Caleb Flynn Used His Pulpit to Build the Perfect Cover

Tony Brueski (0:01)

This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brueski and Robin Drake.

Robin Drake (0:08)

Before he was sitting in a defense table facing life in prison, Caleb Flynn lived in the spotlight. He had a brush with fame on American Idol, a polished singing voice and a career as a worship pastor for a while, where people leaned on him for spiritual guidance every Sunday. But behind the family photos and the pulpit charisma, prosecutors allege she was harboring a dark, entitled ego that ended with his wife, Ashley, murdered in her own bed. Joining us to dig into the psychology of the righteous persona and the massive ego hiding behind the altar, psychotherapist and author Shavaun Scott, along with Robin Drake, retired FBI Special Agent, Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program and master class instructor. Let's start with the pulpit as the stage, because Caleb, he didn't just minister, he chased fame, he made it to Hollywood, an American Idol and stood center stage with a microphone.

Then every single weekend, he's on stage with a microphone at the pulpit, singing as a worship leader. Let's talk about this when an inspiring star pivots to church leadership. Is that really about the higher calling or is it just about the easiest way to get a captive audience and the applause that he craves when no one else is really going to be showing up on demand other than the church setting?

Shavaun Scott (1:30)

Yeah.

I always have real concerns about people who move into churches and have this charismatic presentation and just want the limelight because my understanding of Christianity, which I had quite a bit as a kid, is this is not what it's about. It's about service. It's not about self-aggrandizing. And so I think it's always a red flag. But people are looking for leaders. You know, people want to be inspired. And so I think it sort of makes them, you know, they sort of lack wisdom in who is this person that I'm putting my trust in?

Robin Drake (2:14)

Why is that? I mean, why, what is it about the church environment that makes congregations so fiercely loyal to these guys? Like guys like JP Miller, guys like Caleb Flynn, to the point where they are completely blind to the monster that's hiding in plain sight, despite the cacophony of warnings.

Shavaun Scott (2:36)

I think it's probably a number of things. And you see more of it in certain churches than others, but you can just see a cult mentality almost, where people are attracted to the people with the big personalities, with the confident people, with the charisma.

And so for people who are very vulnerable and need to be led because of their own emotional stuff, they're trying to process through, and here's a person that's confident and speaks for God, or supposedly speaks for God, and has the answers for them. And I think some folks, some folks avoid that. If I were going to a religious group like that now and saw something like that, I'd go the other way. But other people, they get caught up in the emotion of the whole presentation. It makes them feel excited, it makes them feel better. And so they're not thinking real clearly, but it definitely meets an emotional need for them.

Tony Brueski (3:37)

So, Shavaun, I know this is a theme that keeps coming up on different shows because we have a lot of nutters or in this case, this guy is not a full nutter, he's a half nutter. We have half nutters that are using their religious background to manipulate and for self and not be for service, like you said. And we keep covering and we're able to see these massive red flags with people that are using that title and position and that profit-like persona they give out in their charisma to entrap people for their own benefit. So it's easy for us to talk about the red flags. What are some things, because I know we have a lot of people in the audience and ourselves and our families as well, that are actually religious, that are actually want to do it for service. What are some green flags that people can say and kind of do a compare and contrast a few things. We're seeing a couple of these red flags of this kind of personality like Caleb. What are some things that you should be looking for if you're going to look for a place where you can actually congregate and do service? And there's lots of other ways to do it besides church, but if you want to use religion as your background, as I know some of our listeners do, what are some things that they should be identifying and attracted to rather than the Calyps?