The Megyn Kelly Show - September 25, 2026


The TRUTH About Nolan Wells' Alcohol Consumption, Bruises, and Deleted Messages, and the Shock Pastor Murder Trial | Ep. 1406

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Mentioned
Trump Welcomes Xi in High Stakes US Visit, Judge Weighs Media Ban, AOC Teases 2028: AM Update 9⧸24

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Length

1 hour and 44 minutes

Words per minute

163.88

Word count

17,080

Sentence count

1,158


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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00:00:41.120 Sonnet. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
00:00:54.180 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and happy Friday. We have a lot
00:00:58.660 to get to today. I've got to start with this. Happy birthday, Yates. My son turns 17 today.
00:01:06.080 Oh my gosh. All of you parents out there can relate. It is hard to believe it's been 17 years.
00:01:11.600 You know, it's like now we're getting into some high up years between the moment of birth and
00:01:17.540 present day. And it just, it goes by in an instant. Here's to all the moms and dads out there who
00:01:24.280 celebrate their kids' birthdays, but secretly deep inside feel a sense of pending loss as they get
00:01:35.160 older and we know what's going to happen. They're going to leave us. It's what's normal. I have to
00:01:41.140 let it go. Can't make him feel bad about it. I do want him to go off and become an independent man,
00:01:46.160 but not yet. Not yet. The law says I get to have him for another year or so. And since he's only a
00:01:52.140 Jr. Two years, let's say. Anyway, happy birthday, sweet Yates. Today, we are finally going to get
00:01:59.920 to this murder trial involving this Caleb Flynn. He's this pastor who is accused of murdering his
00:02:09.580 wife. He's also a former American Idol contestant. And his mistress took the stand in his murder
00:02:15.420 trial this week. And wow, it's been a jaw dropper. So we'll cover that in just a bit. But we are
00:02:21.060 starting today with just an incredible back and forth in the Nolan Wells story.
00:02:28.320 I mean, I don't know exactly how to break it down in a line or two,
00:02:34.000 but basically what happened was the grand jury came back and said,
00:02:37.960 this kid drowned.
00:02:39.720 We don't have proof positive that he drowned,
00:02:42.400 but we have looked at everything submitted by the state
00:02:46.460 and by Benjamin Crump, who represents the family.
00:02:49.880 He's submitted a bunch of evidence to us, too.
00:02:52.060 He's been invited to submit anything and everything he has.
00:02:55.020 And he, in response to that, gave a bunch of things.
00:02:57.600 And we, the grand jury, looked at it all.
00:02:59.100 And our determination, after listening to the medical examiner for the state of Mississippi, as well as the one hired by Crump on behalf of the Nolan Wells family, a young black man who went over to this Horn Island with his friends on July 4th of this year with his buddies and did not return.
00:03:19.140 his buddy's boat because he wanted to stay at the island based on independent witness testimony
00:03:24.940 and then never came home. And a day later was found dead in the water.
00:03:31.960 And now there's been all sorts of innuendos swirling around his friends, most of whom were
00:03:36.840 white, not all, because his family connected with two race hustlers, Al Sharpton and Ben Crump,
00:03:42.700 who have been fueling that fire ever since with absolutely no evidence.
00:03:46.100 and the grand jury ultimately just this week came out and said that there was no foul play here
00:03:52.020 these boys did nothing there's nothing put in front of us that in any way incriminates those
00:03:57.260 friends at all and the nearest we can tell is that this kid drowned he drowned after having
00:04:04.800 a fair amount to drink and that should be the end of it i'm sorry mr crump but your your game is over
00:04:12.060 It's done. You had your fun trying to divide us yet again on the basis of skin color.
00:04:18.440 What's your goal? Like a full out race war? No, I think it's just to pad your pockets
00:04:23.080 with some more donations to grieving moms and dads like these who at their weakest moment
00:04:31.280 fall into your clutches. You can pump up your name and your wallet at the expense of grieving
00:04:38.280 families. Shame on you. You're a bad person. But Benjamin Crump will not accept the conclusion of
00:04:48.920 the grand jury at all. And what happened yesterday afternoon is he released what he says is his own
00:04:57.000 independent forensic examination of Nolan Wells. Again, that's the decedent here. Cell phone.
00:05:03.180 And provided his spin of what it means. Here's what's so galling about his interpretation of
00:05:08.160 the cell phone. The DA didn't have the cell phone. What happened was the boys who went to Horn Island
00:05:13.760 with Nolan, his buddies, had the cell phone on their boat. Nolan left it on their boat. And then
00:05:19.260 they all got in the water and they swam and they had a good time and so on. And then when the boat
00:05:23.000 was returning back early because it was having some trouble taking on water and Nolan said,
00:05:28.100 I'm good, I'll just catch a ride with somebody else, which was commonplace. There was testimony
00:05:31.240 to that effect that kids would come and go on different boats all the time. He clearly forgot
00:05:35.840 to take his phone off the boat.
00:05:37.260 The boat went back to the mainland
00:05:38.640 with his phone on it.
00:05:40.700 And the boys later returned that phone
00:05:43.240 to the family.
00:05:47.860 And, or it might've been to Nolan Wells' friend,
00:05:50.480 I can't remember,
00:05:50.800 but they returned it immediately that evening.
00:05:53.680 And it's been in the possession
00:05:54.880 of Nolan's parents ever since.
00:05:57.680 Ben Crump has the phone.
00:05:59.860 And so he came out and was like,
00:06:02.580 the phone records are incomplete.
00:06:03.960 Like, you have the phone records.
00:06:05.300 You have the phone. What are you saying? Why are you trying to create drama around the phone and phone records when you're the one who has those?
00:06:12.820 The D.A. had to ask you for all of that. All right.
00:06:16.260 So now he does this, what the D.A. is calling grandstanding about there were deletions off of this phone, he says, after Nolan last logged on.
00:06:29.560 And when the parents received the phone. There were deletions.
00:06:34.260 aha, must be the white boys. It's really what he says, either explicitly or implicitly with all of
00:06:41.740 his statements. Those white kids, they deleted their nefarious text messages. That's what he's
00:06:46.560 suggesting. And the DA had to get up in the middle of the night from the look of it last night and
00:06:53.020 put together a statement of her own to try to correct the record because the hustler is out
00:06:59.380 there at every turn trying to spin us on what the facts allegedly show. All right. So here's
00:07:07.560 what Ben Crump claimed where he was speaking about Snapchat conversation that occurred on
00:07:15.140 Nolan's cell phone. And this he's using this to say even Nolan's friends were worried about Nolan
00:07:23.100 possibly getting attacked by racists on Horn Island. Listen to Sot One.
00:07:30.860 But the messages on his phone in the snaps will show some of his own friends
00:07:39.580 were concerned about people on Horn Island can be racist.
00:07:48.300 That's his friends discussing that on snap.
00:07:53.100 So, yeah, a lot of people were thinking about whether there was a racial component in this tragedy of Nolan Wells being unalived.
00:08:09.300 And so, one of the SNAP's conversations talked about, do you all remember real sketchy looking guys behind us in two boats?
00:08:26.680 I mean like, yeah, that one that looked like, and I won't say the name, maybe.
00:08:33.440 Apparently the guy was real skinny
00:08:38.440 The ones that were right behind us
00:08:42.080 Yes, yes
00:08:43.560 One was black and one was white
00:08:48.360 Well those guys were apparently like felons or something
00:08:53.820 At least one of them
00:08:56.500 And they were there when we were all gone
00:09:03.340 I think. Are you sure? Yes, they were. My dad had to walk this lady to her boat because
00:09:16.700 she knew one of them. And sheriffs talking to my dad says something like, you wouldn't
00:09:24.860 want to be left alone with them, especially if they're really drunk. Nobody's accepting
00:09:33.740 that it was an accidental drowning. Even the friends are talking about
00:09:38.980 they are concerned about what really happened to Nolan Wells.
00:09:46.580 okay so now it's not the friends it's some random sketchy looking dudes on the island now
00:09:55.820 have we moved on from the friends mr crump i can't quite keep track because for months now
00:10:02.120 you've been telling me it's these white boys who are racist down in mississippi and mentioning
00:10:07.400 emmett till but now it's some random guys that nolan's friends thought looked sketchy pick a
00:10:16.160 Lane, I'm having difficulty keeping up with your theories.
00:10:22.660 He's trying to get these kids around.
00:10:24.440 He's been trying to get these kids arrested for months with zero evidence.
00:10:30.340 Now the jury, the grand jury comes out and says they did nothing at a complete and total
00:10:35.260 exoneration of all these boys.
00:10:37.260 He switched it to the boys had snaps about sketchy looking characters on Horn Island.
00:10:44.740 and even they didn't agree it was a drowning.
00:10:47.920 Well, I don't know when those snaps were.
00:10:49.660 It sounds like that they were right after Nolan went missing
00:10:52.660 and they didn't know what had happened to Nolan.
00:10:55.280 But the point is, who is it?
00:10:58.360 He's got no viable theories and he hasn't, the truth is,
00:11:01.820 given up on the theory that Nolan's friends killed him
00:11:05.420 because he's also suggesting that there were deletions on Snapchat,
00:11:11.480 on Nolan's Snapchat with his friends
00:11:15.640 after Nolan was no longer using the phone
00:11:18.820 and before it was returned to his parents.
00:11:21.540 And he made a big point about how his last text message
00:11:24.520 was from the night before to an aunt
00:11:26.300 that Nolan, like a lot of teenagers, doesn't really text.
00:11:30.140 He was a Snapchatter.
00:11:31.400 I mean, virtually every teen is.
00:11:33.740 And so he was suggesting, this is very suspicious,
00:11:36.460 somebody was deleting snaps on Nolan's phone.
00:11:39.580 That too is a lie.
00:11:41.480 And that too is a lie. The DA has addressed that in a statement today. By the way, that sound I played was from yesterday, not Wednesday, it was from Thursday. And she comes out and says, okay, first of all, the grand jury returned a detailed report concerning their findings in this investigation.
00:12:02.420 The grand jury report references the cell phone extraction reports that our office received.
00:12:06.740 The 30-hour digital download that Mr. Garrett, his forensic witness, discussed was not provided to the state, as Mr. Garrett claimed.
00:12:15.980 All that we got were two emails containing about 300 pages of selected findings from Nolan's cell phone.
00:12:21.760 However, the information they provided in their press conference and what they provided to my office prior to the grand jury report was that no one physically accessed Nolan's cell phone after his last known use and before his parents received it.
00:12:36.640 No one accessed it. No one accessed it. No one accessed it.
00:12:42.580 I missed that in his presser.
00:12:45.160 The family had been concerned about Nolan's phone being accessed before they received it.
00:12:49.220 When I recently spoke to Mrs. Wansley, that's Nolan's mom, I mentioned how relieved she must have been to learn this.
00:12:56.540 The user action discussed by Mr. Garrett, that's again Crump's forensic guy, is from other Snapchat users, not someone physically accessing Nolan Wells' phone.
00:13:08.520 If the Crump team has evidence to the contrary, they've not provided it to us.
00:13:13.800 What she is telling us is that Nolan was part of a group chat on Snapchat.
00:13:20.160 That group chat continued messaging beyond the point that Nolan had accessed his phone that day of July 4th.
00:13:28.620 The chat did not stop just because Nolan was no longer participating in it.
00:13:33.760 And Snapchat has automated deletions on many of its messaging services.
00:13:38.580 So this is not even remotely suspicious, but based on this and one other thing regarding the autopsy, which we're going to get into, he's now again trying to stir up trouble that somehow these boys allegedly went on Nolan's phones.
00:13:56.120 That's what he wants you to believe. And deleted their. What? Nolan's text to them saying, please don't kill me. His provocative. Oh, you know, F you. Why don't you come for me? Texts. They don't exist. They aren't there. The D.A. would have found them that the D.A. got all of the phones of the boys.
00:14:17.340 If there had been some suspicious deletion on Nolan's phone and all the boys' phones, you don't think we'd know about it?
00:14:24.800 You don't think this DA would throw these boys under the bus in two seconds?
00:14:30.140 She's made reference to Mississippi's dark history when it comes to racial matters repeatedly.
00:14:35.140 She's well aware this woman does not want that kind of a scandal on her hands.
00:14:39.220 What incentive would she have to cover anything up?
00:14:42.740 Her career depends on her doing a thorough investigation and figuring out what actually happened in a case as high profile as this.
00:14:51.700 And you know what she's found to determine these boys had something to do with it?
00:14:54.980 Nothing.
00:14:56.300 And you know what Benjamin Crump has found to determine these boys had something to do with it?
00:15:00.760 Nothing.
00:15:02.300 She has repeatedly pointed out, and there's a grand jury pointed out.
00:15:05.460 They went to Crump repeatedly and said, what do you have that shows the boys' involvement?
00:15:09.740 And he continuously tells them nothing.
00:15:13.340 It's not until he gets in front of the microphones that he finds his voice.
00:15:18.960 He finds his voice.
00:15:20.980 And now he's got a lot to say about the sketchy, racist looking guys on the island and the alleged deletions on Nolan's phone that he's had on his possession without telling you the full story.
00:15:33.480 Because he wants the innuendo to hang in the air.
00:15:37.360 And he'd love for these white and also mixed race friends of Nolan's to hang right alongside of it.
00:15:46.140 Just just absolutely cynical.
00:15:49.720 Joining me now is Russ Latino.
00:15:51.960 He's the attorney for one of Nolan's friends, Bart Edmiston.
00:15:56.480 He was on the other day.
00:15:57.660 We were talking about how Bart rescued the distressed vessel.
00:16:00.940 That's really his only role in this whole case.
00:16:04.040 but it was enough for this crazed crowd amped up by Ben Crump to turn on BART.
00:16:11.280 He has nothing to do with it, but we asked Russ to come on to talk about what's just happened
00:16:15.360 because he's a lawyer involved in the case and he knows all the facts,
00:16:18.280 but this piece of the case doesn't really involve BART.
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00:17:05.820 Russ, thank you for coming back.
00:17:07.540 Yeah, thank you for having me.
00:17:08.800 What do you make of what Ben Crump did yesterday?
00:17:11.500 Well, I would say, first of all, your framing is correct insofar as Bart had very little to do with this case.
00:17:17.440 I mean, I would say he did two things.
00:17:18.820 One, he ferried out an overflow crowd that day at a request from a friend to bring out some folks that he didn't even know.
00:17:25.600 And then the second thing that he did towards the end of the day was to actually help the Triton boat that Nolan had originally ridden out on that morning when it was experiencing a mechanical issue.
00:17:35.600 But for that, he has been accused of everything underneath the sun, including and up to the murder of his friend, based on some incredibly rank speculation and defamation.
00:17:47.500 uh you know people inventing motive all sorts of things that um would be comical but for the fact
00:17:53.760 that you're literally accusing somebody without any facts of the worst possible thing that they
00:17:57.960 could do and subjecting them to death threats and all manner of things um you know i think
00:18:02.180 part of the problem here is that um if you think about like the super bowl last year right was
00:18:08.780 between the seahawks and the patriots and i know that and you know that but watching what's going
00:18:13.600 online is a little bit like watching people that didn't watch the game talk about it being between
00:18:18.080 you know the Browns and the Chiefs or something right that they are making up plays they are
00:18:23.380 making up things that happened and the consequence of that is that it doesn't really matter what is
00:18:27.920 true you've got a small group of young men including my client that have been implicated
00:18:31.860 by all of these things that Mr. Crump and others have pushed I'll I say that as a sort of context
00:18:37.420 for the conversation around the phone because I don't think the average person on the internet
00:18:43.140 engaging on this, understands that the phone wasn't on my client's boat or that my client
00:18:47.380 never had possession of it.
00:18:48.880 I think that what they think is he's one of a handful of people that have been named,
00:18:52.340 therefore he must be implicated in some way in the things that Crump is accusing these
00:18:57.060 young men of.
00:18:58.240 It's also important to understand that what happened yesterday didn't happen in a vacuum,
00:19:01.820 Megan, right?
00:19:02.660 So he had already put out the narrative very early on.
00:19:06.820 This was a small group of boys that went out to this desolate place.
00:19:09.500 So you've got opportunity that he's created a narrative around.
00:19:12.560 He said there's a limited number of people who could have been involved, and so he's made a small group with lots of the things that he said.
00:19:20.840 And then on top of that, he's essentially said these boys absconded with the phone and then things got deleted.
00:19:25.100 So when you put this expert up after the grand jury has already found no credible evidence and you allow the expert to not say but imply that the phone got accessed, you know exactly what the result is.
00:19:40.220 You know that it's going to lead this angry mob that is already primed for defamation, that is already making threats against people, to believe that one of the young men whose names have been floated around and have been bashed on the Internet must have been the one that accessed and deleted things off the phone.
00:19:59.480 And therefore, that is proof of conspiracy and cover up.
00:20:03.540 The reality is that no one accessed the phone.
00:20:06.940 And so what you've got to listen for when you're listening to experts like this is not always what they do say, but what they don't say.
00:20:15.820 So he says that.
00:20:16.780 Let me hold.
00:20:17.160 Let me stand you by on that for one second, Russ, and play what this guy, Andrew Garrett, the forensics guy for Crump, said specifically about deletions on the phone yesterday.
00:20:26.220 Stop two.
00:20:27.280 Were things deleted from that phone?
00:20:28.960 Yes.
00:20:29.880 There were things that were deleted from the phone.
00:20:32.840 I can't talk to intent.
00:20:34.400 Unfortunately, that's not my field of expertise, the psychology, but I could tell you from a digital standpoint, things were deleted on the phone from the time he last had the phone up until the time that his parents got the phone.
00:20:46.660 And was it Snapchat things?
00:20:48.200 They were Snapchat, correct.
00:20:50.180 I don't talk in the world of intent, unfortunately.
00:20:52.420 So we can say that in order for that to be done, somebody had to take a user action to delete data.
00:20:57.980 Okay. So his parents said that when they got his phone, they thought that things had been deleted.
00:21:06.900 And the question is, are they crazy to think that?
00:21:11.960 No. I think if you were to look at the phone like we did and look through the message threads and stuff,
00:21:17.320 you could put together that things were deleted.
00:21:20.380 Okay. So, again, the DA in her statement today, Jackson County DA, Angel Miles McElrath, says no one physically accessed Nolan's cell phone after his last known use and before his parents received it.
00:21:35.880 And so that's not the impression you would have if you listened to this guy, Garrett. But the truth is no one physically accessed it. There may have been deletions on Snapchat.
00:21:46.500 Can we speak to that, Russ? Because now you're going to have people out there like, oh, well, they put it on Snapchat, all the things they did to Nolan or something on Snapchat was super incriminating.
00:21:58.720 That's why they deleted it. So, you know, aha, we've got him.
00:22:03.280 Yeah, I just want to revisit that. He did not say that the phone had been accessed by anybody on the Trident boat where the phone was.
00:22:11.080 he certainly left that open to people's imagination and if you watch what happened on the internet
00:22:16.040 yesterday people ran with that like wild right that was the proof that the friends had tampered
00:22:22.440 with the phone and it was the proof of a cover-up when in fact he did not say that and by the way
00:22:27.220 he has since done an interview where he has clarified himself a little bit there um you know
00:22:32.620 not one that's going to be covered by all of national media and seen by millions of people
00:22:36.540 but he did a TikTok Live, the Garrett guy, where he basically said that he wasn't, you know,
00:22:40.800 he wasn't implying that somebody had accessed the phone. That was not. And all he said there was
00:22:45.580 there were things deleted from that phone. And he said it took a user action, right? So
00:22:50.880 there are two ways that messages get deleted from Snapchat. I'm not a big Snapchatter. You
00:22:56.140 mentioned you have a 17 year old son today. First of all, happy birthday to him. He probably does
00:23:00.960 Snapchat a good bit. But my appreciation is that there are two ways. One is that there's an
00:23:05.800 automatic deletion function that you can set to a certain amount of time where things get deleted.
00:23:10.540 The other is, you know, you can recall a Snapchat, right? So if I send you something, Megan,
00:23:16.380 and it's a goof, and I decide, you know what, I'm going to recall that, I can recall the Snapchat,
00:23:21.640 and it effectively removes it off of both of our phones. And so, you know, that may very well be
00:23:27.300 what he's referring to. He actually, again, he did not say exactly what he was referring to,
00:23:32.000 He did not say the mechanism by which these things were deleted.
00:23:36.640 He didn't say who deleted it.
00:23:37.640 He didn't say when they deleted it or what was deleted.
00:23:40.540 But there's a completely non-nefarious explanation for this, which is either automatic deletion or the platform itself is designed to allow for you to put something out there and then recall it.
00:23:51.560 And I think that's just a privacy feature that people use all the time in the context of the platform.
00:23:56.520 Yes.
00:23:57.000 Yes. I mean, again, the DA says explicitly, the user action discussed by Mr. Garrett is from
00:24:02.880 other Snapchat users, not someone physically accessing Nolan Wells' phone. If the Crump team
00:24:08.680 has evidence to the contrary, they have not provided it to us. Then she goes on to say,
00:24:14.760 the Crump team made the decision to wait until the 11th hour to do a private phone extraction
00:24:18.860 and only provide the grand jury with certain portions of the results. That's not the state
00:24:22.860 of Mississippi failing to be thorough. That's the Crump team making strategic choices to control
00:24:27.280 the public information on Nolan's phone and create a misleading public narrative. What the snaps tell
00:24:32.020 us is how strong Nolan's bonds of friendships were. It also tells us that the family and the
00:24:38.660 Crump team should not have allowed Nolan's friends to be publicly accused and have their lives and
00:24:44.360 their families' lives threatened and reputations ruined. This DA has had about enough of this.
00:24:51.500 Now, we've got to get into the autopsies because the state of Mississippi conducted one and then the Ben Crump team conducted one and the other big piece of news that's now come out because the state didn't release its autopsy results, but they gave them to Ben Crump, who then made them public yesterday.
00:25:08.700 And what they found is that there was not water in Nolan's stomach or lungs.
00:25:17.240 And this led the Internet, same Internet, to say he didn't drown.
00:25:22.300 That was not a drowning.
00:25:24.100 He didn't drown.
00:25:25.340 A drowning would show water in the lungs.
00:25:29.720 Here is a bit of that in its crump attorney, Liza Park, right?
00:25:36.280 Is that, yeah, speaking to this, yeah.
00:25:39.260 And then Ben Crump, too, speaking yesterday, South Florida Watch.
00:25:42.560 Lungs, no fluid or debris is within the airwaves.
00:25:50.260 GI tract, unremarkable, the stomach is empty.
00:25:56.220 What this means is that there's no water in the stomach.
00:26:00.480 there's no water in the lungs and there's no water in the throat and yet
00:26:07.880 the grand jury if you read through that especially at the end what they want to
00:26:15.360 determine is an accidental drowning but this is their own medical examiner's
00:26:23.360 report and this is what the contusions look like to her on the back of the
00:26:29.700 head. Right here on the lower back of the head. You've already seen Dr.
00:26:39.820 Mitchell's diagram of where the red tissue was, exactly the same place but
00:26:46.700 on the interior muscle underneath the skin and that he had determined it was
00:26:54.700 blood. We are still trying to determine who or what caused the blunt force trauma to the back
00:27:05.280 of Nolan Wells' head. Okay, Russ. So they're saying that the autopsy shows a contusion on
00:27:14.600 the lower back of his head, Nolan's head, and no water in the lungs or stomach. And I want to say
00:27:22.740 up front, that is interesting, and I get it. That would suggest if he didn't know more,
00:27:28.900 he didn't drown, and somehow he hit his head. The hitting of the head, I think, is real,
00:27:35.740 because even our own, you know, we consulted, for example, Dr. Kendall Crowns. He's the chief
00:27:42.380 medical examiner of the Tarrant County Medical Examiner District in Fort Worth, Texas. He hosts
00:27:47.640 the true crime podcast mayhem in the morgue. And he was saying, yes, you wouldn't have a bruise
00:27:53.040 if it was postmortem. Like if, if the body floating in the water hit like a piece of wood
00:27:59.660 or something, it would not create a bruise on a dead body. Only a live body can get a bruise.
00:28:05.860 But the fact that he had a bruise on the back of his head doesn't tell us anything. It definitely
00:28:14.200 wasn't a life-threatening bruise because both medical examiners said that. So somehow he did
00:28:21.700 hit his head at some point, and that's all we know. We have zero evidence that someone hit him.
00:28:27.460 And actually, Russ, the grand jury report said as follows. A witness testified before us under oath
00:28:35.140 that he saw Mr. Wells slip awkwardly off the side of a boat around the time of 3.30 on July 4,
00:28:42.220 2026. He couldn't say whether Mr. Wells struck his head during the fall. He testified that Wells
00:28:49.540 continued to socialize after the fall and did not appear injured. The grand jury understands that
00:28:54.500 neither forensic expert has ruled out accidental drowning and went on from there. So he had a
00:28:59.280 contusion, a bruise on the back of his head, and he didn't have water in his lungs. And I'm just
00:29:04.420 going to play you, and our expert agrees with this, but this is Dr. Michelle Dupree, who had
00:29:09.980 appeared on News Nation. This is back in March of 2024 in a different case discussing the issue
00:29:18.760 of dry drowning. Watch. Well, there's really two ways to drown, if you will. One is a wet drowning.
00:29:26.460 One is a dry drowning. And in a wet drowning, the person is panicking. They're taking water in.
00:29:32.600 And the other situation is when the person is about to drown, they do panic, but their throat basically freezes up.
00:29:41.640 They have what's called a laryngospasm, and that prevents water and air from getting in.
00:29:46.640 So there may not be that much water in the lungs if that is what happened.
00:29:51.520 That was a case involving a young man named Riley Strain.
00:29:55.600 He was found dead in a river.
00:29:56.860 It was ruled an accidental drowning.
00:29:58.860 Per the medical examiner, he was drunk.
00:30:01.420 And it appears that Nolan Wells was drunk, too.
00:30:04.100 Your thoughts on all of that, Russ?
00:30:05.860 Yeah, so if I can take two quick points of personal privilege on the phone calls,
00:30:09.180 and then certainly we'll address the autopsy.
00:30:11.380 I'd say one thing that is important is if they had had anything incriminating, right?
00:30:16.280 They looked at all the text messages.
00:30:17.700 They looked at all the group messages.
00:30:19.280 It sounds like they were saying they were able to reconstruct everything that was deleted.
00:30:22.600 If that's true and they had anything that was incriminating towards the friends,
00:30:27.300 one, they would have submitted that to the grand jury when they sent their report to the grand jury.
00:30:30.720 Two, they certainly would have submitted in the context of the press conference they had yesterday.
00:30:35.340 They literally came up with nothing, which means I can guarantee you they don't have anything incriminating in any of those messages.
00:30:41.800 You know, I think the other thing that is really, really important just contextually is that this reminds me a lot of like labor and employment cases that happen where an employee will accuse an employer of not doing a good job and then not cooperate in the investigation.
00:30:56.620 And once the investigation is over, then use their lack of cooperation or them dragging their own feet as evidence that the investigation was not done well.
00:31:06.220 And I think to some degree, that's what we're seeing here.
00:31:09.080 With respect to the autopsy, this is the same problem that we've had throughout this, even when they came up with the independent autopsy back on July 22nd, which is they focus really hard on language that is inflammatory or that they believe to be inflammatory, right?
00:31:24.140 And they do that to the exclusion of other explanations or other evidence that makes it clear that what they're saying really isn't as inflammatory as they would suggest.
00:31:33.660 So as an example, they kept saying the throat and the lungs were missing early on.
00:31:37.540 Of course, we know they weren't.
00:31:38.680 Their own pathologist said that what the ME had done was standard practice or that it was rightfully done.
00:31:45.100 The same thing is happening right now around the use of the words blunt force trauma.
00:31:49.620 um you know first of all i think you could quibble as to whether or not bruising is indication of
00:31:54.740 blunt force trauma or not i think the other thing that you mentioned that is incredibly important is
00:31:59.680 neither of the pathologists including their pathologist suggests that that was the cause
00:32:05.060 of nolan well's death and you had a witness that says that nolan had hit his head slipping off the
00:32:11.280 side of another boat earlier in the day before either the trident or the tide line left at 4 30
00:32:16.440 And so, first of all, we're talking about a different boat. Let's make that clear. Second of all, there's a plausible explanation for it and one which neither pathologist identifies the cause of death.
00:32:29.200 Now, on the notion of dry drowning, I mean, I think if you talk to any pathologist very early on about this, they could tell you that.
00:32:35.880 I think if you did even like a rudimentary Google search, you would know that drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion.
00:32:42.800 And in this instance, they were not able to identify any other cause of his death.
00:32:49.260 And so people who are saying, you know, oh, there wasn't water in the lungs or there wasn't water in the stomach.
00:32:55.000 One, that is not a scientific analysis for for his legal team to be putting it out there to suggest that this is proof that he didn't drown is inconsistent with their own pathologist.
00:33:06.180 They know very well that there is the possibility of dry drowning.
00:33:09.280 It happens, they say, in from between 10 to 15 percent of the cases back to Dr. Kendall Crowns, who has no horse in this race at all.
00:33:17.480 This is the chief medical examiner of a district in Fort Worth.
00:33:22.660 So this is what he says about dry drowning.
00:33:26.500 There can be a reflex closure of the throat, laryngospasm,
00:33:30.240 when water comes in contact with the larynx around the level of the vocal cords.
00:33:34.640 The vocal cords suddenly tighten, which essentially closes the throat.
00:33:38.620 The individual cannot breathe, nor can any water get in.
00:33:41.820 Much like in drownings in which water is inhaled,
00:33:44.900 the individual dies from anoxia or lack of oxygen,
00:33:48.700 getting to the brain.
00:33:49.800 This used to be called dry drowning.
00:33:51.560 It occurs in about 10 to 15% of cases.
00:33:54.260 At autopsy, there will be no water found in the stomach
00:33:57.560 or inhaled into the lungs.
00:34:00.800 So it is not the end of the story
00:34:03.180 on the drowning conclusion
00:34:05.400 to say there was no water in the lungs.
00:34:07.740 It's only part of the story.
00:34:09.340 And then you get to the toxicology.
00:34:12.340 And what it looks like to me, Russ,
00:34:14.900 and again, having run it by Dr. Kendall Crowns, who's an independent on all of this,
00:34:19.640 is that Nolan Wells was drunk.
00:34:23.540 He was definitely drunk when he died.
00:34:27.280 And this is, I'll just tell you what the information is.
00:34:30.360 It looks like the amount of ethanol found in his body was said to be 270 milligrams per DL.
00:34:41.280 I don't know exactly what that measurement is, but it's 270 mg per dl of ethanol reported in
00:34:48.400 deciliter. Okay, thank you. And now that, that's a very, very high number. But what Dr. Kendall
00:34:54.780 Crowns says and what all medical examiners seem to agree on is that when a body decomposes,
00:35:00.520 it can cause toxicology findings to not be perfectly reflective of the actual amount of
00:35:06.800 drug, or in this case, alcohol consumed. And what he tells us is that specifically with ethanol,
00:35:13.460 which is alcohol, the consumption of glucose by bacteria causes alcohol, the alcohol content in
00:35:21.020 the dead body to be generated, which can artificially raise the level of alcohol,
00:35:25.740 typically between 50 to 70 milligrams per deciliter, with extreme cases showing levels
00:35:31.580 as high as 150 milligrams per deciliter.
00:35:34.940 He writes the following to us.
00:35:36.680 The level of 270 milligrams per deciliter of ethanol
00:35:40.480 that was reported in Nolan Wells
00:35:42.420 could be as low as 120 milligrams in his body
00:35:46.900 of actual alcohol.
00:35:48.960 But in reality, it would be closer
00:35:50.560 to 200 milligrams per deciliter, he says,
00:35:53.420 which would represent 10 12-ounce cans of beer
00:35:58.080 or its equivalent in liquor and shots
00:36:01.040 in the course of one hour.
00:36:04.400 And there's a whole calculation.
00:36:06.120 Each drink raises blood alcohol,
00:36:07.860 20 milligrams per deciliter.
00:36:09.860 You metabolize 20 milligrams per deciliter per hour.
00:36:13.260 So to get to 200,
00:36:14.520 you have to have consumed 10 drinks in an hour.
00:36:18.140 And he points out the reality is
00:36:19.820 that Nolan's blood alcohol content
00:36:21.320 could have been even higher.
00:36:24.300 The reality looking like Nolan got very intoxicated
00:36:28.340 in a very short amount of time
00:36:30.260 was drinking, was boating, was in the water, and that is a very dangerous combination.
00:36:37.240 Yeah, I don't have anything to disagree with Dr. Kendall Crown's analysis on there. He's
00:36:40.940 clearly a pathologist, and I don't claim to be one. I know that there is something to this idea
00:36:46.040 that when you use decompositional fluid instead of blood for the testing, which this toxicology
00:36:51.460 lab did, and it's important to note that this toxicology lab is an independent lab that states
00:36:55.880 across the United States use. It's in Pennsylvania. It's called an NMS, very frequently used,
00:37:01.720 so reputable outlet. But the decompositional fluid is a less reliable way to test than if
00:37:11.800 you're testing blood. But it certainly would seem, based on everything that I've read and experience,
00:37:17.920 that even if it raised the level, there certainly was a good amount of alcohol in the system.
00:37:22.280 Yeah. I mean, the boys didn't try to deny that they were drinking there that day.
00:37:29.020 And it looks like, I mean, if this is true, not only was Nolan drinking, but he really got his
00:37:33.900 drink on in the hour before he went into the water and died. And Ben Crump, you know, very much wants
00:37:41.560 us to believe that that contusion happened because, you know, your client's friends may
00:37:47.560 have assaulted him. There's zero proof of that. That's what's true, Russ. Zero, zero. And both
00:37:53.060 forensic evidence experts from the Crump team and the DA's team looked at that injury and said,
00:37:59.760 no, that that did not kill Nolan Wells. That was not a life. It was a bruise at the base of the
00:38:03.420 skull. That's it. Yeah. And, you know, I think, too, it's important to point out that, you know,
00:38:07.720 as of August 13th, whenever the district attorney had asked them, do you have any evidence or
00:38:12.440 witnesses that you think support criminality, that you think would support a finding of probable
00:38:16.820 cause that a crime occurred, that they, of course, said no, that they had nothing that was germane,
00:38:20.780 even though, you know, they had their pathologist, obviously, to go and testify. The report was
00:38:24.900 available. Some of what Mr. Garrett did in terms of forensic analysis of the phone was made
00:38:28.780 available as well. There's a dispute as to how much of that was made available and the timing of
00:38:32.860 it. But the grand jury considered his report as well. But when directly asked the question,
00:38:40.400 do you have anything that would support a finding of criminal conduct? The answer was,
00:38:44.920 we don't have anything germane to that. And so for more than a month now, they've known that
00:38:50.740 their own investigation did not return anything that showed criminal conduct, and they remained
00:38:55.880 silent on it, right? They also are now putting out things like the cell phone information without
00:39:02.920 talking about the contents of the actual messages, really. And so they have known for months what
00:39:09.860 those snapchats show they know whether or not those snapchats show anything that is in any way
00:39:15.780 uh incriminating the da apparently does as well and has made the point that they weren't all they
00:39:20.760 showed was that his friends actually cared about him actually were concerned about what was going
00:39:25.600 on i i say all this to say that mr crupp and his team have had the ability to put out the fire that
00:39:34.340 they started. I think they lit a match very early on in this process and allowed it to burn through
00:39:41.180 all of these surrogates on the internet, making up complete nonsense about people with no factual
00:39:48.380 basis and no evidence. And they've had opportunity over the last couple of months, whether it was
00:39:55.680 August 13th or whether it's now, to say very clearly, we've got no evidence that the boys
00:40:00.860 access the phone. We've got no evidence that any of these boys did anything criminal to Nolan
00:40:05.860 Wells. We've got no evidence that they hurt him in any way. And they're not willing to do that.
00:40:11.920 They would rather subject people to legitimate death threats, legitimate harassment,
00:40:20.040 than to be honest about their own findings. And I think, you know, we've got a real problem with
00:40:25.840 that. Ben Crump is still pushing the lie. We talked about this the other day that Michael
00:40:31.900 Brown was murdered by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. It is a lie. It is a lie.
00:40:39.700 Five black witnesses who watched the altercation told Barack Obama's DOJ being run by a black man,
00:40:48.020 Eric Holder, that it wasn't true that Michael Brown charged the officer and had tried to
00:40:53.820 assault him prior to charging him. And Ben Crump still will not correct the record on that. I don't
00:41:00.560 think he'll ever correct the record on what he's doing to these boys here. He doesn't care that
00:41:05.320 they're young, they're minors, that they have their whole lives in front of them, that they're
00:41:09.980 going to have to carry this around. He doesn't care that they were the ones who loved and knew
00:41:13.820 Nolan, unlike Ben Crump. And the DA seems to have had about enough of the Ben Crump show.
00:41:19.860 She issued this statement just this week. Here's Sot 6.
00:41:24.400 The narrative that three white boys and a black boy went to an island and only three white friends returned spread like wildfire.
00:41:33.160 This was false. There is absolutely no evidence to support the allegations that Nolan's disappearance and death were racially motivated.
00:41:42.420 Nolan's friends love Nolan and Nolan loved them.
00:41:47.480 Nolan chose to stay on the island that day, and there is not a scintilla of evidence to contradict that.
00:41:52.860 The family, the Crump team, and anyone close to Nolan knew that his disappearance and death were not the result of racial hate or violence.
00:42:05.400 Yet the flames of that narrative, set against the backdrop of Mississippi's terrible history, were fanned by both people who knew the truth and those who didn't.
00:42:14.960 I cannot tell you how difficult it is observing people create narratives detrimental to our
00:42:23.220 community when I have true knowledge that I cannot legally or ethically share.
00:42:28.900 But my job requires discipline and restraint.
00:42:32.720 I am responsible for protecting the integrity of active investigations, and I will always
00:42:38.700 make decisions that most faithfully protect and respect the law regardless of circumstances.
00:42:45.360 That is the difference between an attorney whose duty is owed to an individual client
00:42:50.000 and a district attorney whose duty is owed to the community as a whole.
00:42:56.000 Oh, I mean, I can feel her frustration.
00:42:58.880 And then in her paper statement, she writes,
00:43:01.260 my interactions with Mr. Crump, as well as his conduct in this case,
00:43:05.660 have demonstrated that he is not worthy of our trust.
00:43:09.340 I did not expect that his characterization and representations in this case
00:43:12.640 would be any different today,
00:43:14.440 nor do I expect anything better from him in the future.
00:43:18.700 But we should demand better of him.
00:43:20.520 I mean, we are really bordering
00:43:22.340 on explicitly defamatory conduct here, Russ.
00:43:27.340 Well, I don't think we're bordering on it.
00:43:28.500 I think we crossed that border a very long time ago
00:43:31.100 and it's incredibly, incredibly damaging.
00:43:34.680 I think the DA's give a damn is busted at this point.
00:43:38.120 She has done everything possible
00:43:40.460 to ensure that this was a thorough investigation.
00:43:43.660 If you think about five days worth of grand jury testimony,
00:43:46.740 that may not mean anything to the average person, Megan,
00:43:49.340 but I know you practice law for a while.
00:43:51.360 That is an incredibly thorough grand jury investigation
00:43:55.280 to hear five days worth of witnesses.
00:43:57.680 The typical process would be that an investigator comes
00:44:00.240 and lays out, here's what we did
00:44:01.740 in the course of our investigation,
00:44:02.860 here's what we found out.
00:44:03.980 For them to hear from 40 plus witnesses,
00:44:06.340 for them to hear the level of expert witnesses,
00:44:08.780 the forensic reports and all of that, was something that is above and beyond what is
00:44:12.960 normal. And then the letter evidence is very clear that she gave Crump and his legal team
00:44:18.280 every opportunity to submit witnesses, every opportunity to submit information that they
00:44:22.660 thought was relevant or germane to a potential criminal investigation, and they said they had
00:44:26.320 none. And so, yeah, I think at this point, she's looking at the same scenario that I mentioned
00:44:31.480 earlier, where someone essentially set up a claim that the investigation was not going to be thorough
00:44:37.220 at the very beginning and then didn't cooperate and then at the end came back and used their lack
00:44:43.060 of cooperation as evidence that the investigators had done a poor job and at some point no matter
00:44:48.280 how unbiased you are no matter how much integrity you have you have the ability and the right to
00:44:53.700 stand up for yourself and to say that's not true and i think that's what this district attorney is
00:44:58.500 doing let me say this too really quickly because we talked about mississippi before uh when i was
00:45:03.720 on with you and i told you how much i love this state the mississippi gulf coast is a really
00:45:07.780 really special place too it is very different from the rest of the state of mississippi i grew
00:45:12.380 up in hancock county which is down on the gulf coast lived in gulfport which is another city
00:45:16.120 down there still have a lot of family friends down there in a lot of ways it's a little bit
00:45:20.400 more like new orleans and south louisiana than it is the rest of mississippi it is very laissez
00:45:25.420 fair um you know people give you the shirts off their back we just celebrated the 21st anniversary
00:45:30.420 of katrina megan and i will tell you that there was no racial litmus test in katrina right neighbors
00:45:36.400 help neighbors regardless of their background regardless of their skin color because that's
00:45:41.720 how mississippi operates you know governor barber used to talk about hitching up your britches that's
00:45:45.820 what we did during katrina and and there was there was no sense of oh we're only gonna help
00:45:51.060 this group of people or that group of people right we just helped everybody because that's
00:45:54.860 what the coast is like. And it's been maligned in a way that is horribly unfair by someone who
00:46:01.020 whose entire professional career is based off of dividing communities like Ocean Springs,
00:46:07.140 Mississippi. It is a very cool little community. It did not deserve that. And in some ways,
00:46:13.920 what we're talking about here is a perfect example of transcending a negative racial past.
00:46:20.220 you had a group of friends that were mixed race that hung out all the time that had this snapchat
00:46:26.880 group thread where they all cut it up cut up and kid with each other right where mr wells was
00:46:32.440 staying the night at one of these friends houses and regularly stayed the night at these boys houses
00:46:37.280 so this is not a situation where there's anything to suggest racial animus in fact
00:46:43.360 The situation suggests the exact opposite.
00:46:47.160 It suggests a community.
00:46:48.680 Rush, you weren't here when I made this point yesterday or two days ago when you were on because you had to run.
00:46:54.720 But I did make the point after you left.
00:46:56.520 I have dear friends whose 17-year-old son died during COVID of myocarditis.
00:47:01.740 And the ones who got them through it, the ones who helped them deal with their grief, their son was Blake Barkledge.
00:47:08.720 Their names are Allison and Tom Barkledge.
00:47:10.260 more than anyone were his, Blake's eight best friends. They called them the divine nine and
00:47:16.540 the divine nine came over and helped Tom put up the Christmas tree decorations because he always
00:47:21.780 did that with Blake and he couldn't do it that year on the exterior of the house. He broke down
00:47:24.920 in tears. They were there in minutes to help that dad. Like they have been the most soothing balm
00:47:32.320 to the mom and dad for five years now.
00:47:36.040 And this Ben Crump and Al Sharpton
00:47:38.840 inserted themselves in this case in a way
00:47:41.680 that I think corrupted the minds of Nolan Wells' parents
00:47:44.880 because I don't think they started off
00:47:47.160 blaming whites for everything.
00:47:49.520 I don't think they would have allowed Nolan to be friends.
00:47:51.800 They wouldn't have raised a boy like Nolan
00:47:53.240 who would be friends with a bunch of white kids
00:47:54.820 and mixed race in their friend group.
00:47:57.200 I think they've been exploited in their time of grief.
00:48:00.400 And this is yet their their victims have been crumped, too, because they, too, like my friends, the Barkley's could be getting comforted by your client and the other boys who I'm sure would love to have a healing moment with Nolan's parents, but now cannot.
00:48:13.420 Yeah, look, I think that entire community continues to pray for the Wansley family, for Nolan's family.
00:48:20.340 You know, it certainly has been a difficult situation because without the level of division that's been been created, these families would all be wrapping their arms around that family.
00:48:31.480 And so I think I think in a lot of ways it's disrupted the natural progress or process of healing here.
00:48:38.300 I just would reiterate, though, at some level that that group of friends or those friendships that we're talking about are the exact opposite of the way that people are now portraying Mississippi and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
00:48:53.860 The depth of that friendship was proof of something that transcends the racial tension that Mr. Crump and others are now trying to create.
00:49:04.420 And it's really disheartening and disappointing, but maybe not entirely unexpected based upon
00:49:10.620 his past.
00:49:11.960 My only comfort here is that they've shot their best ammo.
00:49:17.700 There's nothing more.
00:49:19.140 These boys had nothing to do with it, as I 100% believe.
00:49:23.400 There's not going to be anything more manufactured by Ben Crump.
00:49:26.960 There's nothing out there.
00:49:28.560 You know, and so they don't have anything to worry about because if you're innocent,
00:49:32.680 then it doesn't matter.
00:49:33.940 There's not going to be a text message.
00:49:35.120 There's not going to be an eyewitness,
00:49:37.320 a videotape, a cell phone.
00:49:38.680 It won't come out because it doesn't exist.
00:49:41.600 And therefore this story will go away
00:49:43.360 and even Ben Crump will move on to his next race hustle.
00:49:47.960 We've been watching him do it for years.
00:49:50.820 Russ, our regards to your client
00:49:52.260 and all the boys affected by this.
00:49:53.840 Thank you for coming on.
00:49:54.620 Thanks for having me.
00:49:56.400 God, what a case.
00:49:57.440 It's infuriating.
00:49:58.880 And yet we know this playbook, do we not?
00:50:01.960 Up next, the pastor with the mistress and apparently a gun.
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00:51:26.400 All right, we're finally getting into this case of the Ohio pastor, Caleb Flynn, former American Idol contestant who very clearly murdered his wife.
00:51:38.520 He denies it. He's pleaded not guilty.
00:51:40.920 All right, that did happen. And this case broke months ago. The murder happened February 16th of 2026.
00:51:50.380 So it's relatively recent, but it's been in the news for a while.
00:51:53.880 Um, and people always suspect the husband.
00:51:58.640 I mean, in 90% of the cases, it is the husband and, you know, just kind of, he didn't have
00:52:03.640 an alibi.
00:52:04.280 He said he was home, but he was in the children's room when it happened.
00:52:08.200 And so it was just very sketchy.
00:52:10.080 And, you know, it's the cops arrested him within four days.
00:52:12.820 So I don't know.
00:52:14.640 People understood.
00:52:15.440 Yeah, it's probably him.
00:52:16.480 But it wasn't until this week when we actually got to meet his mistress and not just his
00:52:22.680 mistress. She was 20 years old, some 19 years his junior when they were doing it. And it went
00:52:31.400 on for years from 2024 to 2026. And there are over 300,000 text messages between the two of
00:52:39.380 them. It's like 100,000 in a year. It's insane. It's insane. I mean, they were obsessed with each
00:52:47.420 other. And I've got to be honest, she's an attractive woman and he's not an attractive man
00:52:53.080 at all. So I don't totally understand what happened here other than, have you watched the
00:52:58.860 Netflix special on this other bizarro pastor who's being accused by his now deceased wife's family of
00:53:06.400 driving her to suicide or possibly even worse? That too involved a much older pastor and a much
00:53:16.640 younger woman and a relationship that started in an affair. Now, he wound up marrying this young
00:53:24.340 woman and then, as I said, kind of mentally torturing her based on the documentary. He denies
00:53:29.360 it. In any event, the point is both these guys were in a position of authority. A pastor absolutely
00:53:35.080 is in a position of authority over the people in his parish, and in particular, the young people.
00:53:41.120 And I think a young woman—now, this is the affair partner I'm showing you here. Here she is when
00:53:44.700 she's a couple of years later, Alea. Though this is all relatively recent. So again, she's, you
00:53:51.360 know, her young twenties still. And she connects with this guy, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
00:53:57.060 Okay. So I'm just saying the reason this exploded this week, if you haven't heard about it, is
00:54:00.900 because we met Alea and we have on the stand testimony of her reading the text messages
00:54:09.120 between them, which, you know, of course they're like, I love you. But it's a lot of like, I can't
00:54:14.680 fucking stand my awful wife and I want her dead. I want you to kill her. I want to kill her. And
00:54:22.240 then the affair partner, Alea, like I want her dead too. I mean, these are the worst crime
00:54:28.840 committers ever. And it looks to me like she may have had some idea this is going to happen, but
00:54:33.460 clearly the prosecution's using her and she's, you know, she's singing like a bird now on this
00:54:38.660 guy, Caleb Flynn, her pastor, her sweet pastor. But yeah, that dumbest criminal ever. Like so
00:54:46.100 stupid. It's kind of offensive. Like we'd like to try to heart, try a little harder to figure out
00:54:51.460 a crime. I think as a true crime aficionado, I speak for most of us when I say like, we kind of
00:54:57.120 enjoy the mystery of it when we get past the awfulness of it. I think one of the things that
00:55:01.160 attracts people to the true crime world is it's the same thing that attracts geeks to math,
00:55:06.780 like the ability to problem-solve. And many of us don't have that wonderful ability when it comes
00:55:12.700 to numbers, but we do, or think we do, when it comes to crime. This guy's made it too easy,
00:55:17.680 which is one of the reasons why this case isn't that compelling. But let's face it,
00:55:23.440 this gal on the stand reading these texts is, you can't take your eyes off of it. I mean,
00:55:28.960 it's just, like, stunning. Okay, but I'm going to go back to the beginning just to give you a
00:55:33.400 little primer before we get into what the actual testimony has been. Caleb Flynn is 40 years old.
00:55:40.540 He was what's called a worship pastor, a guy who combines both his musical duties at a church
00:55:44.840 with his pastoral ones. So he's not just the music director, but he's actually acting as a pastor
00:55:51.620 inside the congregation. He met his now deceased wife, Ashley, in college. They got married in 2010.
00:56:00.420 She was 37 when she died.
00:56:02.220 He's currently 40, as I said.
00:56:04.700 He appeared briefly on season 12 of American Idol back in 2013.
00:56:10.700 Here's a bit of how that went.
00:56:13.640 My name is Caleb Flynn.
00:56:15.200 I'm from Tip City, Ohio.
00:56:17.180 I audition because I'm sure everybody says it, but music is all I know.
00:56:21.380 It's what I live to do, and I love to sing.
00:56:24.320 So that's why I auditioned.
00:56:26.220 Maybe my wife kind of nudged me a little bit, too.
00:56:28.720 I'm a music pastor, and so that's my job every week is to go up there and to sing
00:56:34.340 and to connect what I do on stage to the congregation.
00:56:38.080 So first and foremost, obviously, is the Lord.
00:56:40.380 The thing that makes me unique, you know, I absolutely love the Lord.
00:56:44.280 I love my wife more than anything.
00:56:46.700 She is very, very pretty.
00:56:48.380 Just, oof, I love her.
00:56:49.620 My favorite past idol contestant would probably be Carrie Underwood.
00:56:55.560 She's just absolutely incredible.
00:56:58.220 Love her attitude and just her passion for what she does.
00:57:03.800 And I promise you, if my wife dyed her hair blonde, she would look just like her.
00:57:09.560 So sweet. Such a bright future. Or not.
00:57:13.900 So his very, very pretty wife is the one he allegedly killed.
00:57:18.960 And whose family gave him a job that was purportedly worth over $200,000 a year.
00:57:24.620 maybe 250. So he was doing rather well, thanks to her family. And his love of the Lord, I guess,
00:57:32.100 didn't extend to not killing people. Generally, when you really believe in the Lord and Jesus,
00:57:38.120 you understand he's against murder, which this guy's been accused of. But he's married to Ashley.
00:57:45.380 They have two daughters, and they were living in this tip city, Ohio, which is just north of Dayton.
00:57:52.300 Um, the prosecution alleges that on February 16th, 2026, Ashley, the wife was found dead
00:58:01.080 inside their home. She was shot twice in the back of the head while she slept. Um, the 9-1-1 call,
00:58:10.320 you know, we all listen to the 9-1-1 call and we think we can tell. It's not always accurate.
00:58:14.820 Sometimes the overly dramatic ones are actually telling the truth. And sometimes the stoic ones
00:58:19.620 who show no emotion are telling the truth, and sometimes they're not.
00:58:23.440 But I have to say, like, this sounds so fake and, like, over the top to me.
00:58:28.100 This guy's 911 call.
00:58:29.200 Here it is in part.
00:58:31.180 Oh, my God.
00:58:32.340 Miami County, 911?
00:58:34.420 Oh, my God.
00:58:35.440 Somebody broke into my home.
00:58:37.560 Somebody broke into my home and killed my wife.
00:58:39.260 Are they still in there?
00:58:40.840 I don't know.
00:58:41.840 I don't know.
00:58:42.380 Okay, what's the address?
00:58:44.480 932 County Ham Court, Pitt City, Ohio.
00:58:47.340 Please, please hurry.
00:58:48.360 Please, please hurry.
00:58:49.240 What are you seeing?
00:58:51.460 My wife is crazy.
00:58:53.540 She's got two shots to her head.
00:58:55.240 There's blood everywhere.
00:58:56.300 Oh, my God.
00:58:56.900 Oh, my God.
00:58:57.420 Oh, my God.
00:58:58.740 Sir, please, please, please.
00:59:00.080 Ma'am, I need you to take a deep breath, okay?
00:59:02.780 Do you still see anybody in the house?
00:59:05.460 No, the door to the garage is wide open.
00:59:07.940 Please, hurry, please.
00:59:09.820 Oh, my God.
00:59:10.580 Oh, my God.
00:59:11.300 Oh, my God.
00:59:12.700 My daughters are here.
00:59:14.500 My daughters are here.
00:59:16.040 Where is she at?
00:59:17.640 She's in the bed.
00:59:18.500 Are you with her?
00:59:22.200 Yeah, I am in the room.
00:59:23.280 I'm looking at her.
00:59:23.920 Yes, please.
00:59:24.720 Oh, my God.
00:59:25.480 Oh, my God.
00:59:26.480 Oh, my God.
00:59:27.520 Oh, my God.
00:59:28.260 Oh, my God.
00:59:29.640 Sir, please, please, please.
00:59:31.440 They are heading that way, okay?
00:59:33.560 I need you to take a deep breath for me.
00:59:35.840 Are you hearing anything?
00:59:39.280 No.
00:59:40.140 I rubbed her leg and said her name.
00:59:43.080 She's not answering.
00:59:44.080 Okay.
00:59:44.480 Are you hearing any kind of noise inside the house?
00:59:48.080 No, no, her face is, oh, sir, her face is white as good, ghostly to me.
00:59:54.300 Okay, whose face?
00:59:56.640 My wife's face.
00:59:58.280 Your wife's face?
00:59:59.900 The one, yes, the one who was shot.
01:00:02.320 She was, she was what?
01:00:04.820 Shot, I said.
01:00:06.460 Okay, where was she shot at?
01:00:08.640 In the head, in the head, at home, there's blood everywhere.
01:00:12.160 I need you to just take a deep breath for me, okay?
01:00:18.940 Okay, okay.
01:00:20.900 Just get that cloth, and I want you to put it on that wound, but don't apply direct pressure to it, okay?
01:00:26.620 They're coming to you as quick as they can, okay?
01:00:29.620 I inflated on her head.
01:00:31.480 Okay.
01:00:32.260 Sir, sir, sir.
01:00:34.420 Sir, sir.
01:00:35.360 The cop is here.
01:00:36.660 Okay, open the door for him so he can get into her, okay?
01:00:43.200 Okay, he's coming to me.
01:00:44.880 Sorry, Harry.
01:00:45.720 Sorry, Harry.
01:00:49.700 What?
01:00:51.540 I don't know.
01:00:52.560 The door to the garage door was wide open.
01:00:56.220 I'm her husband.
01:01:01.180 Okay.
01:01:02.340 So he's totally distraught, he would have you believe.
01:01:05.700 I don't think anybody believed it since he was under arrest in four days.
01:01:09.140 He wanted cops to believe that an intruder had come into his home in the middle of the night and shot his wife and that he was allegedly in the children's room at the time.
01:01:18.220 Again, they have two daughters at the time this happened last February.
01:01:21.920 They were ages nine and 11.
01:01:23.300 I think they're now 10 and 12.
01:01:24.560 They both had birthdays.
01:01:26.460 And there he is in all of his drama.
01:01:28.940 This guy's been full of drama from the beginning.
01:01:31.720 He was like fake hyperventilating, fake dry heaving.
01:01:36.180 In court, he's constantly breaking down to tears like, good Lord.
01:01:40.740 I mean, like the histrionics of him.
01:01:43.040 He's very, very worried he's going to jail.
01:01:45.420 That's really what it is.
01:01:46.880 Here he is.
01:01:47.560 Here he is in court listening to the playing of his 911 call.
01:01:50.720 Oh, so painful for him because poor Ashley's gone.
01:01:53.620 Okay, sure.
01:01:55.500 This goes on.
01:01:57.140 By the way, how poorly has he aged?
01:01:59.280 Look at this guy.
01:02:00.740 You show me this, I'd probably guess is like late 60s.
01:02:04.980 I don't know.
01:02:05.860 You could pass for 67 here.
01:02:09.060 He's 40.
01:02:10.500 I mean, when he was on American Idol, he looked like a relatively young guy.
01:02:18.180 Look at this.
01:02:18.940 This was 13 years ago.
01:02:19.980 So he was 30.
01:02:21.780 He was 27.
01:02:22.460 Look at the difference between 27 and 40 for this guy, Caleb Flynn.
01:02:27.900 It's been a rough 13 years and a rough 10 months for him in particular.
01:02:33.720 It's going to get even rougher when he gets convicted, which is what I predict will happen.
01:02:38.840 Okay, but so he calls 911.
01:02:41.160 They come over to investigate.
01:02:42.260 They did give him a test for gunshot residue on his body and clothing.
01:02:48.040 None was found, nor was the murder weapon.
01:02:51.660 She was shot with a 9mm.
01:02:54.020 That's not great for the prosecution.
01:02:56.240 That's kind of the only two facts that the defense has going for it, that there's no gunshot residue on him and that there's no murder weapon.
01:03:05.600 There is a nine millimeter weapon of his that's missing and unaccounted for.
01:03:10.480 And one of the incriminating things we heard in the 911 call was him saying she's been shot twice.
01:03:15.880 She's been shot.
01:03:16.880 She had two shots, he said, in the head.
01:03:18.940 And what the forensic examiners have said is that would have been impossible to know, that you shoot somebody in the head in that situation, and especially if you do shoot them twice, the head is going to be such a mess that no person just coming into the room would understand it was multiple gunshots.
01:03:42.480 They would just see carnage.
01:03:44.300 And by the way, there was testimony just this week by Dr. Brian Castro, who had examined
01:03:50.740 all the pictures of the autopsy, et cetera.
01:03:53.360 And this is what he said, side 17.
01:03:55.540 This is a picture of the back of the head, and there has not been any washing done at
01:04:02.220 this point.
01:04:02.680 So you're seeing hair and brain matter and blood obscuring what eventually is determined to be two gunshot wounds to the back of the right side of the head.
01:04:17.080 Just viewing this photo, can you tell how many gunshot wounds there are?
01:04:21.280 Yeah.
01:04:23.500 Now, and he's an expert, but the husband, distraught to have just stumbled upon his dead wife,
01:04:30.520 could immediately tell that there were two gunshots to the head. I doubt it. So from the
01:04:35.700 stupid criminal files, they all think they're smarter than law enforcement, and few are.
01:04:42.000 Okay, so we get to trial, began last week, and here's a bit from the prosecution's opening where
01:04:49.440 they talked a bit about the text messages we're going to get into. SOT 16.
01:04:54.580 i was up until 4 a.m last night crying literally trying to think of ways to kill her and not go to
01:05:05.720 jail if i could literally kill her and not go to hell i would do it in a heartbeat
01:05:15.380 that is how dark and how hateful i feel those two messages are caleb flynn's own words
01:05:25.960 the words about his wife ashley words communicated to his mistress
01:05:32.260 those messages were sent months apart and before ashley's murder
01:05:38.500 it's a treasure trove of info inside those text messages i mean a treasure trove these two dum-dums
01:05:47.780 yeah the prosecutors told the jurors that flynn and alaya exchanged more than 100 000 messages
01:05:53.840 over roughly a year there are 34 binders of messages inside this courtroom um in which he
01:06:03.000 continuously talks about how much he hated his wife and had his chosen code name for her, which
01:06:09.720 was douche, repeated over and over and over. But enough about Caleb Flynn's projection.
01:06:18.680 Here's a bit of how the defense is arguing the case from their opening statement. Take a listen
01:06:23.060 here in SOT 18. They can't show you if Caleb had a gun in his hands that night. They can't show you
01:06:29.880 if Caleb pulled the trigger. They can't show you if Caleb damaged the door.
01:06:33.900 They can't give you the date that the door was damaged. They are merely
01:06:37.900 guessing and they're asking you to do the exact same thing.
01:06:42.680 They're even asking you to convict Caleb of a tampering with a
01:06:45.960 gun charge on a sole basis that they can't find him.
01:06:50.340 There's no forensic evidence linking Caleb to these crimes.
01:06:53.780 There is no eyewitness, as the state has already told you, that Caleb was the shooter.
01:06:57.800 There's no surveillance footage of Caleb that night.
01:07:00.620 There's no gunshot residue found on Caleb or his clothing.
01:07:03.880 There's no time of death from the coroner.
01:07:06.400 The only fingerprints that the state has are those of Caleb in his own home where he's lived since 2021.
01:07:13.280 The state has no direct evidence as to what happened.
01:07:16.540 Only a theory following an affair.
01:07:20.160 A tragedy deserves more than a theory.
01:07:24.060 Okay. That might have worked without the text messages, but there, I mean, unless we have another Casey Anthony situation on our hands, like a bunch of dumb jurors who are easily misled, sorry, they should come to the right conclusion rather easily.
01:07:39.980 um here's what happened the two daughters were told after their father was arrested that he was
01:07:47.120 being charged with killing their mother these poor girls at this tender age have now lost both
01:07:52.160 parents their mom is dead their dad is under arrest for having done it and um Ashley's sister
01:08:00.080 the young girl's aunt testified about the two daughters and telling them saying that they were
01:08:06.540 heartbroken at the time, but she elaborated just a bit as follows.
01:08:11.960 What was their reaction to understanding that there was an affair with someone that
01:08:20.780 they personally knew?
01:08:23.080 They were shocked.
01:08:32.360 they were upset for their mommy because they said she loved daddy more than anyone else in life
01:08:42.440 so why did daddy not love her as much and so but when we told her then who it was
01:08:49.440 the oldest said i'm not surprised okay
01:08:55.000 the oldest was not surprised of course the oldest knew this young woman alaya from the church i'm
01:09:04.740 sure or her dad was working as this pastor and uh was not shocked at all to find out that this
01:09:10.560 surprise was the affair partner of her father for some 18 months according to the testimony from
01:09:17.360 2024 to around early 2026 it ended after a murder was committed that doesn't tend to be
01:09:24.000 like a massive turn on for affair partners who are in their young 20s, as it turns out, or at
01:09:29.540 least so she would have us believe. They saw each other at least once a week. They traveled to
01:09:35.140 nearby cities together where no one would recognize them. They discussed getting married one day.
01:09:40.820 He took her out behind, you know, fast food restaurants in his truck. Yeah, whatever. Okay.
01:09:48.600 It's like losers having an extramarital affair, and it would kind of stop at that.
01:09:55.440 It's a tale as old as time.
01:09:57.280 If one of them hadn't blown his wife's head off, what the fuck?
01:10:02.340 Like, honestly, all I can think of is the lines of Sharon Rocha at the sentencing of
01:10:09.080 Scott Peterson.
01:10:11.200 Why didn't you just divorce her?
01:10:14.300 Why didn't you just divorce her?
01:10:16.620 divorce is always an option you know this guy in the text messages seemed because the affair
01:10:24.540 partner alaya kept saying to him you know like i want to please leave her i want to be together
01:10:28.120 and he's like i want to be together too but it was really his daughters that he was allegedly
01:10:31.900 concerned about hurting um but i guess he thought like a softer place would be for them for him to
01:10:37.200 again blow their mother's head off that would be a softer kinder thing to do uh rather than just
01:10:42.040 announced they're going to get a divorce. I mean, of course, we all know that in the one scenario
01:10:46.600 when there's a divorce, daddy might look bad. In the other scenario, if she just gets murdered by
01:10:52.520 an evil intruder and you're never caught for it, you're just the doting, caring dad there to pick
01:10:56.960 up the pieces, you're the hero. And Caleb Flynn was a little too drunk on his own wine and thought
01:11:02.880 he could play that role. Well, guess what? Text messages are forever, at least for the most part.
01:11:10.740 So here's an interesting exchange, and then I'll get into what the text messages actually exchanged.
01:11:16.960 There was testimony by the affair partner, Alea, about an exchange they had deep into this whole thing
01:11:22.680 about whether their 100,000 messages could be deleted and not retrieved in any legal proceedings, say.
01:11:34.260 Listen to SOT 21.
01:11:36.460 He said, so we're 100%. These messages can't be retrieved.
01:11:41.500 And I said, that's what I found when I chat GPT'd it.
01:11:44.760 I'll check again.
01:11:45.420 I remember it saying that once these threads are deleted, you can't get them back.
01:11:49.040 He said, okay, good deal.
01:11:54.300 Okay.
01:11:55.060 And we actually looked into that just for kicks, because doesn't everybody want to know
01:11:58.620 the answer to that?
01:11:59.300 It's kind of interesting.
01:12:00.920 Here's our info.
01:12:02.200 iCloud, Google Drive, and carrier backups often store full message histories, even if you delete
01:12:10.900 a chat. Phone companies keep metadata, like who texted whom and when, even if the content isn't
01:12:18.360 stored long term. If the person with whom you're texting has their phone seized, your messages are
01:12:25.480 on there if they didn't delete them as well. Digital forensic specialists can recover messages
01:12:31.060 months, or even years after deletion, especially when the physical device is in police custody.
01:12:38.000 The moment a phone is seized, assume everything on it is potentially recoverable.
01:12:41.920 Even if you factory reset your phone, forensic tools can sometimes recover data from residual
01:12:47.720 memory. Don't count on deletion as a defense strategy. So a deletion is never a deletion.
01:12:55.560 I'm sorry to break it to you, but you might actually need to be a good person now in 2026
01:13:00.360 America, you should not be relying on the deletion of texts as protection for any bad
01:13:09.140 behavior, shall we say.
01:13:10.780 Not trying to help people get away with murder or affairs, but just FYI, ChatGPT once again
01:13:17.540 got it wrong.
01:13:18.980 Didn't I say I signed off ChatGPT?
01:13:22.520 I haven't used it since.
01:13:23.540 Um, I asked chat GPT a question about Trump's second term and it responded, Trump didn't win
01:13:32.960 a second term. That's election denialism. He was not reelected president. Joe Biden was elected
01:13:38.680 the lawful president of the United States. Like, are you an idiot, chat GPT? Like what,
01:13:44.980 what is happening here? This was like a couple of months ago. I'm like, don't Trump is in the
01:13:50.780 middle of his second term right now. They do not need to be consecutive in order to be considered
01:13:56.600 the first and the second. And then you get the stupid apology from chat. It's like, just know
01:14:02.200 that's who you're relying on for information. If you base your research, depending on what your
01:14:09.300 job is, on information from chat GPT, which is why I don't. It's one thing if you want to use
01:14:17.520 it's like a fail-safe, like I think this thing happened, and you're looking for a confirmation,
01:14:20.760 and maybe you check, then you X out of the AI search, and you check the actual news articles.
01:14:26.400 But be very careful about relying on AI only. It can lead you down the wrong road. And the next
01:14:32.000 thing you know, you're on the stand testifying about your text messages with the accused over
01:14:37.540 there who murdered his wife, as evidenced by his many text messages to you, in which
01:14:42.660 you sound disgusting too. All right. I'll give you one on camera because she was no angel either
01:14:50.540 in these messages. She was 21 when they got together. She's 24 now, as I said. She was
01:14:56.260 young. That's no excuse. I think I would have understood at age 21, not a great idea to do
01:15:01.300 this in the first place. And certainly not a great idea to be having sex with a married man
01:15:06.540 who's talking about killing his wife and every other text messages is a request to me to kill
01:15:12.620 or a statement that he's going to.
01:15:14.980 I think at age 21, I would have realized,
01:15:19.000 this might not be a great guy.
01:15:22.020 I might be in a difficult position here.
01:15:23.940 So here she is crying, breaking down on the stand
01:15:26.800 when she gets confronted with some of his nastiness
01:15:29.580 and hers.
01:15:31.440 Sat 22.
01:15:33.600 64,281.
01:15:38.600 Sorry.
01:15:43.340 I just wish I didn't say this.
01:15:46.880 Spit it out.
01:15:49.360 What was the message said?
01:15:54.480 I didn't mean it.
01:15:56.480 It says, I want to kill her, Caleb.
01:16:01.400 Who said that?
01:16:02.340 Me.
01:16:03.900 Next message.
01:16:05.640 I said it so bad.
01:16:07.740 Next message.
01:16:09.100 He said that makes two of us.
01:16:12.620 I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it. You're playing with fire, sister. It's all fun and games until
01:16:19.080 the wife winds up dead and two little girls have lost their mom. No one gives a shit about your
01:16:24.480 stupid tears. Good luck. Here's a bit of how it looked. It's actually very interesting. I went
01:16:32.920 back and looked at the coverage from February of 2026 until this week, and it's been like nothing.
01:16:39.580 They didn't know there was a rumor about this gal possibly being his affair partner, but nobody knew what the prosecution had in its back pocket with these texts.
01:16:49.100 And it would be bad enough if they were steamy and like, I want you, I want to be with you.
01:16:53.440 That would suck.
01:16:55.260 But I mean, explicit demands that she be murdered and like promises to murder and like dreams and fantasies about murdering.
01:17:05.440 Like, it's great.
01:17:07.040 I love it when the terrible people are dumb.
01:17:09.580 So here's a few. Okay, we'll start a year ago. March of 2025. Murder happened in February of 26. Flynn, that's Caleb. It's basically Caleb and Alea. Caleb, I just want her dead and gone. Alea, what can I do? Caleb, kill her. Caleb, May 16th, 2025. If I could literally kill her and not go to hell, I would do it in a heartbeat. That's how dark and hateful I feel.
01:17:36.120 Two days later, May 18th, 2025.
01:17:39.180 Caleb, that's why I constantly tell you I hate her, loathe her.
01:17:43.240 I want her dead.
01:17:44.620 June of 2025, Caleb.
01:17:46.580 We have to get rid of douche, his pet nickname for her when he was talking to his affair partner.
01:17:51.000 I need you.
01:17:52.120 You're my everything.
01:17:53.820 All right, I just want to like, point of objection here.
01:17:57.080 A man can't call a woman a douche.
01:17:59.620 It doesn't work.
01:18:00.740 I don't know why, but it doesn't.
01:18:02.760 He also calls her bitch and everything.
01:18:04.180 And a douche, I think, is a universal term for a man.
01:18:07.680 He's being a douche.
01:18:09.880 Am I wrong?
01:18:11.200 Like, please email me.
01:18:12.500 I'm pretty sure it's not official, but just those of us who are in the swearing game and
01:18:18.000 the derogatory words game, douche is something you call a dude.
01:18:23.740 Okay.
01:18:24.620 Anyway, like I said, he's not smart.
01:18:27.460 We have to get rid of douche.
01:18:29.040 I need you.
01:18:29.980 You're my everything.
01:18:30.640 And what a weird mixture of like inappropriate, disgusting, like, I don't know, below the belt
01:18:37.840 awfulness about the mother of one's children parlayed with, you're my everything, a little
01:18:43.620 love letter, like fucking douchebag, slut whore. I love you. You're my everything. Can't wait until
01:18:49.320 we spend our whole lives together in bliss. You know, like what's going on? Got like a split
01:18:53.820 personality, this guy. Caleb, July 10th, 2025. Do you know how badly I want to say F it to any
01:19:02.600 rules and any barriers and just love you with my entire heart for the rest of my life?
01:19:07.780 Then she responds, I want to kill her, Caleb. What? What? Wait, what? I thought we were talking
01:19:15.520 about how we were going to be together and I was going to love you with my entire heart for the
01:19:18.540 rest of my life. I want to kill her, says the sweet, the sweet little mistress, Alea. That
01:19:25.600 makes two of us, he joins in. August, August 22nd, 2025. Caleb, all I want is you. I'm sorry I hurt
01:19:35.660 you. She keeps getting hurt because he's not leaving the wife and she's catching on to him
01:19:39.880 periodically here. I was up until 4 a.m. last night crying, well that I believe, and literally
01:19:45.600 thinking of ways to kill her and not go to jail. So dumb. She responds, I'm not asking that you
01:19:55.760 take her life, obviously, because that's not what you should do. And I know you actually wouldn't,
01:20:02.540 but to make the divorce happen, it would change everything. Good. So this girl's smarter than he
01:20:07.420 is because she actually wrote something that would cover her ass potentially. And then she at least
01:20:12.920 tried to see whether text messages could be deleted forever. And then she was smart enough
01:20:18.900 to ask the question, but not so smart to not believe chat GPT. Okay. Maybe she'll get there.
01:20:25.380 She's young. September 8th, 2025. Caleb, I hate her. I hate everything about her. I mean,
01:20:31.920 at what point does she say, like, I know you've said that many times, come up with a more interesting
01:20:36.900 message. September 30th, 2025. Caleb tells Alea he's willing to sacrifice his, quote,
01:20:44.700 daughters, a quarter million dollar salary job, a place to live, possibly a church I serve at,
01:20:50.480 public shame and humiliation, and way more to be with Alea. Then he asks her to unfollow a man
01:20:57.080 on social media, sarcastically calling it a big sacrifice. And then at some point,
01:21:03.060 We don't know.
01:21:03.880 It's in the fall of 2025.
01:21:05.880 Aleah grows a pair and writes, until she's gone, I'm gone.
01:21:10.660 And we do see periodic harassment on her part of trying to get him to leave her, you know,
01:21:16.720 actually leave her the way, you know, the divorce law is provided for.
01:21:21.820 Until she's gone, I'm gone.
01:21:23.340 And ultimately, we believe what was the catalyst for the murder was she did actually break up
01:21:28.840 with him in January of 26. Alaya. It's like, I'm done. I no longer believe you and I'm out of here.
01:21:35.780 And guess what? He pulled the trigger within weeks. Allegedly, he denies it. January of 26.
01:21:43.660 Alaya. Do you know how many times you've said you're going to fast and then leave her? Going
01:21:49.380 to fast and then leave her? Okay, that's what she wrote. This will literally be your fourth time
01:21:53.220 you've prayed protection or fasted about how.
01:21:56.340 Aleah, as Jesus is my witness right now,
01:21:59.500 I swear on everything,
01:22:00.880 I swear on absolutely everything that I love.
01:22:03.060 If you do not leave her next week,
01:22:04.840 I don't want this anymore for the rest of my life
01:22:07.020 because now we're in January, 2026,
01:22:08.840 the murder's coming.
01:22:10.480 No date given, but we think around this timeframe.
01:22:14.580 Caleb, I'm sorry, this sucks.
01:22:15.860 Caleb, if I could literally kill her and not go to hell,
01:22:18.180 I would do it in a heartbeat.
01:22:19.500 Unless she dies, cheats again,
01:22:21.680 or we find a way to get rid of her,
01:22:23.220 she will be around. Now he keeps saying in these texts, I believe it is to put the affair partner's
01:22:29.140 mind at ease that his wife Ashley cheated on him. There's no evidence of that. And there's
01:22:35.480 been testimony at trial that that's not true. So I have no idea what the story is. Does he
01:22:43.560 actually believe it? I doubt it. Did she have a flirtation that he's counting as cheating?
01:22:48.280 No, he's probably just a prick. I think he's probably just lying to the affair partner to
01:22:52.140 make her feel better and himself better about his behavior. But whatever. It's irrelevant. Who gives
01:22:56.920 a shit? You don't get to kill somebody because they cheat on you. Alea texts him, please hire
01:23:04.040 someone to take douche out. I need you in my life. I need you. Then Caleb responds, so tempting.
01:23:13.140 It's unbelievable. Again, this little sweet little mistress is no shrinking violet either.
01:23:18.780 Like, amazing.
01:23:20.100 Please hire someone to take douche out.
01:23:22.680 Now, let me ask you something.
01:23:24.880 How sure are we that this woman had nothing to do with it?
01:23:28.480 I mean, it doesn't seem like they're presenting that at trial.
01:23:31.580 And in fact, there's been, I think, a fair amount of witness testimony suggesting that
01:23:35.260 she was where she said she was on the night that Ashley was murdered.
01:23:39.460 But man, you read these texts and you're like, are we bulletproof on that?
01:23:42.440 Because like, ah, she seemed very much in favor of a hit on this woman.
01:23:47.500 And like, maybe even possible of pulling the trigger herself.
01:23:51.180 But I, I mean, you gotta, you gotta put your money on Caleb at this point for all the obvious
01:23:56.020 reasons.
01:23:56.800 Um, the testimony continues to come out that she was house sitting for a different pastor
01:24:03.160 on the night in question.
01:24:04.660 There was testimony about her phone having been placed down and put out of use, you know,
01:24:11.060 airplane mode or what have you in the evening.
01:24:13.580 You know, I don't remember the exact timing off the top of my head, but it was in the
01:24:16.720 evening, like hours before Ashley was killed. And then it did not get up and get used until like
01:24:25.540 7.30 in the morning, but the phone went back on. And then two hours later, she got out of bed.
01:24:30.220 So it showed she was like lying there, you know, using it, or she turned it on at least and then
01:24:34.420 moved about without it. Now that doesn't mean she didn't get out of the house in those hours
01:24:39.360 without her phone. You know, I mean, a lot of us put our phone on airplane mode at night. And
01:24:45.000 If we get up to go to the bathroom,
01:24:46.160 we don't go get our phone and bring it with us
01:24:47.720 and so it wouldn't be reflected on there.
01:24:49.680 Even if, especially if you got up and left the house,
01:24:52.040 unless you're wearing an Apple Watch
01:24:53.200 or an Oura Ring or something,
01:24:55.300 how would anybody know?
01:24:57.040 So there's that, but it does seem like
01:24:58.880 the prosecution does not believe
01:25:00.500 she had anything to do with it.
01:25:01.560 That's how it looks to me from what we've heard so far.
01:25:04.160 But she certainly seemed to be in favor of it.
01:25:07.040 Here's another one from her.
01:25:10.860 Life with you and loving you is so easy
01:25:13.060 and just makes sense. I've fallen so madly in love. I don't want to settle for anything less
01:25:17.680 than Caleb. We have to get rid of douche. I love you. You're my everything, my heart and my soul,
01:25:23.200 my best friend, my love, my better half. Alea, I don't even want to say this in a joking way
01:25:29.140 anymore. We need a solution, Caleb. We need it to be me and you forever. No exceptions. Caleb,
01:25:36.080 I've never joked about it. February 11th. Now we are within days of the murder. Caleb,
01:25:42.040 I need her to die, to cheat again, to leave.
01:25:45.940 There it is right there.
01:25:47.920 Valentine's Day of February 26th, 2026, two days before the murder.
01:25:52.840 Caleb messaged Alaya to say he was, quote, free, but, quote, shouldn't text or leave
01:25:59.820 any trails.
01:26:01.400 Now, the murder wouldn't have him for two more days, so I don't know what he means by
01:26:05.380 free, but he's realizing a little too late.
01:26:10.580 The text message game may be dangerous.
01:26:13.060 Now we're Feb 15, day before the murder.
01:26:16.080 Caleb said he was going to tell his wife he planned to leave her and get a divorce.
01:26:21.440 Writes, quote, it's kind of crazy.
01:26:23.000 I'm not scared tomorrow.
01:26:25.020 I guess he means about tomorrow.
01:26:26.640 I mean, I'm not looking forward to it.
01:26:28.000 And it's about to be a crap fest here moving forward.
01:26:30.260 But I'm not scared of it.
01:26:32.260 Quote, I just want to be free of her, have my girls, and have a chance to start a life with you.
01:26:37.040 I choose you, he writes.
01:26:38.840 I'm free.
01:26:39.540 actions will come tomorrow. Actions will come tomorrow. Now, there's more. Caleb would say
01:26:49.340 that he had practiced what he was going to say to the two daughters, saying that he would tell
01:26:53.380 them that the divorce was a result of their mother's alleged infidelity. I'm just going to
01:26:58.100 be truthful with the girls, he said in one message. It won't be graphic, but we will say that Ashley
01:27:02.440 sinned and betrayed any trust or loyalty. We will read them the Bible verse about a man leaving
01:27:07.580 because of this. I'll be much more sensitive to them, but just have to be honest with them.
01:27:12.820 Then he writes to Alaya, Alaya, I love you. If you give me just one more chance, I'll love you
01:27:18.040 until the day you die. I'll show you that love is real and love does last unless you fall in love
01:27:24.880 with a 20 year old, in which case it ends in you getting your head blown off if you marry this guy.
01:27:28.600 So be very careful, Alaya. But it's amazing to me. So it seems to me that at this point,
01:27:34.720 he's realized, oh God, I have to be careful about texts. And so far too late in the game,
01:27:39.280 he shifts his text game to, I'm going to ask for a divorce. And like, he doesn't think that
01:27:47.320 like the authorities are going to even think that was suspicious. You know what I mean? Like,
01:27:51.980 let's say all they had was he was going to ask her for divorce and then she winds up shot to death.
01:27:56.900 Like, how did he not think that was going to come back on him? I don't know. I'd love to
01:28:01.380 hear him answer these questions. Final midnight exchange. This is, I think, February 15th into
01:28:11.080 February 16th. So technically it's the very wee hours of February 16th. She texts, you're about
01:28:18.400 to be free. He responds, I choose you, Alaya. You're more than enough. Good night. She writes
01:28:24.420 back, good night, praying now. He writes, thank you, praying for you as well. Good night. Less
01:28:28.800 than two hours after this exchange, he placed that frantic emergency services call, claiming an
01:28:33.900 intruder had entered their home and killed Ashley. Now here's another interesting piece. When news
01:28:40.840 of Ashley Flynn's death broke, Alaya texted him, Caleb, I just saw the news. Someone told me to
01:28:48.400 pray for Mrs. Flynn. What is going on right now? Were you behind this? Caleb, it didn't happen the
01:28:55.620 way we thought it would, did it? And then he follows up, a day I'll never forget. It's a very
01:29:03.000 odd way to speak about your wife getting murdered as though it's like a graduation ceremony. Not
01:29:10.180 sure what he was after. Now he's sitting in court and he is getting defended, same way they did
01:29:19.600 Scott Peterson, just because he had an affair, may make him a shitty person and a bad husband
01:29:23.900 doesn't make him a murderer. Where's the proof of murder? No gunshot residue, no eyewitness,
01:29:28.800 no weapon. All you've got is text messages. That worked better, I should say, had the chance of
01:29:37.760 working better in the Scott Peterson case where we didn't have messages saying, I want her dead.
01:29:46.860 Please kill her. I want to kill her. Tonight's the night. You can play that a little better
01:29:54.520 without all those. So this defense attorney, they've got their hands full.
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01:32:42.720 Hey, everyone. It's me, Megan Kelly. I've got some exciting news. I now have my very own channel
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01:33:11.420 Yesterday in court, they played songs that he used AI to write for her.
01:33:25.920 And apparently, like, everybody in the courtroom was rolling their eyes.
01:33:29.780 This was so cringy.
01:33:30.800 We have just a little bit of it.
01:33:32.000 Watch.
01:33:41.420 We were just friends
01:33:47.960 But that's what we said
01:33:51.580 Early morning and night's jokes in our heads
01:33:57.860 The first time I saw you
01:34:01.760 All right, we've been subjected enough of this.
01:34:06.840 The poor Parrish, he's the music director?
01:34:09.060 You'd think he'd be able to come up with better than that.
01:34:11.000 Good gracious, just pick a beautiful psalm.
01:34:13.880 I don't know, like what's, yeah, so it's not going well.
01:34:17.840 What happened today was the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Joseph Wilhelm took the stand,
01:34:26.820 reported that he had managed to extract a note from their messages that read,
01:34:33.400 you gave it all with the lyrics to that song.
01:34:37.020 So he linked it to that hideous song.
01:34:39.060 And then a woman named Andrea Kinzig took the stand.
01:34:44.340 She's an FBI special agent.
01:34:47.340 She performed an extraction of the victim, Ashley Flynn's cell phone, testified there
01:34:53.320 was no information on her phone to indicate she was involved in an affair.
01:34:57.960 Here's a bit of that.
01:35:00.060 What evidence did you discover in regards to Ashley Flynn be involved in an Asher rare
01:35:05.620 role affair?
01:35:06.020 I did not find anything on the cell phone to indicate she was involved in an extramarital affair.
01:35:13.000 She said there were text messages between husband and wife, Ashley and Caleb, in January and part of February that did reveal some of Ashley's frustrations.
01:35:21.880 Quote, there was a message where Caleb stated he was worshiping and that he would call Ashley back later.
01:35:26.780 Ashley responded, he could be honest and asked, is it her?
01:35:30.620 and it has come out that she was aware, she became aware thanks to seeing a text message exchange
01:35:36.780 of his affair with Alea. Clearly wanted it to end and it didn't. The only time it ended was a month
01:35:44.740 before the murder when Alea ended it. And he appears to have dealt with that in the most
01:35:51.420 severe fashion possible. It's gotten very, very dark in there. Here is even Aaliyah turning on
01:35:59.960 him now in Sot 23 from The Stand. How would you describe your feelings for the defendant today?
01:36:10.820 I hate him. Have you ever felt differently about him? Yes. When? And how did you feel?
01:36:18.980 when we were in a relationship
01:36:20.520 and I thought I was in love.
01:36:25.960 Why the change from love to hate?
01:36:30.280 Because I believe that you murdered his wife.
01:36:35.200 Good call.
01:36:36.620 A little late to the party,
01:36:37.820 but you're getting there.
01:36:39.040 Hang in there, sweetheart.
01:36:40.720 So I think this guy's going down
01:36:42.020 and we will continue to cover it
01:36:43.420 if there's any big surprise.
01:36:45.540 We'll be reporting on it, of course.
01:36:47.420 All right.
01:36:47.620 in the time we have left, we have got to talk about Kamala Harris. So we played the soundbite
01:36:53.160 for you yesterday with Glenn of the, like the new, what the renewed black scent, right? It was
01:37:01.160 very strange. Like is, it is not important to, I can't like half drunk and half like she's from
01:37:10.880 the street. Okay, sure. It's very strange. And if I may, insulting to black people when she adopts
01:37:18.720 this accent as though, you know, that in her head is how a stereotypical black person sounds.
01:37:23.540 But she was in front of the NAACP and she went for it. Now she's gone on this podcast called
01:37:31.720 Big Boy TV. And my friends, she's at it again. Not exactly with the accent, but with the absolutely
01:37:40.000 nonsensical talk in which she tries to sound smart about something in this case algorithms
01:37:47.300 but isn't watch if you keep seeing the same thing over and over again know that you are being
01:37:54.360 targeted because you looked at it the first time they're just gonna keep sending it to you which
01:37:58.920 means they're trying to dumb people down with the assumption that people don't have any interest
01:38:05.040 beyond what they've already seen think about that oh yeah the algorithm right but the algorithm
01:38:09.700 suggesting i have no more interest because i'm looking at this yellow flower i'm only interested
01:38:16.760 in yellow flowers so here's more yellow as though my brain can't handle the fact that there may be
01:38:21.900 a pink flower right right that i might be interested in looking at right and so part of
01:38:29.540 it is understanding how the algorithm is manipulating us and figuring out how we're
01:38:35.120 gonna psych it out a bit oh my god i can you imagine if she were like your mother and you
01:38:43.460 had no choice but to sit around the dinner table and be forced to listen to that i i'm starting to
01:38:47.600 understand doug emhoff's daughter the one who's got like the weird look and she kind of looks
01:38:52.860 androgynous and she's supposedly a runway model a lot better starting to get it it's like a
01:38:59.500 rebellion against years sitting around family dinner tables and holidays with that. What?
01:39:05.520 She's such a simpleton. She never says anything inspirational, informational. Half the time,
01:39:12.620 she's wrong factually. And the other half, she's just breaking out her latest accent and doing a
01:39:17.580 pander. Let's take another deep dive into this interview. Thought 32 about power and hope.
01:39:25.180 you know how do you tell someone either it's going to be okay or things could change when
01:39:32.920 when you actually look out and what's in front of you is extremely scary you know i believe in
01:39:39.480 the power of the people and that includes believing that part of our hope comes from
01:39:49.780 our ability to fight for what we know is right and then to see the progress and and the potential
01:39:59.300 for the progress and let that give us hope what right i believe very strongly if you feel powerless
01:40:05.820 you are powerless if you feel powerful you are you are powerful and we are powerful
01:40:12.800 but but but knowing that is what makes it happen and so if we're feeling hopeless
01:40:22.700 we are less likely to feel powerful and i believe you should never let anybody take your power from
01:40:32.120 you oh my god remember this we were subjected to this for like a year a year like that's how it
01:40:42.140 felt. I guess it was 104 days, technically, but it felt like 10 years of hard labor and sing-sing.
01:40:51.880 I'm triggered. Are you triggered? I'm triggered. That brought me right back
01:40:55.640 to the campaign and how painful her inanities were. 107 days of nightmarish
01:41:04.480 pablum. She's spoon fed to random media fools who pretended she was saying something profound like
01:41:13.180 Oprah, Kamala Harris. There's one more. I'm sorry to be doing this to you. This is very cruel for
01:41:20.020 a Friday afternoon. But if I have to hear it, so do you. Here we go. South 34. You're the people
01:41:27.220 person and you want to see that there's a texture to you and there's a texture of being human
01:41:35.040 and i think that's what what we see in you and what we feel we're missing we're missing we're
01:41:41.000 missing i feel like we're missing a human quality right now yeah you know and i'm pretty sure you
01:41:45.160 probably feel we have to see it in each other right it gets back to your point about hopelessness
01:41:51.620 We have to, you know, you see it, I can see it in your eyes and in your speech when you talk about your son and your daughter and your wife.
01:42:02.800 We have to see it in your team, right?
01:42:06.900 We have to see it in each other.
01:42:08.880 We cannot lose hope.
01:42:10.360 It's so, we are each, we are all worth fighting for, right?
01:42:16.200 And it's for something.
01:42:18.340 It's not against something.
01:42:19.620 It's for something.
01:42:21.620 right? So let's hold on to that. Oh my God. That verbal tick of saying right after everything
01:42:32.220 in order to make it sound more profound is so annoying. She does it all the time.
01:42:38.860 It is a natural thing in communication to every once in a while, say, right?
01:42:43.580 She, you heard it there after it was like, we, first of all, this is obviously a hit on Trump.
01:42:48.860 There's a texture.
01:42:49.780 His questions are as dumb as her answers, for the record.
01:42:53.000 There's a texture to you and to being human.
01:42:55.780 There's a texture to being human.
01:42:57.260 Okay.
01:42:58.340 What we're missing here is that human quality.
01:43:03.600 Clearly, I think it's a reference to Trump.
01:43:05.500 We have to see it in each other.
01:43:08.260 I can see it in your eyes when you talk about your son, right?
01:43:13.200 we're all we all want to fight for each other right this is the substitute for anything of
01:43:24.820 substance and we may have one two eight more years of that depending on what she decides
01:43:32.640 noodle on that over the weekend i love you all we'll see you monday
01:43:35.820 thanks for listening to the megan kelly show no bs no agenda and no fear
01:43:43.200 We'll be right back.