Caleb Flynn’s mistress read a series of disturbing messages to jurors, portraying the former American Idol contestant as torn between staying with her and preserving access to his daughters before his wife was killed.
Alleigha Botner, 24, described the ultimatums she gave Flynn during their affair, including warnings that leaving his wife could reduce the time he spent with his daughters.
“The only way is having your girls half the time,” Botner wrote in one message.
In another exchange, she told him: “If you want your girls full freakin’ time, you can never have me ever again and you have chosen that so I have to release you and let you go.”
Prosecutors argue that Flynn eventually chose Botner over the family life he shared with his wife, Ashley, and their two pre-teen daughters.
Several months later, Ashley Flynn was dead.
Flynn, 40, is standing trial over allegations that he shot his 37-year-old wife twice in the back of the head as she slept in their Tipp City, Ohio, home on February 16.
Pictured: Alleigha Botner, 24.
Pictured: Caleb Flynn, 40.
Prosecutors allege staged home break-in
According to prosecutors, the former reality television contestant and music pastor then staged the home to look as though a break-in had occurred before blaming Ashley’s killing on an unknown intruder.
Flynn has pleaded not guilty. He maintains that he was asleep in another room with the couple’s daughters when an intruder entered the house and killed his wife.
His defense team says investigators settled on Flynn too quickly and argues that the intense publicity over his affair has influenced the interpretation of the evidence.
Even so, prosecutors have repeatedly highlighted Flynn’s relationship with Botner as they attempt to establish a motive for Ashley’s death.
Jurors were told that Flynn and Botner exchanged more than 100,000 messages during their roughly 18-month affair.
In a message sent in September 2025, Flynn outlined what he was willing to give up to be with Botner, while placing his daughters at the top of the list.
He wrote that he was prepared to risk 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.”
Botner, meanwhile, repeatedly pressed him to leave Ashley.
“Until she’s gone, I’m gone,” she wrote in one message.
Darker messages shown to jurors
During cross-examination by Flynn’s defense attorneys, however, Botner said the threatening-sounding messages referred to ending the marriage—not harming Ashley.
“I always meant divorce,” she testified.
Such distinction has become critical after jurors were shown a string of far darker conversations between the lovers about Ashley.
Botner broke down in tears as she was forced to read one exchange aloud.
‘Do you know how badly I want to say, “F it” to any rules and any barriers and just love you with my entire heart for the rest of my life,’ she wrote to Flynn in July 2025.
Then came the chilling admission: ‘I want to kill her, Caleb. It’s so bad.’
Flynn replied: ‘That makes two of us.’
‘I just wish I didn’t say this,’ Botner told the courtroom through tears. ‘I didn’t mean it.’
Another exchange showed Flynn allegedly telling Botner: ‘Please hire someone to take douche out. I need you,’ using a derogatory nickname they had given Ashley.
‘So tempting,’ Botner responded.
Flynn allegedly told his mistress in August that he had spent much of the night contemplating how Ashley could be killed without him ending up behind bars.
‘I was up until 4am last night crying, literally thinking of ways to kill her and not go to jail,’ he wrote.
Botner told Flynn not to kill Ashley
Botner responded by explicitly telling him not to kill Ashley.
‘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,’ she wrote.
‘But to make the divorce happen, it would change everything.’
Flynn responded: ‘I’ll work on getting rid of her. Until then, I love you.’
Botner testified she was just 20 when she met Flynn at Christian Life Center in Dayton in 2022, where she was an intern and he was in his mid-30s.
Their relationship became romantic in early 2024, she said.
By the night before Ashley’s death, prosecutors say the secret relationship was reaching a decisive moment.
Botner sent Flynn information she had researched about divorce proceedings, custody, deleting messages and how Ashley could potentially prove her husband’s infidelity.
Shortly before midnight, Flynn sent his mistress one final message.
‘Good night, tomorrow’s a big day. I’ve got to get to bed,’ he wrote. ‘I choose you, I’m about to be free.’
Hours later, Ashley was dead.
Botner testified that the timing immediately alarmed her.
Botner immediately questioned Flynn’s involvement
‘Caleb, what’s going on? Were you involved? Is this real?’ she messaged Flynn on the morning of the killing.
She later deleted the message because she feared investigators would examine his phone and discover their affair, she admitted.
When she learned Ashley had supposedly been killed by an intruder, Botner said her ‘heart started pounding.’
‘In my mind, it just seemed like too much of a coincidence that, the day he’s divorcing her, she’s just dead all of a sudden,’ she testified.
On Thursday, the courtroom also heard the love songs Flynn allegedly wrote for his mistress, which were turned into fully produced tracks using artificial intelligence and played for jurors.
Flynn’s ears appeared to turn bright red and he repeatedly wiped his brow as the songs played, while members of Ashley’s family struggled to contain their reactions.
Flynn had been seen on American Idol’s 12th season in 2013.
Love songs revealed lingering obsession
One included the lyrics: ‘So here’s to the third, and the us that we lost.’
Another declared: ‘Know that you still own every piece of my soul.’
Botner testified that the last time she saw Flynn before the trial was at Ashley’s parents’ home just hours after the killing.
She claimed the first thing he said to her was: ‘It didn’t happen the way we thought it would, did it?’
Botner initially told the FBI she did not believe Flynn had murdered his wife, but later changed her view, describing Ashley’s death as ‘way too much of a coincidence.’
Asked in court how she feels about her former lover now, her answer was far simpler. ‘I hate him.’
Flynn is also charged with tampering with evidence and intimidating a witness and has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The murder weapon has not been recovered.
The trial is set to resume on Friday at 9am ET.
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