Caleb Flynn’s Daughter Asked Him One Question He Couldn’t Answer

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

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

Tony Brueski (0:07)

The Caleb Flynn case has already asked everybody to sit with one of the worst facts in any case and it comes to the spotlight when you have two kids involved, two little girls asleep in the room next door, while prosecutors now convicted their father of murdering their mother with two shots to the back of the head as they're lying with their stuffed animals. Just the other day, he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. But what came out in the prosecutor's sentencing memorandum might be harder to process than the crime itself. According to people, according to the memorandum itself, prosecutors allege Flynn told his daughters their statements when he knew they were going to be questioned about what happened that night. That their statements could mean life or death for daddy. And I'm sure he delivered it in that religious tone and probably had a few god words in there too.

They say that he instructed them to deny that they'd been coached and that their messaging, what they're going to say, their responses to those questions as a 10 and 12 year old could mean the difference between life and death for their very father. Shavaun Scott, psychotherapist and author, is joining us to help us break this down. Along with Robin Drake, retired FBI special agent, chief of the counterintelligence behavioral analysis program and master class instructor. Yeah, so about that, people, people do manipulate their children all the time. It's not right, but it happens. People do the, well, let's just not talk about this, but this is a pretty damn big one. Daddy might die, if you don't answer the questions right.

Tell me what that does to those little children when daddy presents their situation is that.

Shavaun Scott (2:00)

It's horrendous. That is emotional child abuse. I mean, there's no other way to look at it. You're putting them in an impossible loyalty bind where, oh my gosh, we're responsible for what's going to happen to dad here. Who does that to their children?

Yeah, people going through divorces sometimes veer into that. Sometimes they do it way inappropriately, and you have to always try to rein people in on manipulating the kids in that way. But this is just, again, and yes, I'm sure God was integrated into that talk. He can't seem to leave that alone. But yeah, that's the only way I can put it. It's emotional child abuse. For somebody who claims to love them so much, you don't do that to your kids, ever.

Robin Drake (2:49)

I wonder what the long-term effect on them is, because you know that's not the first time that he's basically objectified them and used them as an ornament. Because his entire life, because of how he grew up, was about the show, the presentation. I'll go all the way back to the first statement he said when they showed the clip of him being interviewed for American Idol. And again, it's not that it's a bad thing, but when you look at the totality, it really stuck out to me that when he talked about his wife, he says how pretty she was.

And that's a nice thing to say, but at the same time, when I think of my wife, that's not what, I think of my wife as my anchor, she's my guiding light, she's my inspiration, she's the mother of my children. I mean, all these things, I don't think, I don't think aesthetically, right, when I'm presenting things to the world. Not that it's wrong, I'm just saying it's just one of those data points. And so you see that arc of him objectifying and using things as ornaments and trophies for the presentation his entire life. And so he's doing the same thing when you have a lack of williness, ability, or even desire to take in the consideration that this is actually a human being that you're communicating with and the impact of your words on them, in other words, empathy, it's just really profound, especially when it comes to a father towards his children and daughters, young daughters.

So it could not have been the first time in their lives that they've been regarded that way. So on the long term, again, they're still in the, before the prefrontal lobes fully form and they're still in those formative years and luckily the new family, you know, the extended family that they're with will hopefully mend it. But at this point, Shavaun, what's the damage or what kind of things, how could that be manifested? What should the girls watch out for and what, you know, what are red flags to watch out for that they've been treated like that by their father for so long?