A former American Idol contestant and Ohio pastor, Caleb Flynn, faces life imprisonment without parole after a jury found him guilty of murdering his wife, Ashley Flynn.
Flynn, 40, was convicted on Tuesday of murder and eight other charges, including aggravated murder and tampering with evidence, following a trial that featured thousands of text messages, digital evidence and testimony from a former lover.
The jury reached its verdict in less than three hours. Flynn is scheduled to be sentenced on October 5.
According to BBC News, prosecutors alleged that Flynn shot his 37-year-old wife twice in the back of the head while she slept at their home in Tipp City, a suburb of Dayton, on February 16.
He was also accused of attempting to make the killing appear to have been carried out by intruders.
Evidence presented during the trial included police body-camera footage and data retrieved from Flynn’s iPhone and Apple Watch around the time of the killing.
Prosecutors called dozens of witnesses, including Alleigha Botner, a former intern at Flynn’s church who had an affair with him for nearly 18 months.
The court heard details of about 100,000 text messages exchanged between the pair, including messages in which Flynn allegedly discussed killing his wife.
Botner testified that she now believed Flynn had murdered Ashley.
Prosecutors argued that Flynn feared losing custody of his daughters in a divorce, as well as his jobs at his wife’s family business and the church.
They also highlighted inconsistencies in his account of the night of the killing.
Prosecuting attorney Paul Watkins said Flynn initially told police that he had been in his daughters’ bedroom when he heard gunfire. He reportedly said he later discovered his wife dead in their bedroom after noticing that the garage side door was open.
Watkins said Flynn subsequently told investigators that he had not been to the garage, contradicting his earlier account.
The prosecution also presented evidence relating to music Flynn allegedly created about his relationship with Botner. A song said to have been dedicated to her was played in court, with Botner explaining its lyrics during her testimony.
Joseph Wilhelm, a special agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations, testified that several applications had been uninstalled from Flynn’s phone before his wife’s death. One was an artificial intelligence music-generation application that Wilhelm linked to Flynn’s relationship with Botner.
However, Flynn’s defence team maintained that prosecutors had failed to establish his guilt with concrete evidence.
His lawyer, Patrick Mulligan, challenged the prosecution’s interpretation of the evidence and argued that Flynn’s infidelity did not prove that he had killed his wife.
The murder weapon, a gun Flynn reportedly kept in the centre console of his truck, has not been recovered. Investigators found the console open when they arrived at the scene.
Flynn’s conviction has also drawn attention because of his previous appearance on the 12th series of American Idol in 2013. He auditioned before judges Mariah Carey, Nicki Minaj and Randy Jackson, earning a golden ticket to Hollywood but failing to reach the main competition.
Ashley Flynn was a schoolteacher and volleyball coach.
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