Sept. 28, 2026
American Idol Murder Trial: Caleb Flynn Sobs Again, Jury Sees Interrogation Videos
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RSS Feed The second full week of testimony is underway in the Caleb Flynn murder trial. The former American Idol alum is accused of murdering his wife of 15 years, Ashely Flynn. On Friday, Flynn sobbed once again in court as a detective played both of his interrogation videos, recorded on the day of his wife’s murder. Detectives also testified to what they found in Ashely’s phone, saying there was no evidence Ashley was having an affair like Caleb claimed, but there was evidence she knew of Caleb’s affair, at one point texting him, “you can be honest, was it her?”
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Monday, September 28th, and today we'll start the second full week of testimony in the so-called American Idol murder trial. Testimony wrapped up on Friday, another bizarre day in court in which we saw the defendant once again crying, but this time he was crying while he was watching himself cry?
00:00:23
Speaker 2: Yep.
00:00:23
Speaker 1: And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. just some strange happenings in this particular trial.
00:00:31
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:00:32
Speaker 3: You know what was so interesting, and people have made note of this?
00:00:35
Speaker 2: The only days that we have not seen Caleb Flynn sobbing in court were the two days his ex-mistress testified.
00:00:44
Speaker 1: Stone face. Cold. Yes. No emotion on that face the entire time.
00:00:49
Speaker 3: That is so interesting to me.
00:00:51
Speaker 1: Not a crack, not a warmth, not a cry, not a sad, not a nothing. Nothing. Not even anger at her, nothing.
00:00:56
Speaker 3: Stoic. And it was like... scarily just serious and reserved. It was actually frightening. And then.
00:01:04
Speaker 1: Even when his songs were played. Yes.
00:01:06
Speaker 3: Oh, he was wiping sweat from his brow.
00:01:09
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: Last week, I mean, he went through listening to his murdered wife's family talk about how wonderful he was, what a great son-in-law he was, how he was like a brother.
00:01:21
Speaker 3: To her sister. And then you hear.
00:01:25
Speaker 3: And he's sobbing, sobbing, sobbing.
00:01:27
Speaker 2: Then you hear from his mistress, and boom, stone cold, and just no emotion. Then he goes back to hearing himself being interrogated by police on the day of his wife's murder, and he's back to crying again.
00:01:41
Speaker 3: It was strange.
00:01:44
Speaker 2: But there were some really interesting things that came out before we get to his crying, because we heard from an FBI special agent, and she was investigating... This was so interesting, a possible hired hit on Ashley. They actually thought that maybe Caleb tried to hire someone to kill his wife rather than considering doing it himself.
00:02:05
Speaker 1: That man had a couple of eyebrows, certainly went up in the courtroom to hear that. I don't know how far along they got that, but they had to at least look into the possibility. I mean, Robes, that That was out there.
00:02:18
Speaker 2: Yes, that was one of the operating theories. They ultimately determined it to be unsubstantiated, but.
00:02:24
Speaker 3: You know what else they determined was unsubstantiated? This notion that Ashley had an affair. This was so.
00:02:32
Speaker 2: Unbelievably manipulative, and we've heard this before in other murder cases, but when his mistress, ex-mistress Aaliyah, was on the stand, she believed, and he told her repeatedly, that his wife Ashley had an affair on him, and that's why he was so angry. That's why he hated her so much, and that's why he felt justified to start an affair with her.
00:02:54
Speaker 1: But he passed that along. She testified. She heard that plenty throughout. But Robes, we talk about manipulation. Yes, Aaliyah Botner is a grown woman. She was 22 at the time. You can say young and impressionable, but she's an adult woman. But Robes, she got to the point in some of her messages, right? This is the guy she loves. He is explaining how much he has been hurt and damaged by the actions of of this monster spouse. So some of that stuff she might have been saying in those text message exchanges might have come from a real place based on a lie.
00:03:26
Speaker 3: Yes, defending the man she loved. And I understand that.
00:03:29
Speaker 2: So to the point where he would only call her douche and so did she.
00:03:34
Speaker 3: But she had no reason. Most people would think, why? If you're the other woman, you're the douche.
00:03:38
Speaker 2: But she was probably referring to Ashley in that way because she thought Ashley had cheated on the man she loved. She thought that Ashley was not a good wife. Well, this FBI agent said they had a full extraction of Ashley's phone and there is zero evidence that she ever had an affair. But there is evidence, there was evidence on Ashley's phone that she knew.
00:04:00
Speaker 3: About Caleb's affair.
00:04:02
Speaker 2: There were deleted messages that they found between the two where she's upset with him because he's not responding to her.
00:04:10
Speaker 3: He's claiming he's at worship. And she sends him a message. You can be honest. Was it her?
00:04:15
Speaker 2: And she deleted that message.
00:04:18
Speaker 3: It's interesting, but they were able to find it out that she was upset.
00:04:20
Speaker 2: With him about not making plans for them about Valentine's Day. Certainly there was friction between the two, and a lot of it had to do with Aaliyah. And she knew about her.
00:04:30
Speaker 1: And all that being revealed and cleared up, and I really hope they maybe drive the point home even more. Robes, this woman didn't do anything to anybody. She got shot twice in the head by what appears right now to be the guy that was her husband that she thought was a good husband. With her two kids literally next, in the next room. And after that, we're going to soil this woman's reputation by calling her, said she was the one having an affair, and that's why this guy was upset. Well, that's... I hope they put a little more emphasis on just making sure that gets cleared up.
00:05:15
Speaker 2: Yes, because to impugn the reputation of a woman who has been murdered is so, so awful. It's salt in the wound. We also heard from the lead pastor at the Christian Life Center. Remember, this is the guy whose house Aaliyah was... She was house-sitting, she was pet-sitting for him while he was on vacation when Ashley was being murdered. But he went on the record and testified they have strict rules around affairs or any kind of sexual relationship between or among staffers and volunteers. And so, yes, Aaliyah was a full-time staff worship leader. Caleb was a volunteer and would be a contracted worship leader. So, yes, they had strict policies.
00:05:57
Speaker 1: Right. Don't do it. This is a church.
00:06:00
Speaker 3: At the Christian Life Center.
00:06:02
Speaker 1: Yes. Okay, fine, if you have to add that to the manual. But we don't need you to testify that what they were doing was not okay. Correct.
00:06:12
Speaker 2: And he did acknowledge that Aaliyah resigned almost immediately after Ashley's death. But then, yes, we get to Detective Sergeant Mike Morgan. who, by the way, will be back on the stand on Monday morning. But he is the lead case detective. And he talked about when he first came into the crime scene that it literally looked like Ashley was asleep in an unusually clean bedroom. That's how he put it. So interesting if you think you've got this break in, right? This intruder, at least that's what Caleb is or has been sticking with. And he just said the room was in perfect order, which stood out. And then the deadbolt damage was inconsistent with any forced entry from the outside. So you've got another detective again repeatedly testifying to the fact that this was not a forced entry situation. These are detectives who know what a burglary looks like and immediately they said they could tell this was not that.
00:07:09
Speaker 1: Ropes, it's... How could you tell? By the overly dramatic crying of the guy who was under the table. Somebody broke into a house, just shot the woman and left. Just doesn't... Okay, we... Everybody listening knows... It just doesn't happen that way. Correct.
00:07:27
Speaker 2: And so, yes, we've seen the body cam footage. We've heard the 911 call. But then Detective Mike Morgan was there while he authenticated. And then they played two recorded video interviews, the first interrogations of Caleb Flynn on the day of Ashley's murder. So his first recorded interrogation video, he... goes through what he was doing.
00:07:51
Speaker 3: It's fascinating.
00:07:52
Speaker 2: We love watching these back on some of the shows we watch on TV.
00:07:56
Speaker 3: But to now know.
00:07:57
Speaker 2: He's charged with murder, but he's in court watching himself being interrogated, and this is when he starts sobbing.
00:08:04
Speaker 3: I mean, sobbing. It's ridiculous.
00:08:07
Speaker 2: And he is sobbing, watching himself sob. And in this first interview, he claims he fell asleep in the living room. The dogs woke him up. So he went to go check on his daughter's. He laid down on the bottom bunk with one of his daughters. That's when he hears a loud noise. He goes to the master bedroom, finds his wife dead, and then he sees that there's a side door to the garage open, and he guesses or he hypothesizes that's how the intruder must have gotten in. Okay.
00:08:39
Speaker 3: So this is the first interview, and the detective.
00:08:42
Speaker 2: And look, we now know all of the stories and what the detectives have certainly testified to, that what he claims from the beginning and what he's still claiming in court flies in the face.
00:08:53
Speaker 3: Of the evidence.
00:08:53
Speaker 1: Did we get, is there an answer to, okay, what did he do afterwards, right? If you think somebody came in, you found your wife, what's your first response? What did he do? What is he, like what, If you see your wife dead, right? Is that what you're saying?
00:09:12
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:09:13
Speaker 1: And then you saw somebody might have broken in. Yeah.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: So then he runs downstairs to see where the guy, oh, look, there's a door open. Then he calls 911 and I guess he hides under the table because that's where we see him with the body cam footage.
00:09:25
Speaker 1: Please tell me the first thing you do.
00:09:27
Speaker 3: Go check on your daughters.
00:09:28
Speaker 1: And you get them the hell out of the house.
00:09:30
Speaker 3: Correct.
00:09:31
Speaker 1: There is nothing else to talk about.
00:09:32
Speaker 3: That didn't happen.
00:09:33
Speaker 1: Ropes, there's nothing else to talk about.
00:09:36
Speaker 3: Exactly.
00:09:36
Speaker 1: All right. I got to get the kids out. There's nothing. What are we saying? Let's stay here in the house. I'm sure the kids are okay in the room while I'm down here looking.
00:09:43
Speaker 3: Don't want to wake them or anything. That would be terrible.
00:09:45
Speaker 1: I'm told he had a gun, right? Does he say in there that he went to look for that?
00:09:50
Speaker 2: No.
00:09:50
Speaker 1: Why is your first reaction not to get a weapon? I know people react all kinds of weird ways.
00:09:55
Speaker 3: You mean you wouldn't just go hide under a table and cry?
00:09:57
Speaker 1: Robes, parents speak. superheroes in these moments if there is danger of their children. What was the woman recently? The doctor who was stabbed in Pennsylvania.
00:10:08
Speaker 3: She's yelling out to her kids, get out, get out, get out.
00:10:10
Speaker 1: While she's fighting off a guy stabbing her husband to death. That's what parents do.
00:10:16
Speaker 3: That's what parents do.
00:10:18
Speaker 1: Exactly.
00:10:20
Speaker 2: When we come back, that was just the first interview where police let him go on and on and on about what he claimed happened. But then they played the second interrogation tape. This took place a couple hours later. when detectives started questioning Caleb Flynn's story. Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ. So yes, now the jury and the rest of the courtroom gets to watch Caleb now be questioned by detectives when they tell him, you know what, the garage door wasn't latched and it doesn't look like someone did any damage from the outside. And oh, by the way, Ashley was shot at point blank range. And their point to him was, look, we cover these types of murders. When someone does something like that, the room is perfectly clean. Someone has it in for someone. They, you know, were there any known enemies to your wife? Who could have been upset with Ashley that they would have come into the house, directly targeted her and then left Ashley? And he just denied that there were any issues with anyone, not inside the home, not with him, not with anyone that he knew of.
00:11:37
Speaker 3: So he just immediately goes, I don't know.
00:11:39
Speaker 2: I can't think of anybody who would be upset with my wife. So we had no other possible theory. And the intruder, it just, it looks ridiculous. So then they confront him with a neighbor. There was a neighbor that said they heard you guys arguing. And then Caleb says, well, the last argument we had was Friday over plans for our older daughter. I have no idea who would say they could hear us arguing. So it's just fascinating for the court, for the jury, to hear him defending himself and offering no explanation.
00:12:10
Speaker 1: You know the videos are my favorites. Because usually the ones we see on true crime, again, this man is innocent until proven guilty in the court of law. But when we watch the true crime ones, these are people who have already been convicted. They're already been found guilty. They are sitting in prison to go back and watch those interviews, Robes. These interviews we're watching now will be the interviews that are a part of the true crime after this case is over. But to see, wow, he is 100% performing. Everything out of his mouth is a lie. The tears are a lie. He is really putting on a performance. I'm always fascinated by these performances. Some of them are over the top. Some of them are a little convincing. Some of them are ridiculous.
00:12:48
Speaker 2: Yes. And I think we all know Caleb's are over the top. I mean, and just the idea that the jury is watching him, you know, try to get out of what the evidence is pointing to when he's talking to detectives. And now he's in the courtroom and he's got tissues and he's dabbing his eyes as he sobs.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: I mean, I just wonder what impression that leaves on the jury.
00:13:12
Speaker 1: We put ourselves in the position of the jurors oftentimes when we were watching this. And right now, you just have to roll your eyes. And some of it, you're almost stunned that he's keeping up this act. It's been, bro, some of his crying has been crazy. I have not, right? If he says he's an innocent man, what are the times you're going to be crying and most emotional? What are the times it's going to mean most to you? And, Robes, that's what? When the family is talking about your wife, when pictures are, those things, right? There's been nothing... that showed he loved this woman, that he cared about this woman. He needs to do something, Robes, to combat those text messages. Or are you just conceding the point there's no way y'all are going to think I'm anything other than a terrible asshole?
00:14:00
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know how you could come up with anything other than that.
00:14:03
Speaker 2: And to your point, when he's crying, he's crying when he's seeing himself. When he's seeing himself in pain, when he hears himself in pain, the 911 call, he's crying at his pains.
00:14:15
Speaker 3: It's a little, it's not a little disturbing. It's a lot disturbing. And so, yes.
00:14:20
Speaker 1: But it's must-see TV.
00:14:21
Speaker 3: It is must-see TV. It is something.
00:14:22
Speaker 2: And it continues on this Monday. Detective Sergeant Mike Morgan is back up on the stand. They'll continue to play the rest of that tape. And then the big question is this week, will we hear from his daughters? There was early word that both of his daughters were on the list to testify. We don't know if that's going to take place. And certainly everything we've seen in testimony so far, I mean, in our untrained minds, they don't need testimony. any more evidence against this man right now. It is overwhelming. It is damning.
00:14:56
Speaker 3: The only hurdle they have is this missing gun.
00:14:59
Speaker 2: They don't have a physical weapon and they don't have that physical evidence tying him to her murder.
00:15:06
Speaker 3: That is their big issue. But the circumstantial evidence is just overwhelming.
00:15:12
Speaker 1: Do you have any reasonable doubt you could argue right now? Is it reasonable? Can you have a reasonable doubt? Because it would have to be reasonable that the story happened the way he said it happened. That someone broke into that home, decided to go shoot his wife and leave. And when they broke in, they broke in in such an awkward way that the door is broken in the wrong direction.
00:15:37
Speaker 2: And they only went after targeting and killing her.
00:15:40
Speaker 1: Yes. And they must have known where his gun was because it's gone now, correct?
00:15:46
Speaker 2: And the neighbor's house shows no one leaving or entering their home from that evening all the way till the next morning.
00:15:54
Speaker 1: And he has written at least 2,000 text messages in which he said he wants his wife dead. And again, that's a lowball estimate.
00:16:02
Speaker 3: Yes, he wants to kill his wife. He wants to kill his wife.
00:16:05
Speaker 1: So we're supposed to have reasonable... Is that reasonable enough? No.
00:16:12
Speaker 3: And I think we all know what the verdict would be right now if that jury... Stranger things have happened.
00:16:17
Speaker 2: Stranger things have happened, and we still have to see if the defense puts up a defense, if he is going to take the stand.
00:16:23
Speaker 3: There are a lot of question marks in this case still, and we will be watching.
00:16:26
Speaker 1: Are they allowed in their closing argument, the prosecutor, just to play that song again?
00:16:31
Speaker 3: I think they can. I mean, honestly, that was my favorite part.
00:16:34
Speaker 1: If the prosecutor got up there, you know what? And jurors, just by popular demand... One last time. Let's hear that. Just cue it up. Just for one last time to humiliate them.
00:16:44
Speaker 3: I'd be okay with that. I'd be okay with that.
00:16:46
Speaker 2: But we will continue to follow everything that goes on in that Ohio courtroom. We always appreciate you listening to us, everyone. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Monday, September 28th, and today we'll start the second full week of testimony in the so-called American Idol murder trial. Testimony wrapped up on Friday, another bizarre day in court in which we saw the defendant once again crying, but this time he was crying while he was watching himself cry?
00:00:23
Speaker 2: Yep.
00:00:23
Speaker 1: And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. just some strange happenings in this particular trial.
00:00:31
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:00:32
Speaker 3: You know what was so interesting, and people have made note of this?
00:00:35
Speaker 2: The only days that we have not seen Caleb Flynn sobbing in court were the two days his ex-mistress testified.
00:00:44
Speaker 1: Stone face. Cold. Yes. No emotion on that face the entire time.
00:00:49
Speaker 3: That is so interesting to me.
00:00:51
Speaker 1: Not a crack, not a warmth, not a cry, not a sad, not a nothing. Nothing. Not even anger at her, nothing.
00:00:56
Speaker 3: Stoic. And it was like... scarily just serious and reserved. It was actually frightening. And then.
00:01:04
Speaker 1: Even when his songs were played. Yes.
00:01:06
Speaker 3: Oh, he was wiping sweat from his brow.
00:01:09
Speaker 1: Yes.
00:01:09
Speaker 2: Last week, I mean, he went through listening to his murdered wife's family talk about how wonderful he was, what a great son-in-law he was, how he was like a brother.
00:01:21
Speaker 3: To her sister. And then you hear.
00:01:25
Speaker 3: And he's sobbing, sobbing, sobbing.
00:01:27
Speaker 2: Then you hear from his mistress, and boom, stone cold, and just no emotion. Then he goes back to hearing himself being interrogated by police on the day of his wife's murder, and he's back to crying again.
00:01:41
Speaker 3: It was strange.
00:01:44
Speaker 2: But there were some really interesting things that came out before we get to his crying, because we heard from an FBI special agent, and she was investigating... This was so interesting, a possible hired hit on Ashley. They actually thought that maybe Caleb tried to hire someone to kill his wife rather than considering doing it himself.
00:02:05
Speaker 1: That man had a couple of eyebrows, certainly went up in the courtroom to hear that. I don't know how far along they got that, but they had to at least look into the possibility. I mean, Robes, that That was out there.
00:02:18
Speaker 2: Yes, that was one of the operating theories. They ultimately determined it to be unsubstantiated, but.
00:02:24
Speaker 3: You know what else they determined was unsubstantiated? This notion that Ashley had an affair. This was so.
00:02:32
Speaker 2: Unbelievably manipulative, and we've heard this before in other murder cases, but when his mistress, ex-mistress Aaliyah, was on the stand, she believed, and he told her repeatedly, that his wife Ashley had an affair on him, and that's why he was so angry. That's why he hated her so much, and that's why he felt justified to start an affair with her.
00:02:54
Speaker 1: But he passed that along. She testified. She heard that plenty throughout. But Robes, we talk about manipulation. Yes, Aaliyah Botner is a grown woman. She was 22 at the time. You can say young and impressionable, but she's an adult woman. But Robes, she got to the point in some of her messages, right? This is the guy she loves. He is explaining how much he has been hurt and damaged by the actions of of this monster spouse. So some of that stuff she might have been saying in those text message exchanges might have come from a real place based on a lie.
00:03:26
Speaker 3: Yes, defending the man she loved. And I understand that.
00:03:29
Speaker 2: So to the point where he would only call her douche and so did she.
00:03:34
Speaker 3: But she had no reason. Most people would think, why? If you're the other woman, you're the douche.
00:03:38
Speaker 2: But she was probably referring to Ashley in that way because she thought Ashley had cheated on the man she loved. She thought that Ashley was not a good wife. Well, this FBI agent said they had a full extraction of Ashley's phone and there is zero evidence that she ever had an affair. But there is evidence, there was evidence on Ashley's phone that she knew.
00:04:00
Speaker 3: About Caleb's affair.
00:04:02
Speaker 2: There were deleted messages that they found between the two where she's upset with him because he's not responding to her.
00:04:10
Speaker 3: He's claiming he's at worship. And she sends him a message. You can be honest. Was it her?
00:04:15
Speaker 2: And she deleted that message.
00:04:18
Speaker 3: It's interesting, but they were able to find it out that she was upset.
00:04:20
Speaker 2: With him about not making plans for them about Valentine's Day. Certainly there was friction between the two, and a lot of it had to do with Aaliyah. And she knew about her.
00:04:30
Speaker 1: And all that being revealed and cleared up, and I really hope they maybe drive the point home even more. Robes, this woman didn't do anything to anybody. She got shot twice in the head by what appears right now to be the guy that was her husband that she thought was a good husband. With her two kids literally next, in the next room. And after that, we're going to soil this woman's reputation by calling her, said she was the one having an affair, and that's why this guy was upset. Well, that's... I hope they put a little more emphasis on just making sure that gets cleared up.
00:05:15
Speaker 2: Yes, because to impugn the reputation of a woman who has been murdered is so, so awful. It's salt in the wound. We also heard from the lead pastor at the Christian Life Center. Remember, this is the guy whose house Aaliyah was... She was house-sitting, she was pet-sitting for him while he was on vacation when Ashley was being murdered. But he went on the record and testified they have strict rules around affairs or any kind of sexual relationship between or among staffers and volunteers. And so, yes, Aaliyah was a full-time staff worship leader. Caleb was a volunteer and would be a contracted worship leader. So, yes, they had strict policies.
00:05:57
Speaker 1: Right. Don't do it. This is a church.
00:06:00
Speaker 3: At the Christian Life Center.
00:06:02
Speaker 1: Yes. Okay, fine, if you have to add that to the manual. But we don't need you to testify that what they were doing was not okay. Correct.
00:06:12
Speaker 2: And he did acknowledge that Aaliyah resigned almost immediately after Ashley's death. But then, yes, we get to Detective Sergeant Mike Morgan. who, by the way, will be back on the stand on Monday morning. But he is the lead case detective. And he talked about when he first came into the crime scene that it literally looked like Ashley was asleep in an unusually clean bedroom. That's how he put it. So interesting if you think you've got this break in, right? This intruder, at least that's what Caleb is or has been sticking with. And he just said the room was in perfect order, which stood out. And then the deadbolt damage was inconsistent with any forced entry from the outside. So you've got another detective again repeatedly testifying to the fact that this was not a forced entry situation. These are detectives who know what a burglary looks like and immediately they said they could tell this was not that.
00:07:09
Speaker 1: Ropes, it's... How could you tell? By the overly dramatic crying of the guy who was under the table. Somebody broke into a house, just shot the woman and left. Just doesn't... Okay, we... Everybody listening knows... It just doesn't happen that way. Correct.
00:07:27
Speaker 2: And so, yes, we've seen the body cam footage. We've heard the 911 call. But then Detective Mike Morgan was there while he authenticated. And then they played two recorded video interviews, the first interrogations of Caleb Flynn on the day of Ashley's murder. So his first recorded interrogation video, he... goes through what he was doing.
00:07:51
Speaker 3: It's fascinating.
00:07:52
Speaker 2: We love watching these back on some of the shows we watch on TV.
00:07:56
Speaker 3: But to now know.
00:07:57
Speaker 2: He's charged with murder, but he's in court watching himself being interrogated, and this is when he starts sobbing.
00:08:04
Speaker 3: I mean, sobbing. It's ridiculous.
00:08:07
Speaker 2: And he is sobbing, watching himself sob. And in this first interview, he claims he fell asleep in the living room. The dogs woke him up. So he went to go check on his daughter's. He laid down on the bottom bunk with one of his daughters. That's when he hears a loud noise. He goes to the master bedroom, finds his wife dead, and then he sees that there's a side door to the garage open, and he guesses or he hypothesizes that's how the intruder must have gotten in. Okay.
00:08:39
Speaker 3: So this is the first interview, and the detective.
00:08:42
Speaker 2: And look, we now know all of the stories and what the detectives have certainly testified to, that what he claims from the beginning and what he's still claiming in court flies in the face.
00:08:53
Speaker 3: Of the evidence.
00:08:53
Speaker 1: Did we get, is there an answer to, okay, what did he do afterwards, right? If you think somebody came in, you found your wife, what's your first response? What did he do? What is he, like what, If you see your wife dead, right? Is that what you're saying?
00:09:12
Speaker 2: Yes.
00:09:13
Speaker 1: And then you saw somebody might have broken in. Yeah.
00:09:15
Speaker 2: So then he runs downstairs to see where the guy, oh, look, there's a door open. Then he calls 911 and I guess he hides under the table because that's where we see him with the body cam footage.
00:09:25
Speaker 1: Please tell me the first thing you do.
00:09:27
Speaker 3: Go check on your daughters.
00:09:28
Speaker 1: And you get them the hell out of the house.
00:09:30
Speaker 3: Correct.
00:09:31
Speaker 1: There is nothing else to talk about.
00:09:32
Speaker 3: That didn't happen.
00:09:33
Speaker 1: Ropes, there's nothing else to talk about.
00:09:36
Speaker 3: Exactly.
00:09:36
Speaker 1: All right. I got to get the kids out. There's nothing. What are we saying? Let's stay here in the house. I'm sure the kids are okay in the room while I'm down here looking.
00:09:43
Speaker 3: Don't want to wake them or anything. That would be terrible.
00:09:45
Speaker 1: I'm told he had a gun, right? Does he say in there that he went to look for that?
00:09:50
Speaker 2: No.
00:09:50
Speaker 1: Why is your first reaction not to get a weapon? I know people react all kinds of weird ways.
00:09:55
Speaker 3: You mean you wouldn't just go hide under a table and cry?
00:09:57
Speaker 1: Robes, parents speak. superheroes in these moments if there is danger of their children. What was the woman recently? The doctor who was stabbed in Pennsylvania.
00:10:08
Speaker 3: She's yelling out to her kids, get out, get out, get out.
00:10:10
Speaker 1: While she's fighting off a guy stabbing her husband to death. That's what parents do.
00:10:16
Speaker 3: That's what parents do.
00:10:18
Speaker 1: Exactly.
00:10:20
Speaker 2: When we come back, that was just the first interview where police let him go on and on and on about what he claimed happened. But then they played the second interrogation tape. This took place a couple hours later. when detectives started questioning Caleb Flynn's story. Welcome back everyone to Amy and TJ. So yes, now the jury and the rest of the courtroom gets to watch Caleb now be questioned by detectives when they tell him, you know what, the garage door wasn't latched and it doesn't look like someone did any damage from the outside. And oh, by the way, Ashley was shot at point blank range. And their point to him was, look, we cover these types of murders. When someone does something like that, the room is perfectly clean. Someone has it in for someone. They, you know, were there any known enemies to your wife? Who could have been upset with Ashley that they would have come into the house, directly targeted her and then left Ashley? And he just denied that there were any issues with anyone, not inside the home, not with him, not with anyone that he knew of.
00:11:37
Speaker 3: So he just immediately goes, I don't know.
00:11:39
Speaker 2: I can't think of anybody who would be upset with my wife. So we had no other possible theory. And the intruder, it just, it looks ridiculous. So then they confront him with a neighbor. There was a neighbor that said they heard you guys arguing. And then Caleb says, well, the last argument we had was Friday over plans for our older daughter. I have no idea who would say they could hear us arguing. So it's just fascinating for the court, for the jury, to hear him defending himself and offering no explanation.
00:12:10
Speaker 1: You know the videos are my favorites. Because usually the ones we see on true crime, again, this man is innocent until proven guilty in the court of law. But when we watch the true crime ones, these are people who have already been convicted. They're already been found guilty. They are sitting in prison to go back and watch those interviews, Robes. These interviews we're watching now will be the interviews that are a part of the true crime after this case is over. But to see, wow, he is 100% performing. Everything out of his mouth is a lie. The tears are a lie. He is really putting on a performance. I'm always fascinated by these performances. Some of them are over the top. Some of them are a little convincing. Some of them are ridiculous.
00:12:48
Speaker 2: Yes. And I think we all know Caleb's are over the top. I mean, and just the idea that the jury is watching him, you know, try to get out of what the evidence is pointing to when he's talking to detectives. And now he's in the courtroom and he's got tissues and he's dabbing his eyes as he sobs.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: I mean, I just wonder what impression that leaves on the jury.
00:13:12
Speaker 1: We put ourselves in the position of the jurors oftentimes when we were watching this. And right now, you just have to roll your eyes. And some of it, you're almost stunned that he's keeping up this act. It's been, bro, some of his crying has been crazy. I have not, right? If he says he's an innocent man, what are the times you're going to be crying and most emotional? What are the times it's going to mean most to you? And, Robes, that's what? When the family is talking about your wife, when pictures are, those things, right? There's been nothing... that showed he loved this woman, that he cared about this woman. He needs to do something, Robes, to combat those text messages. Or are you just conceding the point there's no way y'all are going to think I'm anything other than a terrible asshole?
00:14:00
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know how you could come up with anything other than that.
00:14:03
Speaker 2: And to your point, when he's crying, he's crying when he's seeing himself. When he's seeing himself in pain, when he hears himself in pain, the 911 call, he's crying at his pains.
00:14:15
Speaker 3: It's a little, it's not a little disturbing. It's a lot disturbing. And so, yes.
00:14:20
Speaker 1: But it's must-see TV.
00:14:21
Speaker 3: It is must-see TV. It is something.
00:14:22
Speaker 2: And it continues on this Monday. Detective Sergeant Mike Morgan is back up on the stand. They'll continue to play the rest of that tape. And then the big question is this week, will we hear from his daughters? There was early word that both of his daughters were on the list to testify. We don't know if that's going to take place. And certainly everything we've seen in testimony so far, I mean, in our untrained minds, they don't need testimony. any more evidence against this man right now. It is overwhelming. It is damning.
00:14:56
Speaker 3: The only hurdle they have is this missing gun.
00:14:59
Speaker 2: They don't have a physical weapon and they don't have that physical evidence tying him to her murder.
00:15:06
Speaker 3: That is their big issue. But the circumstantial evidence is just overwhelming.
00:15:12
Speaker 1: Do you have any reasonable doubt you could argue right now? Is it reasonable? Can you have a reasonable doubt? Because it would have to be reasonable that the story happened the way he said it happened. That someone broke into that home, decided to go shoot his wife and leave. And when they broke in, they broke in in such an awkward way that the door is broken in the wrong direction.
00:15:37
Speaker 2: And they only went after targeting and killing her.
00:15:40
Speaker 1: Yes. And they must have known where his gun was because it's gone now, correct?
00:15:46
Speaker 2: And the neighbor's house shows no one leaving or entering their home from that evening all the way till the next morning.
00:15:54
Speaker 1: And he has written at least 2,000 text messages in which he said he wants his wife dead. And again, that's a lowball estimate.
00:16:02
Speaker 3: Yes, he wants to kill his wife. He wants to kill his wife.
00:16:05
Speaker 1: So we're supposed to have reasonable... Is that reasonable enough? No.
00:16:12
Speaker 3: And I think we all know what the verdict would be right now if that jury... Stranger things have happened.
00:16:17
Speaker 2: Stranger things have happened, and we still have to see if the defense puts up a defense, if he is going to take the stand.
00:16:23
Speaker 3: There are a lot of question marks in this case still, and we will be watching.
00:16:26
Speaker 1: Are they allowed in their closing argument, the prosecutor, just to play that song again?
00:16:31
Speaker 3: I think they can. I mean, honestly, that was my favorite part.
00:16:34
Speaker 1: If the prosecutor got up there, you know what? And jurors, just by popular demand... One last time. Let's hear that. Just cue it up. Just for one last time to humiliate them.
00:16:44
Speaker 3: I'd be okay with that. I'd be okay with that.
00:16:46
Speaker 2: But we will continue to follow everything that goes on in that Ohio courtroom. We always appreciate you listening to us, everyone. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.