Alleigha Botner Read WHAT in Caleb Flynn’s Texts?!

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

This is The Big Breakdown, a long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden Killers Podcast and True Crime Today. Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

Tony Brueski (0:14)

When Caleb Flynn was convicted of murdering his wife Ashley, a lot of his let out of breath, a sigh of relief. But the anger, you know, it didn't stop there because sitting right in the middle of this nightmare is the mistress. Alleigha Botner, we watched her take the stand and read through sickening text messages where Caleb talked about wanting Ashley dead, wishing she were gone, trying to figure out ways to kill her. And what did the mistress do? She stayed in bed with him, kept the affair going for over a year, right up until Ashley was murdered. Now, could Ashley's family be looking at civil court to hold this woman accountable where the law just fell short? Could you legally, can you legally or morally pin this on the other woman in any way, shape or form or in a civil court to any sort of liability? We're going to get into all of that today, into the gut reality of what she knew, what she ignored, whether Ashley's family can finally force her to pay.

To do that, Eric Faddis, Defense Attorney, former Prosecutor with us, along with us as always, Robin Drake, retired FBI Special Agent, Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program and Master Class Instructor. Let's start here.

Put ourselves in the shoes of Ashley's mother or sister sitting in that courtroom. You hear another woman admit she read texts about killing her daughter and just shrugged it off as venting. At what point, Eric, does being a complicit mistress cross the line into some sort of civil liability for a wrongful death?

Eric Faddis (2:02)

Sir, we're seeing wrongful death cases really try to expand the pool of folks who could be civilly liable. We saw it in the David case, DV4D, where the victim's family is suing not only David, but also his mom and the record company, everything else. So it's not uncommon to try to loop in as many folks as you can in a civil claim who might bear some kind of civil responsibility. In terms of that line, though, that's a little tough.

We want to look at whether she knew or should have known that Caleb was going to kill his wife. And if so, what measures did she take? Did she act reasonably based on that information? And I think that that is really in question based on the evidence that's right.

Robin Drake (2:47)

Eric, I know a lot of people have been asking similar questions about any correlation between the types of cases where we're seeing where people are being charged in self-elimination cases, where you're bullied online, you're told to do certain things to yourself, and they self-eliminate, and then we have a case. Is there a similarity between this, where we kind of see Alleigha taking that stand, where she could be interpreted as pushing him to do this action? Is there any correlation there, do you think?

Eric Faddis (3:17)

Certainly, according to the civil plaintiff's attorneys, there would be. They want there to be.

What they want to try to establish is that this mistress had knowledge, or knew or should have known, that Caleb was going to kill his wife, and then acted unreasonably with respect to that information. Now, one thing you're touching on, Robin, is that there has to be a causal link. You have to establish causation. It doesn't need to be the only cause of the ultimate outcome that was brought about, but it usually has to be a substantial factor in the death in the case. And so was the mistress' actions or inactions a substantial factor in bringing about the demise of Caleb Flynn's wife? That's really the question in the civil case.

Robin Drake (4:01)

So what you're seeing in the testimony is a lot of her words in text that were saying, I want her dead, she's horrible.

So I want her dead multiple times, whether it's in her words or in Caleb's words, and she's agreeing, so they're collaborating on this. And there hasn't been any charges yet towards her based on what we saw there. So as an attorney, what would you be looking more for beyond what we saw in testimony so far, do you think?

Eric Faddis (4:29)

Sure. So you'd want to look at, did the mistress, what material aid may have the mistress provided? Was there material encouragement in different messages? Were there arrangements made? And on top of that, you want to look at, how much did the mistress look the other way? Was it glaringly obvious to a reasonable person in the mistress's shoes that this event was probably going to happen? Or at least there was a very serious concern that it might happen. Did that create a duty on behalf of the mistress, a legal duty in order to tell the police, in order to tell the wife, in order to tell family members?