American Idol’s Caleb Flynn broke down in tears during his murder trial as prosecutors displayed graphic autopsy photographs of his wife, Ashley Flynn.
Caleb has pleaded not guilty to murder. He struggled to control his emotions, closing his eyes and wincing while jurors viewed images from the Feb. 16 crime scene and autopsy.
“This is a picture of the back of the head,” Montgomery County Deputy Coroner Bryan D. Casto testified Sept. 21. “You’re seeing hair and brain matter and blood obscuring what eventually is determined to be two gunshot wounds to the back of the right side of the head.”
Caleb shook his head and silently cried as additional photographs of Ashley were shown in court. One image depicted her skull and cleaned-up body, which Casto said was used to help identify her face.
Casto also testified that Ashley’s left eye appeared “somewhat blackened, like it’s bruised,” a result of extensive fractures to her skull.
“When that bone is fractured, it will leak blood down into the thin skin of the eyelid,” he explained. “It will give the appearance of a black eye, even though you may have never had any trauma to that area.”
Based on the nature of the bullet entry wounds, Casto said Ashley was likely shot at close range.
“They share parallel paths,” Casto said. “They are not only starting in very close proximity to each other but then their paths go through the brain—basically parallel to one another—and then they exit in the same area of the left frontal scalp.”
He concluded that Ashley died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head.
Caleb called 911 on Feb. 16 and reported finding Ashley, the mother of two, in bed inside their Tipp City home. Their young daughters were sleeping nearby.
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“Somebody, somebody broke into my home,” Caleb said in the frantic call obtained by Oxygen. “Somebody broke into my home and shot my wife.”
“She’s got two shots to her head,” Caleb told the operator. “There’s blood everywhere. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
Body-camera footage obtained by Oxygen showed Caleb crying hysterically when police arrived. He later began vomiting into a trash can.
Prosecutors said in court Sept. 18 that the couple’s garage door was open. Caleb’s gun, which he said he kept in the trunk of his truck, was also missing from the vehicle’s center console.
Caleb faces one count of aggravated murder, three counts of murder, two counts of felonious assault and three counts of tampering with evidence. Prosecutors allege the tampering charges stem from an attempt to stage the scene as a home invasion.
Prosecutors allege Caleb killed Ashley so he could pursue a relationship with his mistress. During opening statements Sept. 18, Miami County Prosecuting Attorney Paul M. Watkins cited more than 100,000 text messages exchanged by the pair. In them, prosecutors say, Caleb wrote that he “hated” Ashley and wanted a future with the unnamed woman.
“I was up until 4 a.m. last night crying, literally trying to think of ways to kill her and not go to jail,” Caleb allegedly wrote in one message. “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.”
In another message sent hours before Ashley’s death, Caleb allegedly wrote: “I choose you. I’m free. Actions will come tomorrow, February 16, a day I’ll never forget.”
Caleb’s attorneys acknowledged that he had been unfaithful but rejected the claim that the affair gave him a motive to commit murder.
“We’re not going to stand here and excuse Caleb for this,” defense attorney Emily Smith said in court Sept. 18. “Stated plainly, Caleb betrayed Ashley…a man can fail as a husband without being a murderer.”