Pastor’s mistress testifies in trial for his wife’s murder; Did Bryan Kohberger understand his plea? – TCN Sidebar

Joshua Ritter (0:11)

Hello, and welcome to The Sidebar, presented by True Crime News, taking you inside the courtrooms of high-profile and notorious cases from across the country. I'm your host, Joshua Ritter. I'm a criminal defense lawyer based in Los Angeles and previously an LA County prosecutor for over a decade. We are recording this on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2026 In this week's episode, an unsealed memo that suggests Bryan Kohberger didn't understand his guilty plea, plus a request to investigate the holdout juror in Lindsay Clancy's mistrial. But first, a pastor accused of murdering his wife amid an affair with a worship leader. Our guest this week is Franz Borghardt, a criminal defense attorney and legal analyst you can find on multiple media outlets. Franz, welcome back, my friend. How are you?

Franz Borghardt (0:58)

Thank you for having me back, man. Always excited to hang out with you guys and to talk about national cases. So I'm ready when you are.

Joshua Ritter (1:05)

These are some big ones too. I mean, these are like, you know, some of the heavy hitters from the last few years or so.

And I'm so I'm very interested to hear your thoughts because I always love to hear your unique take on these things. Let's jump in this first window out of Miami County, Ohio. A pastor's private life has been laid bare in his ongoing trial as he faces charges for the murder of his wife. Husband and former American Idol contestant Caleb Flynn claimed his wife Ashley had been fatally shot by intruders in a harrowing 911 call. However, as soon as officers arrived on the scene, this story began to unravel with investigators claiming it looked more like a murder staged as a burglary. Prosecutors claimed that Flynn had financial and personal motives to claim his wife's life, including a years-long affair with a worship leader at their church, a six-figure life insurance policy, and a stake in his wife's family's flooring and finishing business. While the evidence against Flynn is staggering, one key piece of the puzzle is missing, the murder weapon. Whether that link will provide enough reasonable doubt for jurors remains to be seen, but we will continue to keep an eye on this heavily watched trial.

There are bad facts, and then there are bad facts, Franz. And one of the things leading up to this trial that I had wondered how the prosecution was going to handle was motive. Because they're always wondering, when a wife is alleged to have killed a husband, husband alleged to have killed a wife, why would they do this? Why would you, you know, tear your entire life apart? Perhaps the mother or father of your children, you're going to have to give jurors something. Well, in opening statements, they tell us that there was allegedly over 100,000 text messages with a mistress, including some heavy hitters as, you know, I literally would kill her if I could, including a text message the day before the murders, talking about how tomorrow, and names the date will be a date that he will never forget. Is that alone just like too much of an obstacle for this defense to get past? I mean, that is one hell of a motive, in my view.

Franz Borghardt (3:23)

So you sometimes, as you know, we are fact screwed.

We don't use the word screwed. We use another word that I can't say.

So here's the thing. He's got to his team, his defense attorneys are going to have to figure out a way of explaining now that we have the why, they have to explain the yeah, but and the yeah, but needs to be a something that's reasonable, that makes the circumstantial evidence. Because what we're talking about is circumstantial evidence, right?

Joshua Ritter (4:00)

Very true.

Franz Borghardt (4:00)

The text messages, the tomorrow will live in infamy, all that circumstantial evidence. So he has to explain one didn't need a killer. He could have just divorced her.

Number two, one of the arguments might be, yeah, this life insurance is great, but if she's murdered, I don't get to collect on it. So I wouldn't have murdered. Anything you can do to cause any kind of doubt. Now look, in this case, in this case, they got a lot of dominoes that they have to get around because I think the text messages combined with the financial issues, that's enough. That's enough and if you're in the defense team, Joshua, do you harp on the fact that where's the murder weapon? Where's the murder weapon? Where's the murder weapon?

Now that may not be a big issue if he's alleged to have thrown it in the river. Okay, the cause of death may not be really a contested fact, but it's not ever. We try the cases, as you know, because it's never a slam dunk, although it sometimes definitely feels like the Titanic is going down. Yeah.