garage open and hypothesized that was how the intruder got into his home. But investigators previously testified at trial that the damage to the door was only visible when the door was unlocked and open — meaning an intruder could not have caused it.
Hours after his first interview, Caleb Flynn sat down with Morgan again, during which the detective pointed out that the garage door wasn’t latched and that the victim had been shot at “point-blank range.”
“In all my time of being in law enforcement, 16 years, plus my training and experience, normally when someone is murdered, there’s a motive. There’s something behind the situation,” Morgan said. But when Morgan asked Caleb Flynn who might want to hurt his wife, the defendant denied any knowledge of issues inside or outside of the home.
Caleb Flynn cries while speaking with police on Feb. 16, 2026. (Court TV)
“There was a neighbor that said they had heard you guys arguing at different points,” Morgan prompted. “The last argument we had was Friday,” Caleb Flynn said, adding they had clashed over plans for their older daughter. “I have no idea who would say they could hear us arguing.”
Prosecutors say that Caleb Flynn had been plotting his wife’s death because he wanted to be with his lover, Alleigha Botner, who testified that the two had been in a relationship for more than a year and that she had begged him to leave his wife multiple times.
As the interrogation tapes played for the jury on Friday, Caleb Flynn became visibly upset; he cried and frequently dabbed his face with tissues. Though he was dry-eyed for Botner’s testimony, he sobbed through much of the first two days of his trial. Before his arrest, Caleb Flynn appeared on one season of “American Idol,” during which he described himself as a “crybaby” in an interview with producers.
