{"id":365500,"date":"2026-10-06T04:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T04:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365500\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T04:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T04:46:08","slug":"caleb-flynns-young-daughters-vow-to-never-visit-killer-in-prison-in-scathing-statement-at-sentencing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/365500\/","title":{"rendered":"Caleb Flynn\u2019s young daughters vow to never visit killer in prison in scathing statement at sentencing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The daughter of \u201cAmerican Idol\u201d alum and ex-church pastor Caleb Flynn<\/a> blasted her dad for sinning \u201cbig time\u201d by having an affair with a \u201cdirty girl\u201d before killing her mother<\/a> \u2013 as his other daughter vowed to never visit him in prison.<\/p>\n

The 40-year-old father of two sobbed and sweat profusely as blistering statements from his daughters, Ava and Alyssa, were read in court before he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for fatally shooting his wife and their mother, Ashley.<\/p>\n

\u201cMommy was the perfect person, the absolutely perfect person,\u201d Ava, 10, said, according to a statement read in court by the girls\u2019 uncle, Matthew Keyt. \u201cWhat did she ever do to make you hate her so much? \u2026 She was my best friend and then you chose to kill the only mother I ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former \u201cAmerican Idol\u201d contestant Caleb Flynn cried as his daughters read scathing statements at his sentencing. LOCAL 12<\/p>\n

Ava also blasted her dad for having an affair with Aleigha Botner, an intern at the Ohio church<\/a> where Flynn was a music pastor.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow could you cheat on her and go to that awful girl Aleigha? I never liked her,\u201d the daughter said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou and Aleigha sinned big time but you still have a chance to tell God that you are sorry,\u201d Ava said.<\/p>\n

Flynn\u2019s other daughter laid into her dad, saying it was \u201csad that you can\u2019t love anyone but yourself,\u201d according to the statement read in court by her grandmother.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have already caused so much pain to your family and the world. The least you could do is tell everyone that you did it,\u201d read Alyssa\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the way, I don\u2019t plan on coming to see you,\u201d the 12-year-old daughter said, apparently referring to his soon-to-be new permanent digs at a state prison.<\/p>\n

The girls were 9 and 11 when Flynn killed Ashley<\/a> at their Tipp City home on Feb. 16. He then staged the scene to make it appear as though an intruder carried out the murder, prosecutors claimed.<\/p>\n

One of his young daughters vowed never to visit him in prison. AP<\/p>\n

The girls are now being cared for by Ashley\u2019s sister and brother-in-law, Kayla and Matthew Keyt.<\/p>\n

The Keyts told the judge Monday about how the girls regularly cry as they struggle to come to terms with what happened to them.<\/p>\n

Kalya said just the other day one of them \u201cwas laying beside me, sobbing into my shoulder as they both often do, because she missed her mommy and could not understand how her own father could have done this to all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThen she looked at me and asked, \u2018Why should I even believe in Jesus if he allowed this to happen to us,\u2019\u201d Kayla said.<\/p>\n

Matthew painted an equally heartbreaking picture when he told the judge how the sisters go to their mom\u2019s grave daily.<\/p>\n

Young Ava, 10, said her mother Ashley was \u201cthe perfect person.\u201d Facebook \/ Ashley Flynn<\/p>\n

\u201cNearly every day we watch as Ashley\u2019s daughters visit their mother\u2019s gravesite,\u201d Matthew said. \u201cI watch them cry and talk to her. They often lie on the grass in front of her tombstone imagining that it will bring them a bit closer to their mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prosecutors claim that Flynn murdered Ashley, 37, because he wanted to start a life with Botner, now 24. The mistress testified against him at trial and was forced to admit she once texted with Flynn about wanting to kill Ashley, a sentiment Flynn agreed with in the messages.<\/p>\n

Before Judge Jeannine Pratt threw the book at Flynn Monday, he sobbed as he read a lengthy statement lamenting not being able to raise the girls and apologizing for breaking his wedding vows.<\/p>\n

Still, Flynn maintained he didn\u2019t kill his wife.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The daughter of \u201cAmerican Idol\u201d alum and ex-church pastor Caleb Flynn blasted her dad for sinning \u201cbig time\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[133928,238,9,11,10,1758,58],"class_list":["post-365500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-american-idol","tag-murders","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-ohio","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}