2026年9月28日 美国东部时间晚上10:03 / 哥伦比亚广播公司/美联社
一名曾登上《美国偶像》舞台的前俄亥俄州音乐牧师正因谋杀妻子受审，检方指控他在婚外情期间杀害妻子，而十多年前他曾在电视观众面前深情讲述妻子如何鼓励他追逐歌唱梦想。
40岁的凯莱布·弗林对谋杀、袭击和篡改证据的指控拒不认罪，案件涉及今年2月在代顿北部蒂普城的家中枪杀37岁的阿什利·弗林一案，阿什利是一名学校教师兼排球教练。警方赶到时，弗林和他们的两个女儿都在家中。
弗林的审判将于周二进入结案陈词，庭审期间一名女子出庭作证，称案发时她与弗林正保持婚外情关系。陪审团还听取了检方指称弗林为其情人创作的AI生成情歌，以及检方称两人 exchanged 的超过10万条短信中的部分内容。
检方称，弗林伪造了一起入室盗窃案以误导调查人员，并在慌乱的911报警电话中声称一名窃贼枪杀了他的妻子。弗林的 alleged 情人、24岁的阿莱加·博特纳作证称，弗林曾表示他憎恨妻子，并萌生过杀害她的念头。
凯莱布·弗林于2026年9月28日周一在俄亥俄州特洛伊的迈阿密县普通一审法庭内聆听庭审程序。美联社图片 泳池拍摄
以下是关于弗林审判你需要了解的信息：
情妇出庭作证
博特纳引发轰动的婚外情证词是庭审目前的焦点。博特纳在证人席上待了两天，讲述了她如何在2022年结识弗林——当时她20岁，在他的教堂担任实习生，两人的婚外情持续了一年多。
她详细描述了两人的秘密生活，包括弗林曾坦言想离开妻子、希望她死掉的私密对话。
“他告诉我他恨她，”博特纳作证道。“他说他还和她在一起的唯一原因就是因为孩子们。”
博ner在朗读她与弗林的部分短信时泣不成声，她表示自己后悔曾对弗林说：“我想杀了她，凯莱布。”
弗林非但没有劝阻她这个邪恶的念头，反而回复道：“那我们想到一块儿去了。”
2025年8月，也就是案发前约6个月，弗林给博特纳发短信称：“我昨晚熬到凌晨4点，一直在想怎么杀了她还不用坐牢。”
法庭上宣读的另一条短信中，博特纳称自己并非认真的，她告诉弗林：“显然我不是让你取她的性命，因为那不是你该做的事，我知道你也绝不会这么做。但如果能促成离婚，一切都会不一样。”
博特纳曾给弗林发短信称：“她一天不消失，我就一天不出现。”
在被问及这条短信以及其他类似的最后通牒式信息时，博特纳作证称：“我当时一直指的是离婚。”
当检察官询问她如今对弗林的看法时，博特纳说：“我恨他。”被问及原因时，她表示：“因为我相信是他谋杀了自己的妻子。”
博特纳直到案发四天后才联系联邦调查局，当时她的姨妈提供了线索，促使执法人员联系到她。
起初，博特纳告诉联邦调查局探员，她不相信弗林杀害了妻子。但在第二次采访中，她表示自己已经认定妻子的死“太过巧合”，她作证道。
检方播放了弗林创作的部分AI生成情歌，歌词包括：“年龄从未重要，当只有你和我”，以及“我们在可选择的人生边缘起舞，如此接近永恒，尚有太多值得留恋”。
法庭播放911通话录音与警方审讯录像
检方还播放了弗林的911报警录音，他在电话中称有人闯入家中杀害了他的妻子。他告诉调度员，妻子头部中了多枪，他不知道入侵者是否还在现场。
警方赶到时，弗林的车库门、一扇侧门以及他皮卡的中央扶手箱都处于敞开状态。弗林告诉警官，他将一把枪放在了扶手箱里，但警方报告显示，那里并未找到武器。警方称，他们始终未找到作案枪支。
辩方辩称，案发当晚并未在弗林身上检测到火药 residue，他身上也没有妻子的血迹。他们还指出，调查人员未发现弗林的任何工具造成了车库门的损坏。
陪审团还观看了弗林接受警方审讯的录像。当时他泪流满面，穿着一件印有“上帝赐予的宏大愿景”字样的运动衫，称自己当时在沙发上睡觉，被两声枪响惊醒。弗林告诉调查人员，案发前一天有一名男子来到家门口，递给妻子一面美国国旗，并做了一段“关于美国的怪异推销”。
在另一次警方审讯中，弗林告诉调查人员：“我们是一对相爱的正常夫妻，偶尔会有争执。我从未动过她一根手指头。”
弗林没有为自己出庭作证，其他辩方证人也未出庭。
结案陈词预计将于周二进行
在8天的庭审中，检方传唤了包括侦探和法医专家在内的40名证人，弗林的律师决定不再传唤任何证人。
检方和辩方均于周一结束举证。这意味着周二将进行结案陈词，随后陪审团将开始评议。
在开场陈述中，辩方律师艾米丽·史密斯承认弗林有婚外情。但她告诉陪审员：“凯莱布并非因身为糟糕丈夫受审。他也不是因出轨受审。你们坐在这里不是要评判你们是否喜欢凯莱布。”
检方选择不传唤弗林两个年仅10岁和12岁的女儿作为证人。
弗林曾参加2013年第12季《美国偶像》。他在芝加哥的电视海选现场演唱，接受了玛丽亚·凯莉、兰迪·杰克逊和妮琪·米娜的评审，但未能晋级好莱坞的主赛阶段，该季冠军是坎迪斯·格洛弗。
“音乐就是我的全部，”弗林在节目中说道。“这是我活着的意义，我热爱歌唱。”
弗林称，上帝启发他成为一名表演者。他感谢妻子在他前几季落选后，鼓励他再次参加《美国偶像》海选。
“我比任何人都爱我的妻子，”他说。“她非常非常漂亮。天啊，我爱她。”
蒂普城学校在其Facebook页面上称，阿什利·弗林曾担任中学排球教练，还是一名代课教师。在她的讣告中，她被描述为“一位忠诚且充满爱意的妻子，一位关怀备至且尽职尽责的母亲”。
“她以美丽的笑容、温暖、善良以及她对所有人——无论教室内外、球场上下——产生的积极影响而闻名，”该学区说道。
根据她的在线讣告，这位毕业于蒂普城高中和李大学的女性还曾在她的教堂——基督教生活中心做志愿者，并参与了向公立学校学生教授圣经的项目。
“阿什利被所有与她相遇的人视为闪耀的快乐之光，毫不费力地鼓励着身边的每一个人，”讣告写道。“她对他人的真诚关怀，体现了我们都努力传递的无私之爱。”
Former “American Idol” singer Caleb Flynn’s murder trial moves to closing arguments Tuesday
September 28, 2026 10:03 PM EDT / CBS/AP
A former Ohio music pastor who once appeared on “American Idol” is on trial on charges that he killed his wife while having an affair more than a decade after gushing to TV viewers about how she encouraged him to chase his dreams on the singing competition.
Caleb Flynn, 40, has pleaded not guilty to murder, assault and tampering with evidence charges in the February shooting of Ashley Flynn, 37, a schoolteacher and volleyball coach, at their Tipp City home, north of Dayton. Flynn and their two daughters were home when police arrived.
Flynn’s trial, which heads to closing arguments on Tuesday, has featured testimony from a woman who said she and Flynn had been having an affair at the time of his wife’s killing. Jurors also heard AI-generated love songs that prosecutors say he made for his paramour and some of the more than 100,000 text messages that authorities say they exchanged.
Prosecutors say Flynn staged a home invasion to mislead investigators and claimed in a frantic 911 call that a burglar had shot his wife. Flynn’s alleged paramour, 24-year-old Alleigha Botner, testified that he had remarked that he hated his wife and harbored thoughts of killing her.
Caleb Flynn listens to court proceedings inside the Miami County Court of Common Pleas on Monday, Sept. 28, 2026, in Troy, Ohio. AP Photo, Pool
Here’s what you need to know about Flynn’s trial:
Mistress testifies at trial
Botner’s bombshell affair testimony has been the highlight so far. On the witness stand for two days, Botner described how she met Flynn in 2022 while she was a 20-year-old intern at his church and carried on an affair with him that spanned more than a year.
She detailed the secret life she says they shared, including candid conversations in which he mused about leaving his wife and wanting her dead.
“He told me that he hates her,” Botner testified. “He told me the only reason that he’s still with her is because of the girls.”
Botner sobbed as she read some of her text messages with Flynn, saying she regretted telling him: “I want to kill her, Caleb.”
Rather than dissuade her from that dark thought, Flynn replied: “That makes two of us.”
In August 2025, about six months before the killing, Flynn texted Botner: “I was up until 4 a.m. last night crying, literally trying to think of ways to kill her and not go jail.”
In another text message read in court, Botner said she wasn’t serious, telling Flynn: “I’m not asking that you take her life obviously, because that’s not what you should do, and I know you actually wouldn’t. But to make the divorce happen, it would change everything.”
Botner at one point texted Flynn: “Until she’s gone, I’m gone.”
On cross-examination about that text and others in which she presented similar ultimatums, Botner testified, “I always meant divorce.”
When a prosecutor asked how she felt about Flynn now, Botner said: “I hate him.” Asked why, she said: “Because I believe that he murdered his wife.”
Botner did not speak to the FBI until four days after the murder, when a tip from her aunt prompted law enforcement to reach out to her.
At first, Botner told FBI investigators that she didn’t believe Flynn had killed his wife. In her second interview, however, she said she had concluded her killing was “way too much of a coincidence,” she testified.
Prosecutors played some of Flynn’s AI-generated love songs, which included lyrics such as: “Age never mattered, when it was you and me,” and “we danced on the edge of a life we could choose, so close to forever, so much left to lose.”
911 call audio, police interviews played in court
They also played audio of Flynn’s 911 call, in which he said someone had broken into his home and killed his wife. He told a dispatcher that she was shot multiple times in the head and didn’t know whether the intruder was still there.
When police arrived, the garage door, a side door and the center console of Flynn’s pickup truck were all open. Flynn told officers he kept a gun in the console, but no weapon was found there, according to a police report. Police say they never found the gun used in the killing.
The defense has argued that no gunshot residue was found on Flynn the night of the murder and that none of his wife’s blood was on him either. They also noted that investigators found none of Flynn’s tools appeared to have caused the damage to the garage door.
Jurors also saw videos of Flynn’s police interviews. Crying and wearing a sweatshirt that said, “God-Sized Vision,” he said he was sleeping on the couch when he was awoken by a pair of gunshots. Flynn told investigators that a man had come to the door a day before the killing and handed his wife an American flag while making a “weird sales pitch for America.”
In another police interview, Flynn told investigators: “We are a normal married couple who love each other and disagree. I’ve never laid hands on her.”
Flynn didn’t testify on his own behalf. Nor did anybody else.
Closing arguments expected Tuesday
After eight days of testimony from 40 prosecution witnesses, including detectives and forensics experts, Flynn’s lawyers decided not to call any witnesses.
The prosecution and defense both rested their cases on Monday. That leaves Tuesday for closing arguments, followed by the start of jury deliberations.
In an opening statement, defense lawyer Emily Smith acknowledged Flynn’s affair. But, she told jurors: “Caleb is not on trial for being a bad husband. He’s not on trial for cheating. You’re not here to deliberate on whether or not you like Caleb.”
Prosecutors opted not to call Flynn’s daughters, ages 10 and 12, as witnesses.
Flynn appeared in season 12 in 2013. He sang in televised auditions in Chicago before judges Mariah Carey, Randy Jackson and Nicki Minaj but did not advance to the main competition in Hollywood, where Candice Glover took the crown.
“Music is all I know,” Flynn said on the show. “It’s what I live to do, and I love to sing.”
Flynn said God inspired him to be a performer. He credited his wife with encouraging him to try out for “American Idol” again after he missed the cut a few seasons earlier.
“I love my wife more than anything,” he said. “She’s very, very pretty. Oof, I love her.”
Ashley Flynn coached middle school volleyball and was a substitute teacher, Tipp City Schools said on its Facebook page. In her obituary, she was described as “a devoted and loving wife, and a caring and dedicated mother.”
“She was known for her beautiful smile, warmth, kindness, and the positive impact she had on so many — both in and out of the classroom and on the court,” the school district said.
According to her online obituary, the Tipp City High School and Lee University graduate also volunteered at her church, Christian Life Center, and was part of a program that teaches the Bible to public school students.
“Ashley was known as a shining light of joy to all who crossed her path, effortlessly encouraging others along the way,” the obituary said. “Her genuine care for people reflected the selfless love we all strive to share.”
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