Former American Idol singer Caleb Flynn sentenced to life in prison for wife’s murder

• Caleb Flynn, a former American Idol contestant and music pastor, was sentenced to life without parole for murdering his wife in their Ohio home in February.
• The court heard Flynn staged the crime scene and had an affair, with evidence including texts and AI-generated love songs presented during the trial.
• Flynn maintained his innocence, but the judge condemned his actions as selfish and cruel; his daughters' emotional letters were read at sentencing.

OHIO – A former music pastor who once auditioned for American Idol was sentenced on Oct 5 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for fatally shooting his wife in their Ohio home in February.

Before a judge handed down the sentence, the former pastor, Caleb Flynn, stood in court and maintained his innocence. During the hearing, which was livestreamed by Court TV, he acknowledged lying about “a lot of things”.

“But as I stand here before God, who is my ultimate judge, I am not lying when I say I did not kill my wife,” Flynn, 40, said.

A jury in Ohio convicted Flynn last week of aggravated murder and other charges in the killing of his wife, Ashley, who was shot twice in their home in Tipp City, Ohio, about 24km north of Dayton, on Feb 16. After the shooting, prosecutors said, Flynn staged the scene to make it appear as if an intruder had killed her.

The verdict came after a closely watched nine-day trial in which prosecutors aired details of Flynn’s affair with a woman he met when she was a 20-year-old intern at his church.

Jurors listened to readings of their text messages and playbacks of the love songs that prosecutors said Flynn created for her using artificial intelligence.

Judge Jeannine N. Pratt said that Flynn had used his faith to manipulate the lives of others. He could have separated from his wife, she said, instead of killing her in her own home while their two daughters were sleeping.

“But instead, through your greed, your selfishness, your lust and your cruelty, you chose to take Ashley’s life,” she said.

L. Patrick Mulligan, a lawyer for Flynn, has said he plans to appeal the verdict.

Flynn appeared briefly in the 12th season of American Idol in 2013, telling viewers in an interview segment that he loved his wife. He auditioned for judges Mariah Carey, Randy Jackson and Nicki Minaj but did not advance to the main competition, The Associated Press reported.

Flynn cried during most of the sentencing hearing, especially when letters from his daughters, who are 10 and 12, were read aloud by other relatives.

“What did she ever do to make you hate her so much?” one daughter asked in her letter.

“By the way,” the other daughter’s letter said, “Ashley Flynn was the best thing that ever happened to you.” NYTIMES

• This article originally appeared in The New York Times.