Victim’s dying statement to be excluded from upcoming trial; Bombshell claim in Lindsay Clancy case – 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 Thursday, October 1st, 2026 In this week's episode, a victim's dying statements against his alleged killer are omitted from trial.

Plus, Kevin Reddington's claim that prosecutors didn't prove Lindsay Clancy killed her children. But first, a failed American Idol contestant convicted of his wife's murder. Today, we are joined by Rachel Kaufman, an Atlanta-based criminal defense attorney and legal analyst you can catch on multiple platforms. Rachel, welcome back. How are you?

Rachel Kaufman (0:57)

Happy to be here to talk about these fun topics.

Joshua Ritter (0:59)

Yeah, these are some good ones. We got three really good ones today.

One of them going out about as quickly as we expected. Let's jump right in. Out of Miami County, Ohio, jurors wasted little time in convicting a pastor charged with his wife's murder. Caleb Flynn claimed that his wife Ashley was killed by an intruder. But the evidence suggested Flynn was the only person with the means or motive to end her life. Central to prosecutors' case was Aliyah Botner, Flynn's mistress and a worship leader at their church, who was 16 years younger than the married man. Hundreds of thousands of texts, the pair exchanged vitriol for Ashley with Caleb, even saying, quote, If I could literally kill her and not go to hell, I would do it in a heartbeat. While the evidence of the affair and Botner's desire for Flynn to leave his wife was clear, Flynn's defense presented a reasonable doubt defense, claiming that officers shoehorned the evidence and investigation after learning of the man's affair. Though they presented no witnesses, Flynn's defense criticized the lack of direct evidence in the case, noting that there was no blood on Flynn's clothes or person. Officers never conducted a hand swab for gunshot residue after the killing and the murder weapon was never found. However, despite the arguments, it didn't hold much sway with the jury who took just over two hours to convict Flynn on all counts.

I don't know. Jump right in. What do you think, Rachel? Are you shocked by this one? Do you think there was any chance here for a more solid defense or were they just working with what they had?

Rachel Kaufman (2:38)

They were working with what they had. I would feel bad for his defense attorneys. Those text messages and everything with Aliyah.

There's not a hole through which reasonable doubt can even just be argued. I feel like this was a case that we've seen it all before. He is the likely suspect. This is how this goes. When part and then there's text messages and you have a mistress and the lack of gunshot residue is interesting, I guess, since they didn't test for it that night. But why would there be blood on him if he shot her?

Joshua Ritter (3:15)

True, but I guess they were pointing towards the idea of like the complete lack of physical evidence tying him to this crime. I think the gunshot residue is probably more interesting than the blood, like you said. But it is a circumstantial case. There's no physical evidence.

He's kind of the only one, like you said, he's suspect number one. He's there in the house when it takes place by his own admission. But really, in my view, this all came down to the text messages, no?

Rachel Kaufman (3:44)

Came down to the text messages. I think if anyone was listening to the 911 call closely, this is the guy who I think the operator is asking him questions about, what's going on?

What happened to your wife? He says something like there's two shots to the back of her head, which you'd never be able to tell after you shot. You would never know how many shots were fired into someone's head if they were bleeding from the head.

Joshua Ritter (4:05)

Right. You'd have to literally get down and like a medical examiner look. Right.

Rachel Kaufman (4:10)

And he didn't have blood on him. So I don't think he did that. So, yeah, I mean, that's.

Yeah.

Joshua Ritter (4:23)

Listen, if you're doing your best to try to search for what else they could have argued, I think you're right. There's not much else. In fact, with what they had, I think they made a fairly solid argument, which is the investigation stopped short once they found these text messages. Because once they had a motive, once they had a mistress, then they thought, OK, we don't need to look anywhere else. Now, that might be true to the extent that they thought they had their prime suspect, but they were also able to eliminate much of anything supporting his story.