The 24-year-old woman at the center of the Caleb Flynn murder case took the stand Wednesday and told the court she now hates the man she once thought she loved, because she believes he killed his wife.
Alleigha Botner, a former worship leader at Christian Life Center in Dayton, Ohio, testified that Flynn, 40, a former American Idol contestant and the church's one-time music pastor, repeatedly told her he wanted his wife dead during their affair. Prosecutors say those words became action when Flynn fatally shot his wife, Ashley Flynn, inside the couple's Ohio home in February, then tried to stage the scene to look like the work of an intruder.
Flynn has pleaded not guilty to murder and other charges. His defense has pointed to an unnamed intruder. But the testimony Botner delivered Wednesday painted a picture of a man who spent months voicing hatred for his wife, fretting over custody of his daughters, and, the night before Ashley Flynn died, texting his mistress that "actions will come tomorrow."
Botner told the court she first met Flynn when she was 21 and working as an intern at the Dayton church where he led music. She said the relationship turned romantic in March 2024.
The New York Post reported that Botner described the affair's early stages in plain terms:
"It started with small things. He would ask to come over to just hug me."
What followed, according to Botner's testimony, was a relationship in which Flynn regularly disparaged his wife in the most degrading language. Botner told the court that Flynn said Ashley Flynn "wasn't worthy of being called by her name" and insisted they refer to her as "douchebag." She testified that he also called his wife a "b****, w****, s***, and spawn of Satan."
Botner said Flynn told her early on that his wife had cheated on him, a claim that has not been independently verified in court proceedings. She testified that Flynn told her he stayed in the marriage only for his daughters.
"He told me he hates her. He told me he only was with her because of the girls."
And Botner said the language went further than resentment. Flynn, she testified, openly expressed a desire for his wife to be gone for good.
"He would say that he hated her, that he wanted her dead. He would say so many awful things along the lines about hating her."
The timeline Botner laid out in court narrows sharply in the hours before the killing. She testified that on the night before Ashley Flynn died, she sent Flynn screenshots about how divorce proceedings work when one spouse can prove the other had an affair. Flynn, she said, was anxious about losing custody of his children.
"He was worried about custody of the kids. I was sending him those screenshots about custody."
That same night, prosecutors told the court, Flynn texted Botner a message that now reads like a declaration of intent: "actions will come tomorrow." The next day, the day Ashley Flynn was shot, Flynn sent another text, according to prosecutors: "I choose you. I will be free."
Flynn's trial is one of several high-profile murder cases drawing national attention this year, in part because of the defendant's minor celebrity and the volume of digital evidence prosecutors have assembled.
Botner testified that weeks before the killing, her cellphone and laptop both disappeared. She did not say who took them. She told the court she had lost her phone while kayaking in Florida, adding, "Anyone who knows me knows I lose things." Whether those devices were investigated or recovered was not addressed in her testimony.
Botner testified that she learned of Ashley Flynn's death when an unnamed fellow member of Christian Life Center sent her a news article about the shooting. Her reaction, she told the court, was instantaneous.
"My heart started pounding. In my mind it just seemed like too much of a coincidence that the day he's divorcing her, she's dead."
Botner said the relationship with Flynn ended in December 2025. She resigned from the church shortly after Flynn's arrest, a departure first reported by churchleaders.com.
When asked on the stand how she feels about Flynn now, Botner did not hedge. "I hate him," she said. A prosecutor asked her to compare that with her earlier feelings. Botner answered: "When we were in our relationship, and I thought I was in love." Asked what changed, she gave a one-sentence answer that landed across the courtroom.
"Because I believe that he murdered his wife."
Domestic violence cases that end in murder trials have prompted difficult public conversations about accountability and the systems that fail to intervene before it is too late. In Ohio alone, a recent attempted-murder conviction involving a lawyer who opened fire on his ex-wife inside a packed restaurant underscored how often lethal domestic rage hides behind professional respectability.
Flynn has maintained that an unnamed intruder broke into the home and shot his wife. He has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors, however, have built their case around the affair as the motive, arguing that Flynn wanted out of his marriage but feared losing custody of his daughters, and chose the most permanent exit available.
The specific charges beyond murder that Flynn faces have not been detailed in testimony reported so far. Nor has the defense offered a public account of who the alleged intruder was or how that person entered the home. Those gaps will likely be tested as the trial continues.
Murder trials with high public profiles often raise questions about how juries weigh emotional testimony against physical evidence. The Lindsay Clancy triple-murder mistrial earlier this year showed how a single holdout juror can derail even the most closely watched prosecution. In that case, a holdout juror later broke his silence to insist he never wavered on guilt, a reminder that deliberation rooms operate on their own logic.
Whether Botner's testimony moves the Flynn jury will depend on what corroborating evidence prosecutors present in the days ahead. Text messages, phone records, and crime-scene forensics will matter more than any single witness's stated beliefs. But Botner's account does something no forensic report can: it puts the jury inside the months of escalating hostility that preceded the night Ashley Flynn was shot.
When a man spends months telling his mistress he wants his wife dead, and then his wife turns up dead, the jury does not need a lecture on coincidence. They need the facts. Botner gave them hers.
