The Skeleton Key Chronicles

More than 100,000 messages. That’s what prosecutors say investigators recovered between former pastor and “American Idol” contestant Caleb Flynn and another woman in the year before everything unfolded at the Flynn family’s Tipp City, Ohio home.

And now that Caleb’s trial has begun, we’re finally learning what some of those conversations looked like. You may remember this case from February. Caleb called 911 from the family’s home on Cunningham Court in Tipp City and told police there had been an intruder. He and the couple’s two children were safe, but his wife Ashley Flynn, 37, was found unresponsive inside the home.

It didn’t take long for investigators to begin questioning that version of events. Just days later, Caleb was taken into custody. He has pleaded not guilty and maintains that someone else was responsible for what happened to Ashley. But once investigators started digging into Caleb’s life, they found something Ashley apparently didn’t know about.

Prosecutors say her husband had been involved with another woman for about a year, and the two had exchanged more than 100,000 messages. And some of those messages are pretty hard to get past. In one, prosecutors say Caleb wrote that he had stayed awake until 4 a.m. thinking about how he could be free of his marriage without going to jail. During that same conversation, he allegedly said he would do it “in a heartbeat.”

Then there are the messages prosecutors say he sent just hours before everything happened at the Flynn home. “I choose you. I’m free.” Prosecutors say Caleb also referred to February 16th as a day he would never forget, and they’re now putting the timing of those conversations directly in front of the jury.

Caleb’s attorneys aren’t disputing the affair. Their position is that being an adulterous husband doesn’t make him responsible for what happened to Ashley. They also claim there is no physical evidence tying Caleb to what happened and claim investigators focused on him once they discovered the other woman.

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The case of 11-month-old Grayson Walton in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, has taken another turn. A second person has now been taken into custody, and this time it’s Grayson’s step-grandfather. Jeff Barnett is now facing a charge connected to the investigation. And there’s an important detail here, apparently Barnett lives at the same Hillview Street home in Cleaton where Grayson was located over the weekend.

Grayson’s father had gone to work and left him with a babysitter, 19-year-old Elijah Mayes. According to investigators, Mayes initially said a family friend had picked Grayson up Friday night. But when police tracked down that family friend, she told them she hadn’t picked him up at all. From there, investigators apparently started getting a very different picture of what had happened. A relative told investigators Grayson had been seen with Mayes at a home in the 300 block of Hillview Street on Friday. Police eventually obtained a search warrant for the property, and little Grayson was located inside, but it was too late.

Mayes was taken into custody shortly afterward, and now both he and Barnett are facing charges connected to the case. And at this point, investigators still haven’t explained what they believe Barnett’s involvement may have been.

Keep in mind, all of this was unfolding on the very same day Grayson was laid to rest. A candlelight vigil was also held for him that afternoon in Cleaton, just nine days before what should have been his first birthday on September 26th.

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Investigators may finally be getting somewhere in the effort to identify Asian Doe, the last unidentified person found in the Gilgo Beach investigation.

Last week, investigators took that search into Flushing, Queens, hoping people in the Chinese-American community might be able to help. About two dozen people voluntarily provided DNA, and apparently there are already signs that investigators may be finding distant genetic connections to the person they have been trying to identify for the past 15 years.

It’s nowhere near an identification yet. But it’s more to work with than they’ve had before, and that’s a pretty big deal in a case that has gone this long without even a name.

And once you see exactly where this young person was found, it’s easy to understand why investigators have never stopped trying to figure out who they were.

They were found along Ocean Parkway in April 2011, between Megan Waterman and Jessica Taylor and only about 300 feet from Megan. Investigators believe this person had already been there for somewhere between five and ten years.

They were believed to be biologically male and somewhere between 17 and 23 years old. DNA analysis indicates their ancestry likely traced to southern China and the Han Chinese population. But they were wearing women’s clothing, including Bill Blass slacks and undergarments, and investigators have said it’s possible they identified as a woman or were known to others as a woman.

That’s also why there are two very different facial reconstructions of the same person. In 2024, investigators released both male- and female-presenting versions, hoping someone might look at one of those faces and recognize the person they knew.

The DNA search didn’t start in Flushing. Investigators went to Manhattan’s Chinatown in August and collected samples from another two dozen volunteers there. Now, with possible distant genetic connections beginning to emerge, genealogists can start working through those relationships to see whether any of them eventually lead back to a family.

After all these years, we still don’t know this young person’s name, and investigators have never established whether their case is connected to the others along Ocean Parkway. But they may finally have another path toward figuring out who they were.

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The story surrounding the Ohio family whose 16 children were found inside their Hamden home this summer has taken another turn, and Elizabeth Siders’ court appearance this week filled in a pretty important missing piece of how authorities ended up at that house in the first place.

It turns out another child had previously lived in the home, a relative who apparently stayed with the family for about nine months in 2022. An investigation involving that child is actually what brought authorities to the Siders home on June 30th.

Investigators arrived with a search warrant connected to that separate case and were looking to obtain a DNA sample from Gary Jr. That’s when they see the couple’s 16 children inside. Elizabeth and Gary are now both facing allegations connected to the other child as well.

Elizabeth’s own story is getting a lot more attention now, too. She married Gary Jr. when she was just 15, and according to her attorney, she has given birth to 18 children and has spent much of the last two decades pregnant. He says she has lived a pretty isolated life over those years, with very little contact with people outside the Siders household, and he has now asked that her competency be evaluated.

Elizabeth's recent appearance in court also had a whole lot of people wondering the same thing — is she pregnant again? Her attorney was actually asked about it and wouldn’t say. So that’s one where we’ll have to wait and see.

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A lot more information came out today about that house in Philadelphia, including another name and a much better idea of what investigators have been sorting through. Nicole Fusaro is now the fifth woman whose case has been connected to the investigation surrounding the house on West Chew Avenue.

Nicole was 27 when she went missing in 2018. Her name now joins Amy McHale, Blair Tonzelli, Gabrielle Amarando and Maribel Fressas, whose cases have all been linked to the same property.

And we're finally getting an idea of just how much evidence investigators have. There are more than one million photographs, videos and other digital files that were recovered in connection with the house. Actually there is so much material, the FBI has added more agents to help with the review, and they're only about 30% of the way through it.

So far, they've been able to identify 58 people who appear in those files. Some have already been located and spoken with, while investigators are still working to identify or locate others. At least one woman appearing in the material still doesn't have a name.

Investigators also plan to return to the West Chew Avenue house later this month as they continue putting all of this together. With roughly 70% of the files still left to review, there is a lot about this case they simply haven't gotten to yet.

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A candlelight vigil will be held tomorrow for 11-month-old Grayson Walton, whose case unfolded over the weekend in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky.

Grayson’s father had gone to work and left him with a babysitter, 19-year-old Elijah Mayes. According to investigators, Mayes said a family friend had picked Grayson up Friday night. But when police tracked down that family friend, she told them she hadn’t picked Grayson up at all.

A relative then told investigators that Grayson had been seen with Mayes at a home on Hillview Street in Cleaton. Police obtained a search warrant for the house, and Grayson was located inside.

Mayes was taken into custody and is facing multiple charges in connection with the case. He is due in court Thursday for arraignment.

Grayson would have celebrated his first birthday next week on September 26th.

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It appears sensitive photographs used for evidence in the University of Idaho student case may have been leaked. Unredacted photographs from what happened inside the house at 1122 King Road have somehow made their way outside of “official channels” and may now be in the hands of journalists and other social media creators.

Exactly how that happened is still unknown. With that said, Idaho officials are warning anyone who comes across the photographs not to publish or share them. The Latah County Prosecutor’s Office, Moscow Police Department and Idaho State Police say they are “deeply troubled” by the situation and are trying to determine where the material came from.

And these aren’t just another batch of investigative images. Many photographs have already been released publicly, but the photographs involved here are believed to be unredacted and include material that was specifically supposed to remain private.

The families of Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, X**a Kernodle and Ethan Chapin have been notified about what happened. Prosecutor Bill Thompson said his office expressed its outrage over the situation and its sympathy to the families for having to deal with it.

Of course there are already plenty of people online trying to figure out who has the photographs and where they originated. But the much bigger question is how material that was supposed to remain private made it out of official hands in the first place.

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For more than a decade, she had been known only as Parrotts Ferry Jane Doe, but we now know her name was Anita Kathleen Ranker. She was found beneath Parrotts Ferry Bridge in California on October 2015 but no one knows how she got there. A historic drought had lowered the Stanislaus River enough that she was discovered after apparently spending years in the water.

Now genetic genealogy has finally connected that Jane Doe to Anita, a woman born in Santa Clara County, California in 1969 who is believed to have lived around Murphys before disappearing sometime prior to 2000.

Getting usable DNA wasn't easy after so many years in the river. Several labs had worked on the case before Astrea Forensics finally recovered a usable sample in June 2026. Genetic genealogy then led investigators to Anita's relatives, and DNA comparisons helped confirm who she was.

But knowing her name obviously doesn't explain what happened to her. Anita was never reported missing, so investigators are trying to reach back more than 25 years and fill in a lot of blanks about her life around the time she disappeared. And there is another piece to this that makes the case even more intriguing, investigators already have a person of interest.

They aren't saying who that person is or what the connection to Anita might be, but they do believe someone else was involved in how she ended up in the river. Genetic genealogy has revealed who Anita Kathleen Ranker was. Now investigators need the part of her story that DNA can't tell them.

If you knew Anita Ranker in the years leading up to 2000, especially around Murphys, California, investigators would like to hear from you.

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Update: Neil Gehring was found on the northwest slope of Mt. Appleton in Olympic National Park. Authorities are working on determining cause of death.

Neil Gehring headed into Olympic National Park on August 31st for what was supposed to be a one-night backpacking trip. More than two weeks later, he still hasn’t come home. Neil is 26 years old, and he had actually filed a backcountry permit that gave investigators a pretty good idea of where he planned to go. He started at the Madison Falls Trailhead, headed toward Boulder Lake and planned to make his way off-trail from there to Appleton Pass before looping back out the following day. By 6:30 the next morning, Neil was overdue and the search for him was underway.

For the next ten days, crews searched along the route Neil was expected to take using teams on the ground as well as aircraft, drones and search dogs. But they haven’t found Neil, and the National Park Service has now shifted its efforts toward finding new information that could help narrow down where crews should concentrate next.

Neil’s planned route is especially important because he wasn’t simply following an established trail between Boulder Lake and Appleton Pass. His permit called for a cross-country traverse, which in backcountry terms means he planned to travel off-trail through that section of the park. That leaves a considerably larger area where someone who happened to be hiking or camping nearby could have crossed paths with him.

Searchers are also asking people to keep an eye out for an orange tent. Neil is 5'10", about 160 pounds, with brown hair and hazel eyes, and anyone who was around Boulder Lake, Appleton Pass or the surrounding backcountry around the time he went missing could potentially have information that helps.

As of September 15th, Neil remains missing. Anyone with information is asked to contact the National Park Service Investigative Services Branch Tip Line.

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For more than 60 years, a woman buried in northern Ohio has been known by a name that probably wasn’t even hers. She called herself Janet, and in the fall of 1965, she had been moving between hotels in Elyria using several different versions of that name. On October 25th, she got into a 1957 Chevy with a man she had recently met and a few other people. The driver lost control on Mills Road near Jaycox Road in Avon, and the car went into a ditch. The other three people survived, but Janet passed away, leaving police with a problem they have never been able to solve.

They found no identification for her and no idea how to find her family. When investigators began retracing where she had been before that night, they found hotel records with names including Janet Atkins, Janet Akenson and Mrs. Billy Butler. Other variations connected to her over the years included Tralley, Fralley and Wycliff. Even the FBI checked her fingerprints back in 1965, but there was no match.

What Janet apparently told people about her life only added more pieces to the puzzle. One woman told police that Janet said she had two little boys, one about three years old and the other only nine months old, who were living with her mother somewhere along a river in Kentucky or West Virginia. She also said she had recently separated from a husband living in Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood who worked at a Ford plant, although investigators have never been able to confirm exactly who he was.

There were connections to several states scattered through the information she left behind, including Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee. Investigators also learned that she had apparently spent about two and a half years in a juvenile detention home beginning when she was 15, but searches using the different names associated with her never led them to that record either.

Eventually, she was buried at Brookdale Cemetery in Elyria as Janet Adkins, and the question of her real identity followed her to the grave. Then, decades later, Avon police decided to take another look at the case. In 2025 investigators noticed similarities between Janet and a 23-year-old woman named Barbara Lunsford, who had been missing from the Lexington, Kentucky area since 1963. The possibility was strong enough that Janet’s remains were exhumed in March of this year so the two could finally be compared through DNA. But it turns out, she wasn’t Barbara. So that eliminated one possibility. But the exhumation also gave investigators something they didn’t have in 1965 – DNA that could potentially lead them to Janet’s actual family.

Avon Police and the Lorain County Coroner’s Office have now partnered with the DNA Doe Project to take the case into investigative genetic genealogy. Now the sample is currently undergoing laboratory work in hopes of developing the type of DNA profile genealogists can use to begin searching for relatives and building out her family tree.

Genetic genealogy should finally lead investigators to Janet’s real name and the family she actually came from. And once they know who she was, they may be able to sort out some of the things she told people about her life, including whether she really had two little boys who would now be in their early 60s.

For the first time, some of the answers Janet took with her may finally be within reach.

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