‘American Idol’ alum on trial for murder allegedly told mistress he was ‘willing to sacrifice’ daughters

Alleigha Botner, 24, took the stand Wednesday, Sept. 23, and finished testifying the next day. Botner says she was having an affair with Flynn at the time of the killing. Ashley Flynn was 37 when she died.

On Thursday, Botner read aloud a text message she says Flynn sent her back in September 2025, months before his wife's death. In it, he allegedly wrote that he was "willing to sacrifice" his daughters, a quarter million dollars, his salaried job, his place to live, and possibly a church he served at.

That message now sits at the center of a murder trial built around motive and timing. Prosecutors are working to show what Flynn was weighing in the months leading up to his wife's death, and a mistress reading his own texts back to a jury puts his private words directly into the record. For a case that hinges on what was going on inside the Flynns' marriage before the shooting, that kind of testimony carries weight jurors can't unhear.

A man once known for singing on national television is now on trial for his life, and the words that may undo him were typed into a phone months before anyone died.