American Idol singer Caleb Flynn’s mother has blamed the media for his murder conviction.

On Tuesday, September 29, the 40-year-old, who appeared on American Idol Season 12 in 2013, was found guilty of all counts of murder in the death of his 37-year-old wife, Ashley Flynn, after pleading not guilty. Prosecutors had alleged that the former contestant killed her and staged the scene to make it look like a burglary gone wrong. Ashley was discovered shot multiple times in the head in their Ohio home.

Once a jury came to a verdict after just two and a half hours of deliberation, the judge read out each count of his charges — aggravated murder, three different counts of murder, two counts of felonious assault, and three counts of tampering with evidence — before revealing that he had been found guilty of all nine. Now, Flynn’s mother has broken her silence.

• Lauren Sanchez’s outfit for Trump’s state dinner sparks backlash as her dress is ‘inappropriate’

• Cost of Melania Trump’s White House state dinner outfit as critics slam ‘ridiculous’ look

After the guilty verdict was read in the Miami County courthouse on Tuesday, during which Flynn sobbed and was seen wiping his nose and eyes, his mother, Kim, cried as she spoke to reporters, going on to blame journalists for the verdict. “We couldn’t get ahead of the media’s propaganda and lies,” she said per the Daily Mail. “He didn’t do it. It was all circumstantial junk.”Flynn pleaded not guilty to the nine charges against him. He alleged that an intruder killed his wife during a burglary. Ashley had been shot twice in the back of her head while she was asleep in bed in their residence in Tippy City, Ohio, on February 16. The couple shared two daughters, who were asleep in the house when the crime occurred.

His defense lawyers claimed that he was asleep at the time of the shooting and had woken up to the sounds of the gunshots while he was in their daughter Ava’s room. However, prosecutors said hours before Flynn called 911, he had texted his former mistress, “I choose you. I’m free. Actions will come tomorrow.”

The former mistress, Alleigha Botner, 24, had testified in court for over two days. She alleged that Flynn told her he intended to talk to his wife about getting a divorce on February 16, and she thought his phrasing, “Actions will come tomorrow,” meant that he intended to do so.

When Botner learned his wife was dead, she told the court, “My heart started pounding. In my mind, it seemed like too much of a coincidence that the day he’s divorcing her, she’s just dead all of a sudden.”

She stated that she had once thought she loved Flynn, but when the prosecutor asked her to describe her feelings toward him now, she replied, “I hate him.” When asked about the shift of her emotions, she explained in court, “Because I believe that he murdered his wife.”

Botner additionally testified that she met Flynn in 2022 while interning at their church, and their sexual relationship occurred for about a year, starting in May 2024. She noted that she knew he was married.

In Botner’s testimony, she said that Flynn would regularly voice that he wanted his wife “gone” or “dead,” and that he referred to her as “d—–bag,” “wh-re,” “sl-t,” and “spawn of Satan.”

“He said that he wishes if he could kill her and not go to jail or get arrested — I forget exactly what he said — that he would do it,” Botner testified. She read some of their over 100,000 text message exchanges, in which Flynn expressed wanting his wife dead.

One of those texts, which Flynn sent to Botner in August 2025, read, “I was up until 4 a.m. last night … trying to think of ways to kill her and not go to jail. If I could literally kill her and not go to hell, I would do it in a heartbeat.”

After the judge revealed the verdict, Flynn’s bond was revoked, and he was escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs. His sentencing is scheduled for October 5, and he is now facing life in prison without parole.

In 2013, Flynn auditioned before American Idol judges Mariah Carey, Randy Jackson and Nicki Minaj, but did not advance to the main competition in Hollywood.