We wrote on Thursday that the evidence-tampering counts were the real case against Caleb Flynn. After the first day of testimony, prosecutors are leading with something else: more than 100,000 messages between Flynn and a woman he was having an affair with, including one they say describes wanting to kill his wife.
Ashley Flynn was a middle school volleyball coach, an educator and a mother of two. She was shot twice in the head, apparently while she slept, early on Monday, February 16, at the family’s home.
What the state read to the jury
Prosecuting attorney Paul Watkins opened by reading texts the state attributes to Flynn.
“I was up until 4 a.m. last night crying, literally trying to think of ways to kill her and not go to jail,” one reads. “If I could literally kill her and not go to Hell, I would do it in a heartbeat. That is how dark and how hateful I feel.”
Watkins told jurors another message was sent hours before Ashley was found. The state says the messages are a fraction of more than 100,000 Flynn exchanged with the woman.
On the physical side, Ashley was shot with a 9mm handgun, and investigators say a 9mm was found in Flynn’s truck. A detective wrote in the criminal complaint that officers were led astray “by the staging of the crime scene.” Jurors were taken to the house this week.
What the defense is arguing
Flynn, a former music pastor and American Idol contestant, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder, murder, felonious assault and tampering with evidence.
His co-counsel, Emily Smith, conceded the affair in her opening and drew the line there. “The state of Ohio has pinned its entire case on the flawed plan that simply because Caleb Flynn had motive to leave his wife, that he instead murdered her and manipulated the scene,” she said. Having an affair, she noted, is not a crime.
The BeezLoop Take
The defense is making the correct argument, and it is stronger than it sounds. Wanting a spouse dead and killing one are different things, juries know it, and prosecutors who lean on motive because the physical case is thin have lost cases exactly like this.
Our position hasn’t changed from Thursday: the tampering counts are the spine. Motive explains why someone might act. Staging a scene is an act, and it is the one thing in this case that cannot be explained by a bad marriage or a cruel text. A jury that believes the scene was staged has to ask who would stage it and why, and there is no innocent answer to that question. A jury that doesn’t believe it is left with a man who sent horrible messages, which is not the same as a killer.
Where we would caution readers: the texts are devastating to hear and that is exactly why they should not settle it. The state still has to connect the gun, the scene and the timeline. Two weeks of testimony are scheduled. Day one of a trial is the prosecution’s best day by design.
What happens next
Court adjourned until Monday. The trial is expected to run about two weeks, and the defense case hasn’t started. Watch the forensic testimony on the 9mm and on the scene itself, because that is where this is actually decided. Forensic findings have carried cases like this before, including the Florida mother charged after an autopsy linked her infant’s skull injuries to her ring.
