Independent.ie
The young son of Irishman Jason Corbett has said his wife "will always be remembered as a murderer" as she was jailed for a minimum of 20 years. Ms Martens Corbett, sobbing after the verdict, turned to her family in the public gallery and said: "I'm really sorry Mom - I wish they'd just kill me."
The young Tennessee woman also wailed uncontrollably as Jack Corbett (12), Jason's son, had a letter read out on his behalf by Assistant District Attorney Alan Martin in which he said she would always be remembered as "a murderer" and was not a part of the Corbett family. "She (Molly) has put this burden on this family, and it will not be done until she is put away," he wrote adding - as many in the courtroom cried - "She will always be remembered as a murderer". He said her actions had deprived himself and his sister of "a kind, loving and adoring father" and left the children orphaned. "I will never be able to give him a hug, to give him a present, to help me up when I'm down." Jack said of the aftermath of his father's brutal death. "He will never watch me grow into a teenager, see me get married, or catch a ball," he added.
Irish Mirror August 13th 2017
‘They’re not monsters...’ Martens sister-in-law defends Jason’s barbaric murderers
CALLOUS killers Molly and Thomas Martens are not “monsters”, their family insisted yesterday. A jury convicted the father and daughter of bludgeoning Jason Corbett to death in his home in North Carolina on August 2, 2015. The Limerick man, 39, had been hit 12 times over the head with a baseball bat and paving stone. Speaking exclusively to the Irish Mirror, Martens’ sister-in-law Elynette Marrero Martens said: “Tom is the most calm person I know. He is a husband, father and grandfather. “Molly always was a great mom to the kids and aunt to my kids. The family is devastated. “I understand this was a horrible situation on both sides and definitely has been one sided and very unfair. And I don’t know how anyone can think this is best for [ Jack and Sarah] Jason’s kids . “They really love Tom and Molly. We love them, they were at my house before they were taken and it is just very hard to believe because they were devastated when they were taken away.”
Marrero Martens said she fears for the killers in jail. She added: “I think anyone would struggle in prison when you are a good person and not a murderer. “We have not slandered the Corbett family so it is not fair that everything they say just gets taken as the truth. “They did not live here and have no idea what went on in Jason’s and Molly’s lives. We saw them regularly. Just that summer he told me how the family was trying to go to the birthday party of his dad. “We will appeal. Molly misses the kids so much. She did everything with/for them.
Irish Daily Mail August 13th 2017
THE LAST TIME I SAW MY TWIN JASON ALIVE
THIS is the last photo of Jason Corbett his family have, before he was brutally murdered in his home.
Taken just five days before his wife and father-in-law beat him to death, it shows the father of two relaxing on a family trip to Washington DC with his twin brother, Wayne.
Recalling the visit, Wayne told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘We went back to North Carolina that night and I flew home the following morning.’ And that was the last time he saw his much-loved brother.
Wayne had flown to the States on July 18, 2015, and the brothers were joined on the trip – that included a visit to Murphy’s Grand Irish pub, in Virginia – by Molly Martens, her mother Sharon and Jason’s two children, but Molly’s father Tom refused to go. During the trial, it emerged that a work colleague of Tom’s had asked him why he didn’t go and he replied: ‘Why would I go anywhere with that asshole?’
‘It’s been a long two years,’ he said, shortly after the verdicts, from the home of his parents John and Rita in Janesboro, Limerick. ‘We’re just delighted, as a family, that the whole ordeal is over and done with, and that they have been found guilty.’ However, it was a ‘bittersweet’ moment. He said: ‘We’re delighted it’s finally at an end but it’s not a celebration. Jason is still gone, but finally people have been found guilty, and justly so. It was a coldblooded murder.’ He said: ‘It’s surreal. It’s like we were living a nightmare for the last two years. It was 10 hours… As far as I know, the police asked Molly Martens did she want them to contact us, and she said no on a number of occasions.
‘She wouldn’t let them contact us because she was next-of-kin at the time,’ he said.
Wayne has told how his 76-year-old mother was too emotional to talk to reporters.
‘It’s been a great relief for my elderly parents that this has finally come to an end; that we can all now grieve for Jason without having to worry about the court case.
‘Hopefully, we can start to try to put this behind us. I’m overwhelmed, but I’m not shocked with the verdict. I was totally confident the jury would find them guilty. ‘I was [at the trial] for three weeks, and for me, that was the only conclusion they could come to,’ he added. He believes Ms Martens and her father deserved to go to jail for the rest of their lives. He said Molly and Tom Martens ‘finally got their just deserts now’ and that former FBI agent Tom ‘thought he was above everyone’ and ‘he thought that nothing would touch him’. Wayne added: ‘He thought that we were a small family from Ireland, and that we wouldn’t fight – but we did. He has a long time now to think about that.’
The Irish Mirror August 13th 2017
Killer makes vile suggestions over asthma death of Jason’s first wife
KILLER Molly Martens has astonishingly questioned the manner in which Jason Corbett’s first wife Margaret died. In an interview with American channel ABC, Molly Martens made sick claims about the circumstances in which Jason’s first wife Mags died. Margaret Fitzpatrick passed away after suffering cardiac arrest following an asthma attack in November 2006. The former model and nanny insisted she only kept the marriage going for the sake of Jason’s children Jack and Sarah and wanted to get equal custodial rights for them.Martens added: “I felt like he was actually going to follow through with the adoption papers. “I would feel more confident about securing my rights to the children.”
Molly did not get custody of the kids after Jason’s murder.
The Irish Daily Mail August 14th 2017
Molly’s uncle: Our family is left in ruins
Pair’s relative claims verdict is an ‘atrocious miscarriage of justice’
AN uncle of Molly Martens has described her conviction and that of her father Tom, for second degree murder, as an ‘atrocious miscarriage of justice’. Michael Earnest, a brother to Molly’s mother Sharon, also said the verdict came as a ‘shock’ to their family, and claims that unheard court evidence will prove she acted in self-defence. Mr Earnest, who lives in Baltimore, Maryland, and attended every day of the four-week trial, said the family firmly believed the jury would acquit her.
Molly Martens and her father Thomas Martens, a retired FBI agent and qualified barrister, were convicted of second-degree murder last Wednesday in North Carolina over the death of Ms Martens’s husband, father-of-two Jason Corbett.
Mr Earnest said: ‘The [trial] was very difficult.
‘But we know that both Tom and Molly are completely innocent, so we can’t imagine a jury finding two innocent people guilty.’ Mr Earnest, who is a Federal employee and part of the US Afghanistan Reconstruction programme, vowed that the family will never stop fighting to prove the pair’s innocence and to show they acted entirely in self-defence. He said: ‘We are all thoroughly devastated and shell-shocked. ‘None of us saw this coming [the convictions]. It is so horrible.
‘So much evidence from life at that house [Panther Creek where the couple lived] was never heard nor submitted in court. ‘A lot of the evidence heard in court was taken out of context and never explained fully, (such as how the brick used to hit Jason came to be on his wife’s night stand).
‘All of this needs to be known, and it will be. ‘Our family is decimated by what has happened.
‘The sheer vitriol and viciousness directed towards the extended family here is literally spine-chilling.
‘The extended family have not broken the law; we are only trying to support our loved ones.
‘People have even criticised our professional lives and the renowned work the FBI do.
‘How can people be like that towards a law enforcement agency. ‘We are all just decimated. ‘Our lives have been put on hold and now we must face back to our normal personal and work lives which is just so difficult to do. ‘How do you pick up the pieces?’ He added: ‘In my opinion and in my personal life, this is the most atrocious miscarriage of justice I have ever been a part of.’
The family are determined to fight the father and daughter’s convictions and will leave no stone unturned in their legal appeals, he said. The extended Martens family have kept a stony silence throughout the entire trial which was held in Lexington, Davidson County. sister and her husband David in Limerick.
The unanimous second-degree murder convictions against Molly Martens and her father are set to cost the young Tennessee woman more than $1million (€850,000). The father and daughter are to lodge legal papers within the 90day period legally allowed to challenge their murder convictions. They are taking their appeal to the North Carolina Court of Appeals. Both Molly Martens and her father are Tom jailed in security prisons outside Raleigh in North Carolina. ‘We will fight this conviction’ ‘We never saw the verdict coming’
Irish Daily Mail August 17th 2017