Irish Daily Mail August 9th GUILTY: MOLLY TAKEN AWAY IN CHAINS HOW A TRANSATLANTIC LOVE AFFAIR ENDED IN MURDER JASON Corbett’s family broke down in tears yesterday... on a dramatic day that saw his widow and her father found guilty of killing him, sentenced to up to 25 years in prison – and eventually led away in chains for his brutal killing. Finally free to express themselves openly, the Corbetts told of the pain inflicted on them by Molly and Tom Martens. In one powerful hand-written victim impact statement, Jason’s ten-year-old son Jack said Molly ‘would be remembered as a murderer’. He added that the burden she had put on him and his family would not be lifted until she was ‘put away’. Jason was beaten to death inside his family home in Wallburg, North Carolina. Molly, 33, collapsed into tears when the jury found her and her 67-year-old father, a former FBI agent, guilty of the second-degree murder of her Limerick husband on August 2, 2015. Sobbing, she turned to her family in the public gallery and said: ‘I’m really sorry Mom. I wish he’d [referring to Jason] have killed me.’ She and her father were sentenced to a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of 25 years. But with good behaviour they could be out up to seven years earlier. RTE News August 9th 2017 Tracey Lynch statement following trhe convition of Molly and Tom Marten's https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1775749399120721 The Dispatch August 9th 2017 Jason Corbett’s sister, Tracey Lynch, speaks to media outlets after the trial ended with guilty verdicts on Wednesday. Jason Corbett’s sister, Tracey Lynch, speaks to media outlets after the trial ended with guilty verdicts on Wednesday. Irish Mirror August 10th 2017 Victim’s family tell of relief that two-year ordeal is finally over A SMILE appeared on the face of Jason Corbett’s twin brother as multiple text messages confirming the jury’s verdicts came through to his phone. Pausing briefly, Wayne Corbett took a deep breath as he absorbed the dramatic moment. Speaking at his parents’ home in Janesboro, Limerick, he said: “It’s been a long two years. “We’re just delighted as a family that the whole ordeal is over and done with and they have been found guilty.” The moment, Wayne agreed, was “bittersweet”. He added: “We’re delighted it’s finally at an end. It’s not a celebration — Jason is still gone — but finally people have been found guilty, and justly so, for murdering Jason.” His 76-year old mother Rita was too emotional to talk to reporters. Wayne added: “She’s delighted. “It’s been a great relief for my elderly parents [Rita and John] 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 and start to concentrate and grieve for Jason. “I’m overwhelmed [with emotion] 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, it was the only conclusion they could come to.” Wayne revealed he received the initial contact from the Martens family about Jason’s death. However, he claimed the phone call made to him was 10 hours after his twin brother’s murder. Wayne said: “It’s surreal. It’s like we were living a nightmare for the past two years, ever since I personally got that phone call on August 2, 2015. “I remember walking down the road here and getting a phone call that Jason was dead.” He added the news was delivered bluntly before the line was cut. Wayne said: “When we got in touch with the police they told us he was killed from blunt-force trauma. It was 10 hours after Jason was killed that we heard. “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.” Wayne added Martens and her father “finally got their just deserts”. He said: “Justice has been done.” Jason’s sister Tracey, along with her husband David Lynch, were granted full custody of his children Jack and Sarah following a bitter legal battle in the US before Molly and Thomas Martens were charged with murder. The kids’ mother and Jason’s first wife Margaret “Mags” Fitzpatrick tragically died of an asthma attack in 2006. He later hired Molly Martens as a nanny and they got married in 2011, but he refused to allow her to adopt his children. Wayne added the kids were being well taken care of by their family in Limerick. He added: “Our prime focus going forward is the welfare of Jack and Sarah, that’s what Mags and Jason would have wanted.” Irish Daily Mail August 10th 2017 YEARS OF TEARS FLOW AS DIGNITY GIVES WAY TO GRIEF AS each verdict came, two years of tears finally began to flow. Tracey Lynch was bent over, quietly sobbing. Next to her, Jason’s sister Marilyn began to break, and eventually his brother Michael. One by one their arms reached around each other, clinging tightly as quiet dignity eventually gave way to raw grief. It had been more than two years since Jason was brutally taken from them. Two years of dignified silence. Two years comforting his orphaned children. Two years waiting for justice. When it came, they embraced it with open arms. They hugged each other, they hugged supporters, they hugged the prosecution team. Over on the other side of the room, the stunned Martens family were reeling from what appeared to come as a shock result. Sharon Martens, who was sitting a few rows back from the defence bench, was almost huddled into a ball. Her son Connor was beside her, ashen-faced and crying himself, willing her to calm down. Molly’s uncle Mike, who spoke on Tom’s behalf before he was sentenced, was shaking his head in disbelief. The jurors, three men and nine women were crying too, watching on as the emotion of the day enveloped the loved ones in court. Soon enough, Sheriff David Grice appeared from the wings with a set of handcuffs that he quickly placed on Molly. As she put her hands behind her back she sobbed and whimpered, looking back towards her mother. Her father, who was cuffed minutes later, bore a look of disbelief, but still moved with an air of superiority. He gestured to his lawyer as he was led away, briefly stopping to say something to his daughter. The defence had requested a recess, one that would last over an hour. The prosecution was having none of it, urging Judge Lee to press ahead. ‘I would insist that both are taken into immediate custody if we recess for that length of time,’ said Assistant District Attorney Alan Martin. In the end, Molly and Tom only got 15 minutes to gather themselves. Soon enough, they were back before the court, listening to the heartwrenching words of Jack Corbett. His dad’s death had been life-changing, he said in a hand-written victim impact statement. He would never again be there to cheer him on while playing sports, he would never see him or his sister get married, he would never be there to give either of them fatherly advice. As she listened to her stepson’s words, Molly Martens threw her head into her hands and began to cry out. ‘Molly Martens will always be remembered as the woman who killed her husband for no reason,’ wrote Jack. ‘She will be remembered as a murderer.’ There, in the voice of a ten-year-old, was the truth about Molly Martens. She would never be a part of the Corbett family, he wrote. She would never be forgiven for her crimes. Irish Daily Mail August 10th 2017 ‘I will never be able to give him a hug, or a present, or a card for Father’s Day’ This is the victim impact statement of Jason Corbett’s son, Jack. MY DAD’S death has been life changing for me and my family. My dad was there for me in every aspect in my life. My dad was always cheering me on in sport, school and just regular life. I don’t have that from him anymore. I always hoped that after that night that he would see me score a try in rugby, or score a goal, or just see me succeed in life. He can’t see that anymore. He won’t be there for me if I get married or have kids. He won’t be there for me or help me when I’m down or had a rough day. He will miss everything I do in life, the good and the bad and he won’t be there to give advice. I will never be able to give him a hug or give him a present or a Father’s Day card. He won’t see me grow from a kid to a teenager and in to my adult life. It changed my way of thinking in life. I can never go to the movies and pass a ball without feeling bad because that’s what me and my dad did. I just want to make my dad and family proud. I don’t know if I should call David dad because I don’t want my dad to be offended or feel like he was replaced. This has affected my sister a lot as well. She knows her daddy won’t be there to walk her down the aisle. She will never have a father-daughter dance and Sarah and my dad had been planning for ages. My sister, Tracey, David, Dean, Adam, our family and I are not seen as we were before my dad was killed. We are seen as the family of the Irish man named Jason Corbett who was murdered by Molly Martens in his home in North Carolina, trying to make a new start, a new life for himself and his family. That was taken away from him by a murderer named Molly Martens, who is so many bad things. One of the things that she is not a part of and never will be is the Corbett family. She has put this burden on our family and it won’t be lifted till she is put away, that is where she belongs. My dad will not be forgotten. He will be remembered by his good life, how he made everyone feel good about themselves, how he was there for you if you needed him, how he always focused on the positives. How he was the best dad ever and the best friend, sister, son ever, too. Molly Martens will not be forgotten as well. She will always be remembered as the woman who killed her husband for no reason. She will be remembered as a murderer. PS – Adam and Dean have gone through so much as well. They have had to have a new brother and sister. They are both amazing and I’m glad they’re my new brothers. The Irish Daily Mail 10th August 2017 The agonising ordeal faced by Jason’s grieving family to bring children home TRACEY Lynch was on day four of a two-week family holiday in Saint-Jean-deMonts, France, when a text message beeped into her phone. The message, one she will never forget reading, was as blunt as it was cold. Her brother was dead, her sister-in-law Molly informed her, providing little further detail. She instinctively tried to call Molly but could not get through or there was no answer. Tracey flew from France to Limerick, met her sister and best friend and the three flew onwards to North Carolina. Inside Tracey’s hand luggage was a document that would prove crucial in the coming months – Jason’s will. In 2007, a year after his first wife tragically died, Jason Corbett made a will making Tracey, and her husband, David, legal guardians of his children Jack and Sarah, should anything happen to him. He did not change the will after he met Molly Martens. While en route to the US, Tracey and her companions were notified that arrangements were being made for Jason’s cremation. When she found out where it was due to take place, the venue was changed. Eventually, Tracey had to hire a lawyer to stop the cremation from going ahead.By the time they reached North Carolina, Tracey was not allowed. Had to hire lawyer to stop cremation. to entry her brother’s house at Panther Creek Court and she also struggled for days for permission to see her brother’s remains.Despite all of this, the main concern was for the children, Jack and Sarah. Having lost their mother, who died of an asthma attack when they were both under the age of two, now their beloved father was gone, too.Since Jason’s death, they had been with their stepmother, Molly. Before she got to the US, two days after Jason’s death, Tracey got to speak to Jack on the phone. According to court documents, Molly Martens later claimed that Tracey told the boy that she was flying out to the US for him and Sarah. Molly filed for custody of the two children by 9.51am the next day, marking the beginning of a string of custody battles that dragged on for over a year. Following Jason’s death, his family were forced to suspend their grief for almost three weeks while the children’s guardians – their aunt and uncle, Tracey and David Lynch – on one side and stepmother, Molly Martens, on the other, fought for custody. In the middle of this turmoil, on August 11, Jason Corbett’s body was repatriated to Ireland. But his parents, Rita and John, and siblings refused to lay him to rest in the absence of Jack and Sarah Irish Mirror August 10th 2017 She’ll always be remembered as a MURDERER After verdict THE young son of slain Irishman Jason Corbett yesterday blasted his killer stepmother. As Molly Martens and her father Thomas were jailed for 20 to 25 years, 13-year-old Jack Corbett said in a letter to the court: “She will always be remembered as a murderer.” A jury in the US convicted the pair of the second-degree murder of the 39-year-old Limerick man. As she was led away in handcuffs, Molly, 33, sobbed: “I’m really sorry mom – I wish they’d just kill me.” Irish Daily Mail August 11th 2017 MOLLY REMAINED SILENT IN COURT, BUT GAVE US TV AN INTERVIEW... MOLLY Martens and her father recorded a pre-trial interview with a US TV station, in which they recount their ‘version’ of Jason Corbett’s murder. Ms Martens told ABC News 20/20 that she didn’t want to talk about hitting Jason with a brick, but said it was ‘horrible’ her father ended up in court over her husband’s killing. The Martens claim on the show – which airs in the US tonight – that they were acting in self-defence. In the interview, Tom said: ‘I’m going to do everything that I have to do to save her life. And if I die trying, well… she’s my daughter. I’m not going to live with not trying. I’ll tell you that.’ Molly, 33, sobs on camera as she says: ‘I was sure that he was going to kill my father.’ She claims she was woken up on the fateful night by Jason’s daughter Sarah at around 3am.‘She’d had a nightmare, and she came down. And the kids were not supposed to come in the room, you know, and wake up Jason. ‘So they would just kind of stand outside the door and whisper until I heard ’em. So I heard her calling me. And I got up as quietly as I could and tiptoed up to her room.’ Molly claimed she got Sarah back to bed and returned to her room, trying not to wake her husband. ‘But he woke up, and he was angry, and he wanted to know why I’d gotten up. Then he was furious because Sarah had been doing this lately and, you know, she just wanted to be coddled. And she was too old for that, and I shouldn’t have gotten out of bed. ‘I said, “She’s just eight. She had a nightmare. I should be allowed to go upstairs and comfort our daughter”. He forgot my parents were there, and he, you know, just got angry with me.’ Tom told ABC: ‘I don’t know what precisely woke me up, but what I heard were loud voices and a kind of thumping, like heavy feet moving around. It was coming from the floor above me. It was in the dead of the morning, and it wasn’t right. Something bad was going on.’ Molly said Jason wanted to make her be quiet so he covered her mouth and started choking her. ‘At some point, when he stopped, I screamed, and he started again, and the next thing I remember is my dad standing in the doorway.’ Tom Martens had the bat in his hand at this stage. The father said: ‘He quickly moves to not having his hands around her neck, but to move her in front of him in between me… with her throat right in front of the crook of his elbow, and so he’s got her in a chokehold. ‘I said, “Let her go”. And he said, “I’m going to kill her”. Then he starts to edge toward the master bathroom, which has a door. And my thought was: “If he gets into the bathroom, if he gets that door between me and him, then she’s dead. And there’s nothing I can do about it”. ‘And so I reached around to his left, and my right – I’m right-handed – with the baseball bat. I hit him in the back of the head with the baseball bat.’ Tom Martens said that, after the blow, Jason kept dragging Molly towards the bathroom. The father said he was able to get into the bathroom with Jason and hit him again with the baseball bat. ‘I hit him hard on the back of the head again. He’s still got her by the throat, but he changes tactics. He decides to come back at me, and I’m swinging the bat, and he catches the bat in his hand.’ Molly said: ‘Jason just grabbed the bat away. It was like it was nothing. He could choke me with one hand – with one arm – and grab the bat with the other. He was just so much stronger. ‘He grabs the bat and, you know, pushes my dad.’ Molly said she then screamed at her husband not to hurt her father. ‘I thought: “He’s going to hit my dad with the bat, and that’s it… he’s going to kill my father”. ‘So I rush him and I grab the bat with two hands, and I hang on for dear life. We’re struggling back and forth now four hands on the bat... ‘I’m trying’ to hit him with the bat, and hit him with this end of the bat, and hit him with my elbow, and hit him with my fist, or anything else... but I’m going to hang onto that bat. ‘And he goes down, and I’ve got the bat... and I back off.’ Tom Martens said he realised Jason was not going to get up: ‘It looks like the threat is over, so I tell Molly, “We need to call 911”.’ Molly said she was told in a patrol car that her husband was dead. ‘We gave separate statements and I was told, “Don’t worry. It looks like selfdefence. It’s going to be okay”.’ Molly said that it was ‘horrible’ Tom had ended up in court over the death. ‘It makes me feel like I’ve ruined his life. That I’ve impacted my whole family. And it’s not a good feeling.’ Thomas insisted: ‘I didn’t murder my son-in-law. And I would challenge any reasonable man, much less a reasonable father, to say that this was unnecessary force. ‘I used the force that was necessary to end the threat.’

The view of an observer. Maginn’ s book should be required reading for anyone who sits on this jury or even has an interest in this case. It’s not only absolute verification of Molly’s mental health struggles with her bipolar disease...it is a guidebook to her “modus operandi.” The similarities between Molly’s relationship with Maginn and with Jason are striking. Both men were in a very vulnerable state when she met them. In my opinion, she appeared to present herself in each case, at a time when her mental issues were temporarily under control, probably with medication. In time, both men found themselves dealing instead with a very troubled woman suffering from wide and excruciating mood swings. Both men found themselves acceding to Molly’s every wish in an attempt to quell these mood swings....an impossible task. In both relationships, Molly had ‘explanations’ for her bouts of misery...and she convinced her partners, first Keith Maginn, then Jason...that they could accomplish a cure by simply...marrying her, moving her, giving her children...the responsibility for managing her mental illness was transferred onto them. Molly felt that these manipulations, not medications were her “cure.” In my opinion, these men were given the responsibility for not just her happiness, but her complete mental health. In particular, Molly believed that becoming a Mother held some magic to stabilize her life. Her pregnancy with Keith failed, and as Keith details in the book, she proceeded to spiral into such a deteriorated state that she needed hospitalization. But when she met Jason...she found a relationship with him that included two very young children...and the chance that those babies would provide the ‘cure’ for her misery. In time, when the mood swings continued, she convinced Jason that he could stop them...by selling his home, by marrying her, by moving to NC, by buying a beautiful home, furniture, clothes....expensive trips. The responsibility for managing a serious mental health issue was , once again, loaded onto a partner instead of receiving the intense professional help she needed. All these wishes were granted by Jason, a man desperate to just have a peaceful home life and a loving marriage, as he once had with his first wife. But Molly’s issues are serious psychological issues...and must be dealt with by professionals, by medications. In time, in my opinion, every downswing in her bipolar existence was blamed on him...called “abuse.” Most of the media reports of this horrific murder...strangely glide over the details of Maginn’s book. Molly has been allowed to play the “blonde teary-eyed victim card.” But what if Molly has been the emotional victimizer in her relationships? A man’s skull was shattered, his body beaten, broken, bloody...and she sustained not a scratch or bruise. Surely, a review of the heinous autopsy results can easily determine that Jason was the victim of her rage...then can’t the media entertain that he may have been a long time victim of her mentally unstable manipulations? In my opinion, the full picture of this crime cannot be understood without a full read of “Turning This Thing Around.” Maginn’s book successfully bookends the factual account the children will be able to give...the before and after...the real truth of life with Molly Martens. The very similarities between a portrait of Molly written years before her notoriety...will completely validate the testimony of the children. That book needs to be a center point of the new trial...or justice will not be served. Turning This Thing Around : Sample Chapter What the hell did we do to deserve this? That question has popped into my head a few dozen times in the past several months. I’m in a shit-hole motel somewhere in Atlanta, but it might as well be a five-star hotel compared to my fiancée’s situation: Mary is in a psych ward being treated for severe bipolar/manic depression. I just got off the phone with her. She was hysterical, begging me to sneak her Coca-Cola and muscle-relaxers. I have no idea what to do or how much longer I can take this. Tears are streaming down my face and I am asking God, once again, for help. My life has fallen apart and I see no daylight ahead. Mary is still furious with me about check-in night at the “rehabilitation center,” as they delicately call it. She is enraged at me because I refused to give her muscle-relaxers despite strict orders to the contrary. Weaning her off the plethora of medications she was on was the whole idea of bringing her here: sixteen prescribed meds daily and another ten to be used “as needed.” Up to twenty-six different medications a day for one person (and she weighed less than 120 lbs.)! And they were not helping; quite the opposite, actually.I stood firm on that first night, refusing to “help her pain” by disobeying facility commands. Mary cried and told me to leave; she said I must not really love her. I stalled for a few minutes, waiting for her to change her mind. She did not.Hadn’t I proven time after time I would always be there, that I truly loved her and would do anything I could for her? Hadn’t I talked her out of suicide multiple times, holding her on the bathroom floor or in bed as she cried uncontrollably night after night? Didn’t I lay with her in the hospital telling her things would be better someday? And now she’s saying I don’t care and she doesn’t want me around? So I left the building. I went to my car to think for a few minutes. I decided to go back to Mary’s room. I asked her if she really wanted me to go. She said if I wouldn’t give her the muscle-relaxers, then I should. I left again. Independent.ie Molly Martens’ ex-fiancé on his relationship with the convicted killer and her ‘shocking’ attempts to make Jason Corbett ‘look like a bad guy’ A man who was in a relationship with convicted killer Molly Martens-Corbett has revealed how she messaged him on Facebook after he went public about their time together, saying: “How could you do this to me… don’t you know how good a mother I was?” Her ex-fiancé, Mr Maginn, told Independent.ie about how she had a habit of “squirming out of lies”, claimed she got “pregnant on purpose” while they were together and said Thomas Martens, a retired FBI agent, had a “very high opinion of himself and looked down on everybody else”. Mr Maginn, who works as a flight attendant in the United States, decided to speak out about their relationship as he is “shocked” that the father and daughter are still trying to maintain they are innocent. “She was extremely free-spirited, I had never met someone like her before. She was just really fun and carefree and seemed special, there was something about her,” he said. “Early on she told me she was bipolar. I hadn’t experienced it firsthand so I didn’t think much of it because she was so fun and happy. But that was only because she was balanced by her medications at that point. And when it wasn’t balanced, she was a completely different person.” He said she never showed violence towards him, but they did have “explosive” arguments. “If we were having a conversation and it started to get heated, I would say I’m going to go for a walk and clear my head, but she wouldn’t let me leave. Other than some yelling and door slamming, there was no violence or anything like that. He revealed how she suffered a miscarriage while they were together, and how that brought her to a “whole new level of sadness”. At the time, he said they were struggling financially and mentally, and he didn’t believe it was fair for them to bring a baby into the world. Extra.ie ‘I’m so grateful that I am still alive’: Says Molly Martens’ ex-fiancé After meeting on a dating website, Mr Maginn said that the couple fell madly in love and moved in together after just six weeks ‘Early on she told me she was bipolar. I hadn’t experienced it firsthand so I didn’t think much of it because she was so fun and happy. But that was only because she was balanced by her medications at that point. And when it wasn’t balanced, she was a completely different person.’ However, he said that they had explosive arguments, and he felt for Jason’s family, telling The Star: ‘I feel so bad for Jason’s family and his kids but I feel so grateful to be alive.’ Revealing his thoughts on the brutal killing of the father of two, he said: ‘I feel the whole reason why Jason was killed was that Jason wanted to take the kids back to Ireland and she wasn’t having it.’ Sharing how she suffered a miscarriage while they were together, he said that she was desperate to be a mum. Mr Maginn also criticised Martens and her father Thomas for giving an interview to news channel ABC for their 20/20 programme, and for playing a recording of Jason yelling. ‘I’ve been there and I am not a monster. I’ve been angry and yelled at her too. It was exhausting being around her and her lies. ‘Molly spoke out in the programme but she didn’t testify in the trial,’ he said. Extra.ie https://extra.ie/2017/08/10/news/world-news/who-was-molly-martens Keith, originally from Cinncinati in Ohio, had moved to Knoxville several years before and was working for non-profit organisation Habitat for Humanity. According to him, they hit it off immediately and were ‘inseparable’ after their first date. She had a unique ‘zest for life’, he recalls, and was happy and fun to be around. ‘We fell in love fast and hard,’ he said. ‘She was happy, fun, beautiful and free-spirited. Molly had a zest for life I hadn’t encountered before. She was unique, special.’ A serious relationship quickly developed, with Keith moving into Molly’s apartment a month after they met. Soon afterwards, she confided in him about her mental health struggles. At the time Keith was himself suffering from chronic fatigue and depression, which he says provided a common understanding for them as a couple. I didn’t think much about it because medications had her stabilised and everything was blissful and bright. A month or two into our relationship, she got a staph infection. The infection medications she was given overrode her bipolar medications and knocked everything out of balance. Like someone flipped a light switch. Molly was the saddest person I had ever been around. She would cry in bed for hours. Seeing the person I loved suffering so much was a very trying situation. I did everything I could, but nothing seemed to help.’ Unable to continue her job as a nanny, Molly stayed at home while Keith earned rent money for them both. ‘It was paid to her parents just like you would pay rent to any landlord,’ he says. ‘Molly couldn’t work any more so it was down to me. I was supporting us both. We were paying rent to her parents. I think if she was on her own they would have helped her more [financially]. ‘But knowing that she was in a relationship they were kind of like, “You guys need to make this happen.” They would have paid for anything major that came up, but for the most part she was financially dependent on me. I paid the rent, bought groceries, paid the bills. You don’t make much money working for a non-profit. We were scraping by on my salary.’ ‘Once her depression took over, things were stressful,’ he says. ‘Heartbreaking, actually. I never knew what mood Molly would be in when I got home from work. I walked on eggshells much of the time, trying my best to keep things stable. But things were usually tense. As the relationship came under increasing strain, Keith became concerned by the ‘plethora’ of drugs Molly was taking. At one point, he claims, she was taking 16 prescribed medications a day and another ten to be used ‘as needed’. ‘Most of the stuff she was taking was for bipolar or manic depression,’ the self-help author says. ‘So she was taking some serious drugs. They were prescribed, it wasn’t like she was doing it on her own. She was insomniac, so she sometimes would be up all night. She was taking stuff for that. She had a tremendous amount of stuff on her plate.’ Against this turbulent background, Molly’s relationship with her parents, Thomas and Sharon, became tense, according to Keith. After years spent trying to deal with Molly’s many problems, he says they too had become ‘exasperated’ by her behaviour. Her parents were very much aware of her mental health issues,’ he says. ‘They are well aware of the many doctors, the medications she was taking. They knew about it all. They did try to help. They lived relatively close and they would come over. I don’t know how much they actually helped but they tried to. I felt that they were at times overwhelmed and frustrated about the whole thing.’ In a bid to preserve his girlfriend’s delicate state, Keith surrendered to Molly’s ‘pleas’ to get engaged. On her birthday, he arranged for the couple to return to Pelancho’s, the Mexican restaurant in downtown Knoxville where they had spent their first date. In his book he says he couldn’t afford a decent ring, so picked out a ‘for now’ ring on Overstock.com for less than $150. ‘It was completely her idea to get engaged,’ he told Extra.ie. ‘She really thought being engaged would make her happy. She thought that was going to be the cure. I knew it was not but I thought it would help for a while. It worked for like one day. ‘The next day she was back. She was super happy for a day and then the next day she was crying. I had no intention of marrying her until she got better but I was okay with being engaged just because I thought it might help. She was always saying that kids would make her happy,’ says Keith. ‘She ended up getting pregnant. I was terrified because I knew how many medications. I was terrified.’ On September 16, 2007, Molly suffered a miscarriage. ‘She woke up one day and said she’d had a dream that she miscarried,’ says Keith. ‘She wasn’t feeling good so we went to the hospital. Her parents came. They said that she had miscarried very early on in the pregnancy. She was heartbroken. I honestly was relieved. ‘I thought it was better for everybody that it did not work out.’ Five months later, in February 2008, with no improvement in her condition, Molly checked in to a ‘medical rehabilitation centre’ in Atlanta, Georgia. The hospital fees for her stay in the one-hall monitored ward of Emory Hospital were paid for by her parents. ‘The psych ward in Atlanta was a last-ditch attempt to try and get her medications right,’ Keith told Extra.ie. ‘It was to try to get her off all the stuff she was on and get her on the one or two things that could make her stable. It was very heartwrenching. The people that were in there… It was hard to recognise them as human sometimes. The sounds they were making, just staring at the walls. ‘Having the person you love in that situation was terrible. I believe her doctor suggested she go there. It was very expensive and her parents paid for it. That’s what I believe happened.’ After spending four days receiving treatment, Molly returned to Knoxville with Keith and the couple tried to continue their relationship. Then one night, ‘out of the blue’, according to Keith, Molly said that she wanted to go to Ireland to nanny. It was very odd,’ said Keith. ‘She literally turned to me one night and said, “I want to go nanny somewhere in Europe.” I was, like, “Oh, here we go.” She sometimes came up with these ideas and I was always like, “This is not the fix.” So she was like, “I want to go to Europe,” and I was like, “Okay, Molly… whatever.” ‘I went to bed, she stayed up, which was pretty normal.’ One morning soon after, Molly told Keith she had found a nannying position in Ireland. ‘I was like, “How did this happen so fast?” She said, “I’m going to go very soon.” So I was quite taken aback. I was used to her not following through on things that she was planning, so I didn’t think it would happen.’ He felt if she wasn’t well enough to go to the store to get groceries, how is she going to Ireland and nanny for a family? According to Keith, his fiancée initially told him she was going for a week, then she said she would be away for ‘several’ weeks. ‘I literally thought she was going to be gone for a few weeks,’ he said. ‘I heard her on the phone right in front of me talking to a friend and she told her friend and said she was going to be gone for a month. ‘Later she was on the phone to someone else saying two or three months, literally two or three months. When she got off the phone I was like, “What’s going on? You told me you were going for a few weeks.” She was like, “I am, I’m just…”. Ultimately, she would squirm out of giving a definite answer, he said. After she left to go to Ireland, Keith never saw Molly again. Back in Limerick, Jason Corbett, who was 30 at the time, had been widowed by the death of his first wife Mags after she died suddenly from an asthma attack in 2006. Sarah Corbett was two and her brother Jack was just 11 weeks old at the time of their mother’s death. At the time Mr Corbett was working for packaging company Chesapeake and was also part-owner of a crèche run by Lynn Shanahan, also from Limerick. ‘After Mags died, we had the two children with us in the creche every day and got to know them so well,’ said Ms Shanahan. Molly Martens came to Limerick in March 2008 to work as an au pair looking after Jack and Sarah.

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Although Molly Martens declined to testify at her trial she did conduct an interview with ABC 2020. She shared many uncorroborated details but refused to speak about the brick used to kill Jason Corbett or her mental health. Tom Martens recounted his version of the fatal night although he doesn't recall Molly hitting Jason. Tom Martens fails to state ( as he testified at his trial) he never witnessed any abuse in Jason and Molly's relationship. Tom Martens also shares a much refuted statement supposedly made by Mike Fitzpatrick which the Martens attorney's first claimed took place at Jason and Molly's wedding although none of the Fitzpatrick family attended the wedding. Watch below . ABC 2020 Greensboro News and Record Affidavit: Jurors inappropriately discussed case during Corbett trial Some of the 12 jurors who convicted Molly Corbett and Thomas Martens of second-degree murder talked to each other about the evidence during the trial, according to an affidavit from an alternate juror. Judge David Lee of Davidson County Superior Court repeatedly told jurors not to talk about the case among themselves until after all the evidence had been presented and he had explained the laws that they were to apply to the case. Brian Graham, an alternate juror, said in an affidavit included in court papers filed in Superior Court on Friday that he overheard jurors talking about the case during breaks and asking questions about the evidence. On Friday, attorneys for Molly Corbett and Martens filed documents supporting their earlier motion alleging jury misconduct, including Graham’s affidavit and a transcript of an interview that jury foreman Tom Aamland gave to reporters after the trial. “At certain breaks during the trial, I overheard other jurors in the jury room and outside the courthouse commenting on the evidence presented or, in some cases, asking questions about the evidence,” Graham said in the affidavit. The Irish Times Martens Corbett lawyers seek retrial over ‘jury misconduct’ Papers allege social media posts are evidence of bias against wife of Jason Corbett and her father. Lawyers for Molly Martens Corbett and Thomas Martens, who were jailed last week for the murder of Irish man Jason Corbett, have filed for a retrial, alleging jury misconduct and bias. In papers lodged on Wednesday, the lawyers claim social media posts and media interviews by members of the jury after the trial indicate they were biased against Martens Corbett. They allege jury members held “private conversations” discussing theories on the case before retiring to deliberate on a verdict. In an interview on US TV network ABC following the verdict, jury foreman Tom Aamland said several members believed Martens Corbett had struck Mr Corbett with a brick while he was asleep, and that she had a mental health condition. “I believe she can control her personalities, whether it’s bipolar of whatever,” Mr Aamland said. Fox 8 August 17th 2017 Defense asks verdict be thrown out for Corbett Trial for jury misconduct Defense attorneys for both Molly Corbett Martens and Thomas Martens have filed a “motion for appropriate relief” in the trial that ended with a guilty verdict of second-degree murder for the wife and her father in the death of Irish-native Jason Corbett. Judge David Lee sentenced them each to 20-25 years in prison. Thomas Marten’s defense lawyer David Freedman says these motions can be common, and they have the right to file this within 10 days of a verdict.​ More than 40 pages were filed on behalf of the defense. The motion cites “misconduct” from some jurors and makes the argument that the trial did not have a fair and impartial jury. It specifically quotes one statement made by jury foreman Tom Aamland during a press conference after the trial. “We didn’t discuss a verdict, but in having private conversations, everybody, we could read that everybody was going in the same direction,” Aamland said when asked about the state’s closing arguments. Lee told jurors multiple times not to discuss the trial with anyone. The defense claims they have a witness who says the foreman and another juror “immediately after court met privately in a Nissan” and the conversation lasted 10-15 minutes. “You know anytime someone is convicted of murder and sent off to prison for 20 years, everything is looked into and you naturally expect anybody to grasp at any straw they can,” said Davidson County District Attorney Garry Frank. Frank plans on responding with their own motion to reject the defense’s motion next week. Lee will consider these allegations and decide whether it’s appropriate to hold an evidentiary hearing and would then set a date if necessary. “I believe that they did their job appropriately and fairly,” Frank said, when asked about whether the jury did their duty to be fair and impartial. “It’s difficult for people to sit through hearing evidence about an event like this and not develop some kind of passion and attitude about the case, and so you can’t expect people not to be human.” The defense also filed several pages of the foreman’s Facebook posts, one part in particular saying “we decided on 2nd degree murder for both, but feel Molly was the aggressor.” Independent.ie Jurors 'talked about evidence during breaks in Molly Martens murder trial' A US judge has directed the legal teams for convicted murderers Molly Martens and her father Thomas Martens to have all motions in relation to their demand for a full retrial submitted by next Friday. The deadline also applies to the Davidson County District Attorney's Office, which is challenging defence claims that there should be a full retrial over the killing of Irish businessman Jason Corbett (39), due to juror misconduct. Papers lodged alleged that jurors spoke of matters which had not been dealt with by the trial in subsequent interviews. Further, the defence papers have raised issues over contacts between at least two jury members before the verdict was announced.

Journal.ie Lawyer in Jason Corbett trial bangs bat against table to demonstrate force of impact AFTER SUPERIOR COURT Judge David Lee gave specific instructions yesterday afternoon, 12 jurors were sent to the deliberating room to decide the fate of Thomas Martens and Molly Martens-Corbett. The jury began deliberating at about 3.30pm (8.30pm in Ireland) and the court was adjourned at 5pm (10pm Irish time), but the jurors continued their discussions into the morning. The jury will have to consider over 20 witness testimonies and 200 pieces of evidence. Investigators have cast doubt on that defence. Authorities say Corbett was planning to leave Martens-Corbett — his second wife and former nanny to his children — and return home to Ireland. Deliberations began after three hours of closing arguments by both sides yesterday morning. Defence lawyers for Martens questioned the totality of evidence and claimed Martens was an unwilling participant in Corbett’s death, while the prosecution claimed Martens was dishonest during his testimony. Jones Byrd, a lawyer for Martens, said the state’s evidence confirms what Martens said on the witness stand. This includes much of the testimony of Stuart James, the blood spatter analyst who said the first impact came at the bed and that the spatters came from the bedroom and not the hallway. Byrd emphasised that transfer blood stains on the chest area of Martens’ red polo shirt confirmed another part of Martens’ testimony. “That is consistent with Jason Corbett catching the bat and pushing him across the room, certainly doesn’t contradict it,” Byrd said. Byrd then questioned why the jury didn’t see the full recordings of detectives interviewing Martens or Martens-Corbett or why the detectives didn’t testify. “[James] has been paid good money by the state of North Carolina and he couldn’t be bothered to ask for EMT reports?,” Byrd asked. Byrd repeated that James did not see a photo of Martens wearing the boxers, which James said is usually the best practice. Instead, Byrd said, James just saw photos of Martens four hours later at the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office. The defence lawyer also said that pictures of Martens’ hands weren’t taken until he was at the Sheriff’s office, and claimed blood could’ve been wiped off before that time. He said if Martens’ hands were important a witness would have testified about how Martens’ hands appeared at the incident. Byrd later said there is no evidence that the indentations on the wall happened the night of the incident, citing that no pieces of drywall were collected for evidence. “What else have they not seen?” Byrd asked. “What else did they miss?” Freedman said the prosecution wants the jury to believe that Martens snapped. But Freedman reminded the jury of a report from a nurse practitioner two weeks before the incident that said Corbett reported dizziness and fainting, wasn’t taking his thyroid medication and felt stressed and angry for no reason. Freedman claimed the report proves Corbett snapped, not Martens. “You don’t have to believe me,” Freedman said. “Listen to Jason Corbett.” In response to the dry blood and cool body claims, Freedman said Dr Craig Nelson, the pathologist who performed the autopsy, testified that no conclusions can be drawn from dry blood or the cool body. Martin said Martens and Martens-Corbett “beat the skin off his skull”. He added that they didn’t just kill Corbett, stating: “They overkilled him.” “They turned it into something that looks like a bad humpty dumpty cartoon,” Martin said. Throughout his statement, Martin banged the bat and brick against the prosecution’s table to demonstrate the force of impact from both objects. The prosecutor reminded the jury that at least four of the impacts were while Corbett was unconscious. “How much force does it take to split flesh all the way to the skull?,” Martin asked as he banged a baseball bat against a table. Martin later said it took “I-hate-you force”. Martin said it’s the prosecution’s job to find malice. The prosecutor continued by stating malice sounds like Martens constantly stating his dislike for Corbett and sounds like Martens Corbett wanting a divorce and the children.“[Malice] feels like ‘I hate him, and I want those kids’,” Martin exclaimed, as he banged the brick against a table. Martin then broke down Martens’ testimony, citing parts he said weren’t believable. He claimed that Martens enjoyed “matching wits” with other law enforcement, like he did in the FBI. The prosecutor later said Martens claimed no knowledge of the brick to protect his daughter. He also recalled parts of Martens’ testimony where he paused before answering. “If he can’t get away with ambiguity, then his memory just fails him,” Martin said. Martin then questioned why Sharon Martens, Martens’ wife, wasn’t involved. In regard to Sharon Martens, the prosecutor said: “It’s like she vanished from the face of the earth in Martens’ testimony.” After going over Martens’ testimony, Martin focused on Martens-Corbett, who he argued had motive to assault Corbett. Martin reminded the jury that tissue fragments from Corbett were found on his wife’s pyjamas. He also suggested that, even though trazodone didn’t have an effect on Corbett, it is possible Martens-Corbett attempted to drug him but failed. The prosecutor switched to testimonies that stated Martens Corbett was rubbing her neck, which he believed was another sign of dishonesty. “It might get a first grader out of school, but it ought not to get Molly Corbett out of murder,” Martin said. In response to the defence’s claims that evidence wasn’t sufficient, Martin said the defence wants “a perfect case with perfect evidence”, which he argued was an impossible standard. Martin ended his two-hour closing argument by stating that Corbett did not have to die. “You have a duty to return a verdict that will deliver justice for Jason,” Martin said. Irish Daily Mail August 9th 2017 ‘SHE KILLED HIM WITH THE BRICK ...HE KILLED HIM WITH THE BAT’ JURORS recoiled in shock yesterday as a prosecutor smashed the baseball bat used to kill Jason Corbett against a table. ‘What kind of force does it take to crush a man’s skull?’ Alan Martin asked them. ‘It takes “I hate you” force,’ he said, striking the bat loudly. Mr Martin made his dramatic re-enactment during a powerful closing speech, before the jury in the case retired to consider their verdict. During his speech, Mr Martin showed one photo of Mr Corbett taken before his death and one of his bloodied body afterwards. ‘This is how they left him,’ he said, and pointing at Molly Martens added: ‘She killed him with the brick.’ He then pointed at her father Tom and said: ‘He killed him with the baseball bat.’ Earlier, Mr Martin said the defence had said Ms Martens was ‘not afraid of the evidence’ but he said she should be. ‘If she isn’t afraid of the evidence and isn’t afraid of your verdict then she hasn’t been paying attention,’ he added. Evidence had shown, he said, that Mr Corbett had received at least ten blows to the head. In two areas there were multiple blows and an expert witness wasn’t able to say exactly how many. At least one blow was delivered after he had died. Using the bat to demonstrate force, Mr Martin struck it violently off the table. ‘What kind of force does it take to split flesh all the way to the skull?’ he asked jurors. He then hit the table with the bat repeatedly, with increasing force each time. Gasps were audible in the public gallery as the sound of the bat clashing with the table rang out in court. He said that the force used had ‘ripped the flesh off the bone’. And he said scalp tissue had been found embedded in the brick recovered from the scene, rather than hair, meaning it was used to strike Jason Corbett. The DNA of both belonged to Jason Corbett. Molly Martens, he said, had ‘little bits of Jason’ all over her pyjamas in the form of human tissue stains that had been examined by experts. ‘That puts her right in the thick of it,’ he said. Throughout the struggle, which was described as a ‘fight for her life’, a delicate bracelet, on one of her wrists, remained totally intact. The only evidence of strangulation was her saying to a paramedic that her throat was sore. ‘In some houses that story might get a first grader out of school, but it will not get Molly off murder,’ said Mr Martin. He added that she said in a statement that ‘she couldn’t remember’ if her father had said anything when he came into the room, but this was not credible. Tom Martens had said he repeatedly told Jason to ‘let his daughter go’. And the prosecutor reminded jurors that she had been prescribed Trazodone three days before the killing and had Mojitos that night, which Jason Corbett had drank. He said most of Tom Martens’ testimony on Friday was simply not credible, and he accused Mr Martens of delaying a call he made to 911 and faking CPR. He said in Tom Martens’ mind, Jason Corbett was ‘beneath him’ and that he was the ‘greater’ person. He didn’t think Jason was good enough for his daughter and he had told her to get a divorce. This established malice. And malice, in Molly’s case, sounded like, ‘I want a divorce but I want his kids’, he said. Mr Martin said that from the outset, Tom Martens had endeavoured to ‘outfox’ investigators, and he had carefully scripted and rehearsed his testimony to match the forensic evidence from the scene. His FBI training and experience of crimescene investigations had equipped him with the skills to do so. Mr Martin said Tom Martens had expertly organised his testimony to ensure Mollly was protected, to protect himself as much as he could from a murder charge, and if necessary, be as vague as he could or ‘leave it out’, so his answers would match the evidence. He said that the only truth to be found in Mr Martens’ testimony was the level of disdain he had for Jason Corbett. And Mr Martin said Mr Martens’ wife Sharon, who was also present in the house on the night of the killing, had ‘vanished off the face of the earth’ in her husband’s testimony. He alleged she had been strategically left out of the story because getting Molly and himself to stick to the same version was hard enough. ‘One person keeping a story straight that isn’t the truth is awfully tough’, he said. ‘Two people is even harder... Three people is damn near impossible. So we gotta get Sharon out of the picture. We gotta go from three to two.’ Mr Martin argued that the delay in time that it took for Mr Martens to call 911 was because he was downstairs telling his wife that she ‘didn’t see or hear anything’. So effective were his instructions that when an officer opened the door to the downstairs basement, where Sharon was allegedly sleeping, she said, ‘Is everything okay?’ ‘Does anyone know a grandmother on the planet who would respond in that way?’ asked Mr Martin. He said it was incredulous to believe that with all the banging, thumping and fighting upstairs Sharon Martens heard nothing. ‘The super spy is trying to outwit you,’ he said of Tom Martens. In concluding, Mr Martin said Jason Corbett did not have to die. ‘His children did not have to become orphans,’ he said, standing over Molly Martens. ‘He didn’t have to die that brutal and savage death at the hands of the woman he came to America for. ‘He didn’t have to die at the hands of his father-in-law. His kids didn’t have to go back to Ireland without their daddy. You have a duty to deliver a verdict that says Jason didn’t have to die. Justice for Jason.’

Lexington Dispatch August 1st 2017 Coworker: Martens said ‘I hate’ Jason Corbett A coworker of Thomas Martens testified Tuesday that Martens indicated disdain for Jason Corbett on two specific occasions before the night he was killed, including one in which he said he hated his son-in-law. Joann Lowry, a colleague of Martens, testified that she worked with Martens in the counter-intelligence department of the Department of Energy in Tennessee. Two months before the incident, Lowry said she asked about Martens’ weekend, and he indicated that Molly Corbett, Jason Corbett and his grandchildren came to visit. ″(Martens) said, ‘We’re always glad to see them come home, but we’re always glad to see them leave. That son-in-law, I hate him,’” Lowry testified. On the stand Tuesday in Davidson County Superior Court, Lowry recalled an instance near the time Jason Corbett and Molly Corbett were married in 2011. Lowry testified that she was told by Martens that he hosted a pre-wedding party at his house, but he did not appreciate the behavior of Jason Corbett. ″(Martens) was not very fond of Jason and his rowdy friends,” Lowry said. The Journal.ie August 2nd 2017 Blood spatter expert believes Jason Corbett's head hit wall, court hears A BLOOD SPATTER analyst has said an object may have been used to hit Jason Corbett multiple times. Stuart James, testifying at the murder trial into the Irishman’s death in North Carolina, spoke about the blood patterns present on the walls of the master bedroom and bathroom in Corbett’s house.At the trial, James noted several instances of impact spatter and transfer stains along the walls. The analyst said impact spatter is when a force is applied to a liquid blood source, and transfer stains are when a bloody surface makes contact with another surface. James noted two large transfer stains on one wall, which he believes came from Jason Corbett’s head hitting the wall in a descending motion. One transfer stain was 24 to 28 inches above the floor and the other was five to 16 inches above the floor. In the proximity of the transfer stains was an indentation located three to four inches above the floor. James believed the indentation came from an object’s impact. According to the analyst, some of the blood on the bedroom wall appeared to be expirated spatter, meaning the blood came from Jason Corbett breathing or coughing. In the bathroom, James described transfer stains near a cracked light switch. Above the light switch was an indentation in the wall. James also described several impact spatters on Martens’ boxers, red polo shirt and Molly Martens Corbett’s pajamas. In addition to impact spatters, he showed transfer stains and tissue fragments on the shirt and pajamas. Martens’ wristwatch had transfer stains, as well. In James’ opinion, due to the distribution of blood, he believed the object was used multiple times. The Lexington Dispatch August 3rd 2017 Judge rejects motion to dismiss Corbett case Superior Court Judge David Lee rejected a motion by defense lawyers Thursday to dismiss the second-degree murder charges against Thomas Martens and Molly Corbett for the killing of Jason Corbett. David Freedman, the lawyer for Martens, said all the evidence provided by the prosecution suggested that Martens and Molly Corbett acted in self defense. “Nothing has contradicted that,” Freedman said. ”...No evidence (the jury) has to infer malice.” Walter Holton, the lawyer for Molly Corbett, said the evidence is “so overwhelmingly self-defense” that the case should be dismissed. Davidson County Assistant District Attorney Greg Brown argued that the prosecution has provided substantial evidence that leans toward the state’s right to have the case decided by a jury. Irish Examiner August 4th 2017 Corbett ‘planned to leave wife and return to Ireland’ Victim’s sister tells court he wanted to return home Judge rules statements cannot be made before jury Mr Corbett had planned to fly from the US to the family home in Ireland to attend his father’s birthday party the following month. The jury also heard that he had been planning on leaving Ms Martens — his second wife and former nanny to his children — and return to Ireland for good. Earlier, the trial heard that a senior detective involved had lied to an insurance agent when he told her that Ms Martens refused to co-operate and answer questions about the death of her husband. Testimony for the prosecution by two of Mr Corbett’s co-workers that he was homesick and planning to leave his wife and return to Ireland was not allowed by the judge. viewed about the family’s insurance policy. “Two days into the trial, we receive this report”, Walter Holton, one of Ms Martens’s attorneys, said outside the presence of the jury. “It is my information that this report was not available to the district attorney or our office until two days into the trial.” Ms Huffman, Mr Holton said, gave detailed accounts of her conversations with Ms Thompson. In one of those conversations, Ms Huffman says Ms Thompson told her Ms Martens refused to answer questions from investigators and that she requested to see an attorney. Mr Holton said that’s simply not true. “Molly Corbett never requested an attorney and never refused to co-operate,” he said. Tracey Lynch took the stand yesterday afternoon in the second-degree murder trial in the death of her brother, Jason Corbett, who was found bludgeoned to death two years ago. The second anniversary of his death was Wednesday. Ms Lynch’s testimony about her conversations with her brother about leaving for Ireland permanently with his two children, Jack and Sarah, was hotly contested, and Judge David Lee ultimately decided that she could not testify to those conversations in front of the jury. The Irish Daily Mail August 4th 2017 MOLLY SHAKES AND SOBS AT MENTION OF JASON’S KIDS MOLLY Martens shook and sobbed uncontrollably in court yesterday when her sister-in-law told jurors the name of Jack and Sarah Corbett’s mother Mags. During the second week of evidence in the trial of Jason Corbett’s wife and father-in-law, his sister Tracey Lynch took the stand to testify for the prosecution. When she mentioned Mags Corbett, the late mother of Jason’s children, Ms Martens began crying audibly. Earlier at Davidson County Superior Court in North Carolina it emerged that the named beneficiary on an insurance policy held by the Limerick father-of-two was changed shortly before his death. And a former colleague of Mr Corbett also told jurors that she had seen Molly Martens two days after the killing and observed ‘no injuries, no bruises, swelling or scratches’ anywhere on her body. On an emotional day in court, Mr Corbett’s sister Tracey Lynch took the stand after lunch to tell jurors her brother was ‘very homesick and lonely’. She began saying that she was living in Ireland with her own two children and her brother’s two children, Jack and Sarah. ‘Who was Jack and Sarah’s mother?’ asked prosecutor Ina Stanton. ‘Mags Corbett,’ Mrs Lynch replied. At this point, Ms Martens was overcome by emotion in her seat, rocking, crying and sniffling audibly. What is your legal status with regard to Jack and Sarah Corbett?’ continued Ms Stanton. ‘My husband and I are the legal guardians of Jack and Sarah Corbett,’ said Mrs Lynch. Again, on the left handside of the room, Ms Martens began to shake and cry. Mrs Lynch told the court that as far back as August 2014, Jason had told her he wanted to move home to Ireland. ‘He said he was very homesick and lonely,’ she said. ‘Molly had been messaging me in March 2015 and she had enquired about when my father’s birthday was. I said to my husband, “Why isn’t she asking Jason? Jason never told me that Molly was coming. It was just Jason and the two kids.”’ In earlier evidence, Melanie Crook, a human resources director at Multi-packing Solutions, told the court that Ms Martens had come to the Lexington plant on August 4 to collect Jason’s personal belongings, and did not display any injuries. She was wearing a ‘boat neck top with cap sleeves and her hair was tied up.’ The area around her neck was completely exposed. Ms Crook said she spent 20 minutes with Ms Martens and didn’t see any injuries at all. At the time Ms Crook did not know the circumstances surrounding Mr Corbett’s death. She gave Ms Martens a hug and watched her leave with Jason’s belongings. Another MPS employee, who had planned to testify about his knowledge of Mr Corbett’s strained relationship and plans to move home, was not allowed to give evidence after objections from the defence.During cross-examination, Stuart James also told the court that he ‘didn’t see any real value’ in visiting the crime scene. In relation to the pieces of clothing worn by the defendants on the night of the killing Mr James said that he had asked for several stains to be tested by the state crime lab for the presence of blood. ‘You don’t have to test every single stain,’ he said. ‘It can’t be done.’ He said that stains on the lower parts of the boxers worn by Tom Martens and the pyjama bottoms worn by Molly Martens came from impact with Mr Corbett’s head, which would have been low down when struck. The defence argued that he could not testify to this with any scientific certainty. ‘You don’t have to test every stain’ Irish Times August 5th 2017 ‘I hit him until I felt he could not kill me’ Irishman’s father-in-law tells murder trial of fatal struggle The father-in-law of Irishman Jason Corbett took the stand yesterday in a North Carolina courtroom describing how he beat the 39-yearold Irishman on the head with a baseball bat in the early hours of August 2, 2015. “I hit him until he goes down and then I step away,” “Thomas Martens, 67, testified. I don’t know how many times I hit him. I hit him until I thought he could not kill me... I felt both of our lives were in danger. I did the best I could.” Irish Daily Mail August 5th 2017 We tussle, I get the bat, I win Co-accused Tom Martens stepped into the dock and gave an account of an extraordinary struggle that ensued between him and Mr Corbett involving a baseball bat he had brought to Jason and Molly’s house that day for Mr Corbett’s son Jack. He said he had been woken by a disturbance and heard screams coming from Molly and Jason’s bedroom. Grabbing the bat he had brought, he went to investigate the commotion. The man with over 31 years of service in the FBI sobbed as he recalled begging Mr Corbett to free his daughter from a ‘chokehold’ he said the Limerick man had her in on the night of August 1, 2015. The father of four from Knoxville, Tennessee, told the court in North Carolina that he had never witnessed Mr Corbett being physically violent toward his daughter before that night. During cross-examination by the prosecution, Mr Martens said he had received training in the ‘use of force’ during his time as a field agent in the FBI. This included self-defence training and ‘excessive force’ training. In relation to ‘baton training’ he had received, he was asked to identify which parts of the body should be struck to ‘bring a man down’. He said the ankle, the knees or the kidneys. The prosecution contended that a baseball bat is similar to a baton and should have been used in that way. Mr Martens said that he chose to hit Mr Corbett in the head because that was the only area he could strike without hitting Molly. Greg Brown, for the prosecution, told the court that during an interview conducted by two detectives investigating Mr Corbett’s death, Mr Martens ‘interrupted questioning and took charge’. He had already told the two men that he had a long career in the FBI and that he ‘really enjoyed outwitting’ other spy agencies. In an earlier role, he liked ‘kicking in doors and arresting people’, the trial heard. Mr Brown said that at one point during interview, the defendant said: ‘Perhaps it would be helpful if I just launched into a story that would account for my state of mind.’ He said he did not know what was going on and that he ‘reacted instinctively’. ‘When I got upstairs I could determine they were coming (the noises) from Jason and Molly’s bedroom. The door was closed. I opened it,’ he said. There was a long pause before Mr Martens continued. ‘In front of me, I would say 7 or 8 feet, Jason had his hands around Molly’s neck... they were facing each other.’ Mr Martens said he closed the door but did not know why he did so. ‘I said, “let her go,” he told the court. ‘He (Jason) said, “I’m going to kill her.” I said, “let her go”. ‘He (Jason) said, “I’m going to kill her.” ‘I said, “let her go”. ‘He (Jason) said, “I’m going to kill her”. I don’t know how many times I said it.’ Mr Martens broke down at this point, sobbing momentarily. Mr Martens said that Mr Corbett caught the bat as he swung it towards him. ‘In the process Molly goes free,’ he said. ‘She escapes to his right. Now he has the bat but I’m still holding on to it. He cocks his head and he is punching out and shoves me across the entire room. I’m on the floor with my back to him and my face down in the carpet. If I could get any more afraid... that was it. ‘I’m thinking, “the next thing he is going to [hit me with] a bat in the back of the head”.’ Mr Martens said he heard his daughter screaming, ‘Don’t hit my dad!’ and scrambled away, eventually getting himself back up. ‘Now I see Jason essentially where we started, inside the doorway to the bedroom,’ he said. ‘He’s got the bat. Molly is by the nightstand between the wall and the bed. Things look pretty bleak. He’s got the bat... he’s in a pretty good athletic position... He’s looking between me and Molly. I decide to rush in and get the bat. ‘If I stay there, I figure he is going to kill one of us or both of us.’ A struggle ensued, during which Mr Martens gained control of the bat. ‘I win,’ he said. ‘I get control of the bat. He loses his grip and I hit him. I didn’t want him to take the bat away and kill me. This was far from over. I’m in shock. I’m not doing good so I hit him and I hit him until he goes down.’ He added: ‘I hit him until I thought that he could not kill me. ‘He said he was going to kill Molly and I certainly felt he would kill me. I felt both of our lives were in danger. I did the best I could.’ Mr Martens said he asked his daughter to get a phone to call 911. He said they administered CPR. Earlier, Mr Martens told jurors he did not like Jason. Mr Martens told the court that, in his view, Jason Corbett ‘never measured up’ to his expectations for his daughter and that he had advised her to seek legal advice about the marriage. Mr Martens said Jason had told him he intended to make Molly the ‘adoptive mother’ of his children, Jack and Sarah. But this never happened, he said, and it was a source of strain. He said he was aware of the fact his daughter was the beneficiary of Mr Corbett’s insurance policy, worth $600,000. ‘The money is being held in trust pending litigation,’ he said. Children’s statements can’t be used: judge STATEMENTS made by Jason Corbett’s orphaned children Sarah and Jack in the days after their father’s death were not admissible as evidence, Judge David Lee ruled at the Molly Martens trial. Both children had given interviews to various agencies, including social workers, in August 2015. There were allegations that the children had been ‘coached’ prior to the interviews taking place. In one interview, which took place at a facility called Dragonfly House, Jack was asked why he was there. He replied saying that his dad had died. He added: ‘My aunt and uncle from my dad’s side came to try and take me away. That’s why I’m here. My mom wants to get custody.’ He was asked if his mother was afraid of his father and he said he knew this because his ‘mom told him’. Both children had been told their father had died by their mother. In Sarah’s case, her step-grandmother Sharon Martens had also told her. Judge Lee concluded that the statements did not meet the ‘trustworthiness’ requirement. He noted that both children had since recanted their statements. He ruled that the statements were ‘inadmissible for any purpose’ in the trial. Irish Daily Mail August 8th 2017 Molly offers no defence as jury goes out Prosecution closes its case after Molly doesn’t testify. Story was ‘empty, barren and cold’ WE will never know if Jason Corbett ‘cried out’, if he ‘begged for his life or if he was thinking of his two children during this heinous crime’ which resulted in his death, the Molly Martens murder trial heard yesterday. Greg Brown made the remarks during the prosecution’s closing statements in the trial of Molly and Tom Martens who are charged with second-degree murder of the Limerick father of two. Both deny the charges and allege they were acting in self-defence. Earlier, Ms Martens confirmed to Judge David Lee yesterday that she would not take the stand at Davidson County Court in North Carolina and was exercising her right not to testify. Ms Martens’s attorney, Walter Holton, said that his client joined in the evidence presented on behalf of her father. Mr Martens’s legal team rested its case on Friday. During closing statements the prosecution said the defendants didn’t call 911 until Mr Corbett was dead after using ‘excessive force’ to beat an ‘unarmed man to death’. Jurors were told that Molly and her father had ‘bludgeoned’ Jason to death with a baseball bat and a paving brick. ‘You will have read Ms Martens’s statement to police,’ said Greg Brown. ‘In it she said, “I tried to hit him with a brick I had on my nightstand. I do not remember clearly after that.”’ Mr Brown said evidence showed that she hit Mr Corbett more than once with the brick, using excessive force. In his closing argument, defence lawyer Walter Holton asked jurors to consider the strand of hair found in Jason’s hand. ‘They [the prosecution] didn’t test it, they didn’t see it, they didn’t preserve it,’ he said. He said ‘the minute you find a reasonable doubt your work is done. It’s not guilty.’ He said that jurors had instead been shown a short statement Ms Martens had written after talking to detectives for an hour. He focused on Mr Corbett’s size and strength. ‘This guy can hit a golf ball 300 yards, what can he do with a baseball bat? he said. Mr Holton said the state ignored blood on Molly’s face and a mark on her neck. He argued that the redness on Molly’s neck would have been gone by the time a picture. Mr Holton argued that the state had not presented any evidence that proved Mr Corbett did not try to strangle Molly Martens. His client, he said, had nothing to gain from her husbands’s death. ‘She is not in his will,’ he said.’ She doesn’t have his children... What did she gain?’ In concluding, he said. ‘This is a tragedy. I’m sorry Mr Corbett didn’t take his medicine that day... I’m sorry he had 7 or 8 beers... Tom and Molly didn’t make those choices he did.’ Jurors will hear closing arguments from David Freedman, representing Mr Martens, today. Judge Lee will then charge the jury. Journal.ie august 8th 2017 'Why didn't they stop? That's malice': Jury hears closing arguments in Corbett murder trial LAWYERS IN THE Jason Corbett trial have begun giving their closing arguments, with the prosecution emphasising ‘malice, overkill and excessive force’ in the killing of the Limerick man, while the defence questioned whether the State provided enough evidence to rule against self-defence. Brown told the jury that the 911 operator instructed Martens to tilt Jason Corbett’s head during CPR and that Corbett’s head was full of blood. “His [Thomas Martens] hands are spotless,” Brown said. “He did not (tilt the head).” Brown later questioned the timing of Martens’ 911 call. He discussed the dry blood on Jason Corbett’s face and chest.He recalled the testimony of Corporal CS Dagenhardt — an officer who has seen over 200 crime scenes — who testified that he saw congealed blood that looked like jelly on the floor. The prosecutor said the paramedics testified that no electrical activity was found and that Jason Corbett’s body felt cool while in the ambulance. “Why didn’t they stop?” Brown asked. “Ladies and gentlemen, that’s malice.” Brown described Martens as the aggressor since he brought the bat with him and because he rushed at Jason Corbett during the incident. He said Martens decided “he was going to beat his son-in-law” before he left the basement. Brown said Molly Corbett’s appearance the night of the incident wasn’t consistent with being attacked. He said she had no torn clothes and that her jewellery hadn’t been bent or torn. “Even the plastic clip in the back of her hair is still in place,” Brown said. Walter Holton, the defence lawyer for Molly Corbett, stressed that the burden of proof was firmly placed on the prosecution’s shoulders. He explained to the jury that “as soon as you find a reasonable doubt, your job is done”. “It’s (the prosecution’s) job to prove this didn’t happen,” Holton told the jury. “It’s not my job. It’s not your job.” The defence lawyer then discussed the photo of a strand of blonde hair intertwined in Jason Corbett’s hand, which he also emphasised in his opening statements two weeks ago. He once again questioned why the blonde hair wasn’t collected or tested. “The hair in Jason’s hand? Oops! Oops!” Holton said. “We didn’t talk about that.” Holton highlighted that no fingernail clippings from Molly Corbett or Jason Corbett were examined and that the photo of blood on Molly Corbett’s face was ignored and not tested. The defence lawyer said he didn’t believe blood spatter analyst Stuart James did enough for a thorough investigation. He cited that James never visited the house to see the spatter even though he had the opportunity. Instead, Holton noted that James was given a not-to-scale version of the house’s layout. Holton also believed James did not do enough to investigate what happened to Molly Corbett. “(James) said, ‘Well that’s not significant to my investigation,’” Holton said. “Well that’s significant to us.” The Sun.ie CLOSING STATEMENTS BEGIN Limerick dad Jason Corbett’s ‘blood speaks truth and speaks screams for justice’, jury in his US murder trial told as prosecutors close case THE jury in the Molly Martens Corbett murder trial were yesterday told: “Jason Corbett can’t speak to you today, but his blood speaks the truth and screams for justice.” Mr Brown described the attack which killed the Irishman as “heinous, atrocious and cruel”. He added: “We will never know if Jason Corbett tried to cry out, did he plead for his life or did he think of his two children? “Jason cannot speak out to you today but his blood speaks the truth and screams for justice. “It is not self-defence — this is second-degree murder. Why didn’t he stop when Jason was on the ground? Why did he continue to bludgeon him? Why didn’t they stop. Malice? Yes. Hatred? Yes. Excessive force? Yes. “The evidence is that Jason was retreating. He was naked in his marital bedroom and unarmed. His children were asleep in the house.”

Knox News 25th July 2017 Murder trial begins for Knox man, daughter in N.C. case Opening statements began Tuesday in the Lexington, N.C., murder trial of a former Oak Ridge National Laboratory counterintelligence officer and his daughter in the 2015 beating death of her husband. Prosecution and defense spent the past week choosing a jury to hear the case. Father and daughter claim self-defense, saying Jason Corbett was choking Molly Corbett when Martens, who was visiting, came to her aid .Dr Nelson said he carried out the postmortem which found blunt force trauma was the cause of death. He said he identified 10 different areas of impact to Mr Corbett’s head, two of which sustained “multiple blows.” “The degree of skull fractures in this case are kinds we would see in falls from great heights or car crashes,” he said. As Dr Nelson described the wounds on Mr Corbett’s head, one juror became physically ill and had to temporarily leave the room. US News July 25th 2017 Opening Statements Made in North Carolina Murder Trial Attorneys have presented their opening statements in the North Carolina trial of a wife and father-in-law accused in the beating death of a businessman. An Irish businessman was beaten so badly that pieces of his skull fell onto a medical examiner's table during his autopsy, a North Carolina prosecutor said Tuesday during opening statements in the trial of two people charged in the man's death. "There was blood on this wall and there was blood on this wall," Martin said, pointing to various parts of the courtroom as if it were the master bedroom where Jason Corbett was found. Martin said Martens struck Jason Corbett with the baseball bat and Molly Corbett hit her husband with a brick paver. David Freedman, one of Martens' attorneys, told the jury of a struggle in which Thomas Martens and Molly Corbett feared for their lives. According to Freedman, Martens struck Jason until he let Molly go, and Jason was down in the bedroom. The Irish Daily Mail July 25th 2015 MOLLY AND HER DAD DIDN’T DO CPR ON JASON, TRIAL TOLD THE opening day of the Molly Martens murder trial has heard that a 911 operator didn’t believe either Molly or her co-accused father Tom were attempting CPR on Jason Corbett. Prosecutors said the female dispatcher took an emergency call from a ‘surprisingly calm’ Mr Martens in the early hours of August 2, 2015, the date Molly’s husband Jason was bludgeoned to death. She said she did not believe Ms Martens or her father were actually trying to revive the Limerick father of two, the trial heard yesterday. The Irish Times July 26th 2017 Jason Corbett head injuries like those seen after ‘car crashes’ The head injuries suffered by Irish man Jason Corbett before his death in North Carolina were similar to those seen after “falls from great heights or car crashes,” a medical examiner has said. Winston Salem Journal July 27th 2017 Investigator: Molly Corbett kept rubbing her neck hours after her husband died LEXINGTON — A couple of hours after her husband had been found bludgeoned to death, Molly Corbett seemingly couldn't stop rubbing her neck, a crime scene investigator with the Davidson County Sheriff's Office testified Thursday in the murder trial in the death of Irish businessman Jason Corbett Lexington Dispatch July 27th 2017 Witnesses: No injuries visible to Molly Corbett Several witnesses, including law enforcement and a neighbor, testified Thursday they saw no injuries on Molly Martens Corbett the night her husband Jason Corbett was killed in 2015. A paramedic said Jason Corbett had no detectable heartbeat when he arrived at the home. Another said Jason Corbett’s body “felt cool” when he was taken to an ambulance, leading her to ask how long Molly Corbett and her father Thomas Martens had waited to call 911.Amanda Hackworth, a Davidson County paramedic, testified Thursday that as paramedics tried to revive Jason Corbett in an ambulance at the Corbetts’ home, she reached her arm over Jason Corbett’s body, and it felt cool. On Wednesday, paramedic Sgt. Barry Alphin testified that his hand slipped into Jason Corbett’s scalp as he tried to insert a breathing tube. Hackworth testified that she told Alphin about the cool torso and asked him how long Molly Corbett and Martens waited to call 911. Hackworth testified that Alphin responded by saying Martens and Molly Corbett called 911 as soon as Jason Corbett “went down.” Hackworth later stated that she saw dry blood on Jason Corbett’s chest and near his eye. David Bent, another paramedic who worked on Jason Corbett, said that when he arrived on scene, white pads were placed on Jason Corbett’s body in the master bedroom. Bent said the pads detected no heart activity. When Jason Corbett was transported to the ambulance, Bent assisted with treatment. Irish Examiner July 27th 2017 Court hears how Jason Corbett socialised with neighbour on day before the killing A neighbour testified yesterday that things were normal the day before Irish businessman Jason Corbett was bludgeoned to death. That balmy Saturday afternoon, both men were mowing their lawns. David Fritzsche said he finished first and went over and helped Jason Corbett complete his lawn. Then they put up some chairs in their driveways and drank beer while their children played. That day would be the last one in which Mr Fritzsche would see his next-door neighbour alive. On August 1, 2015, the two men consumed seven to eight beers and then split a 32-ounce beer, one of two that Ms Martens had brought out. They never got to the second can. Ms Marten’s parents, Sharon and Thomas Martens, arrived at the home around 8.30 that night and Jason helped his father-in-law take his luggage out of the car, Mr Fritzsche said. About 5.30am, Ms Martens came to his house. She used the half-bath twice, he said. She was there for 90 minutes. He didn’t notice any injury. The Irish Times July 27th 2017 Corbett murder trial: ‘You don’t expect to see that much blood’ Emergency responders called to the North Carolina house where Irish man Jason Corbett received fatal head injuries have described how they averted his children’s eyes from the bloody scene as they carried them from the house. Upon entering, he said he saw lots of blood inside the dimly-lit master bedroom, at which point he realised an assault had occurred. “You don’t expect to see that much blood,” Sgt Alphin said, who also indicated Mr Corbett exhibited no evidence of life at any time at the scene. The prosecution admitted photographs into evidence that were shown on an overhead projector which depicted the area of Mr Corbett’s head where Sgt Alphin’s left hand slid into the skull. It was at that time he said he realised there was heavy trauma. “I put my hand under the scalp,” he said. “My left hand went all into the skull.” The Independent.ie July 27th 2017 Damage to Jason Corbett's skull so severe pathologist could not say how many times he was hit A North Carolina District Attorney revealed during the opening of the Jason Corbett (39) murder trial that the Limerick father-of-two was struck at least 10 times over the head with the damage to his skull so severe that a post mortem couldn't even determine precisely how many times he was hit with the two implements. The trial of Molly Martens-Corbett (33) and her father, retired FBI agent Thomas Michael Martens (67), who both deny the second degree murder of Mr Corbett, also heard that a post mortem examination revealed traces in the Irish businessman's blood system of a powerful sleep drug prescribed for his wife, Ms Martens-Corbett, just days earlier. At least one blow was sustained when Mr Corbett was already dead. Multiple blows had been sustained to two specific areas of the back of his head The Irish Examiner July 27th 2017 Juror vomited at sight of Jason Corbett’s injuries A US police officer has described how he told the daughter of Irishman Jason Corbett to close her eyes as he carried her downstairs so she would not see all the blood at the scene of her father’s death, writes Michael L Hewlett. Cpl Clayton Dagenhardt of the Davidson Sheriff’s Office told the court that Molly Martens and her father, Thomas Martens, who are on trial for the Limerick man’s second-degree murder, had no visible signs of injury the morning that he was bludgeoned to death. “Nothing remarkable except that she [Ms Martens] had blood on the top of her head,” Cpl Dagenhardt said. He testified that he saw an emergency paramedic who he knew when he arrived at the scene. The paramedic, who was coming out of the house, told him: “It’s bad. It’s really bad. It’s a horrible scene.” Cpl Dagenhardt testified that he and another officer went to collect Mr Corbett’s children, Jack and Sarah, who were asleep upstairs in bed. He said he awoke Sarah and led her backwards down the stairs and told her to keep her eyes closed. When he showed the jury a photograph showing the top of Mr Corbett’s head with his scalp peeled off, one of the jurors started gagging, and a bailiff came running with a trash can into which she appeared to vomit. She had to leave the courtroom but was later able to return. The Irish Examiner July 28th 2017 Corbett murder trial told of blood spatters on walls The jury in the trial of Molly Martens and her father, who are accused of the murder of her Irish husband Jason Corbett, has been shown blood spatters reaching 5ft up the walls of the bedroom and of a paving brick on which hairs were found. Prosecutors say she used that concrete brick and Thomas Martens used a baseball bat to kill Mr Corbett. Yesterday, the jury heard Ms Martens stood outside the house, where her husband had just been found beaten to death, and kept rubbing her neck. Lt Frank Young of Davidson County Sheriff’s Office was taking photographs of her for investigative purposes. “Molly continually pulled on her neck several times,” he told Davidson Superior Court. He saw dry blood on her forehead and the side of her face but did not notice any other injury. “She was making crying noises but I didn’t see any visible tears,” he said. The Irish Times july 28th 2017 Inside the Corbett trial: Martenses do not speak as photos of bloody body displayed ‘Have you ever been strangled?’ The question that hangs over Limerick man’s murder trial During his opening statement in the Jason Corbett murder trial, Davidson County assistant district attorney Alan Martin made reference to a grim reality: “It wasn’t all sunshine, roses and unicorns.”Pictures of Mr Corbett’s bloody, lifeless body have been displayed ad nauseam in the courtroom at Davidson County Courthouse in Lexington, North Carolina. One juror became ill at the sight of the eighth exhibit introduced by the prosecution. There have been more than 100 exhibits since, with each seemingly more bone-chilling than the other. The culmination of an horrific scene has created a predicament for everyone in the courtroom, starting from the outset, when jury selection was complicated by accounts of Mr Corbett’s sociable nature. Two potential jurors were excused due to their employment at Multi Packaging Solutions, where Mr Corbett worked as a plant manager. One employee said Mr Corbett was “well liked” and expressed a decidedly positive opinion of him. In an opening statement on Tuesday, David Freedman, lawyer for Mr Martens, said his client claimed to have seen Mr Corbett apparently attempting to strangle his daughter and then hit his son-in-law with a baseball bat multiple times. The defence attorneys – who have offered countless objections to efforts by the prosecution to call into question various aspects of the defendants’ actions and observable behaviours the morning after Mr Corbett’s death – seemed to take particular offence to this statement. “Have you ever been strangled?” Cheryl Andrews, for the defence, asked Mr Dillard. That question has been a point of contention between the two sides, and perhaps even at the heart of the case. As the assistant district attorneys question each witness about whether there was any noticeable injury to Ms Marten’s neck, they seem to be hinting at a different question, a more pertinent question, to Ms Martens. The Irish Daily Mail 30th July 2017 Scene of Jason killing ‘staged’ Jury hears that blood-spattered vacuum left in victim’s room ‘was moved’ to tie in with defendants’ claims of a violent brawl. PROSECUTORS in the Jason Corbett murder case claim that the crime scene where his body was found was ‘staged’ by his killers. Ms Martens, 34, and her father Tom Martens, 66, are charged with second-degree murder of the Limerick father of two in August 2015.Both deny the charge and are claiming self-defence. In evidence on Thursday, the State focused on blood spatter that was found on a vacuum cleaner behind the door in the master bedroom where Mr Corbett’s naked and battered body was found. Crime scene investigator Lieutenant Frankie Young told jurors that, in his expert opinion, the vacuum cleaner had been moved. Lt Young said that he noted that blood spatter on the canister of the vacuum cleaner was ‘moving from left to right horizontally, as if it was lying down’ when it was hit by the victim’s blood. However, pictures from the scene showed the vacuum cleaner in an upright position. ‘It has now been stood up,’ the witness told the court.

Fox 8 July 16th 2017 Jury selection begins Monday in Irish man’s murder trial The trial will soon begin for two people accused of killing Jason Paul Corbett, during a domestic dispute in his home on Panther Creek Court on Aug. 2, 2015. In the 911 call placed by Martens, he tells the 911 operator, “My daughter’s husband — my son-in-law — got in a fight with my daughter. I intervened and — I think — I believe he’s in bad shape. We need help.” Walter Holton Jr., an attorney for the defense, says the two acted in self-defense. It’s not a claim, it is what happened,” Holton said. “It is the truth. Molly is innocent, Tom is innocent.” Investigating Davidson County deputies wrote in a search warrant, “Neither Martens nor Molly Corbett suffered any injuries about their person.” Irish Daily Mail July 17th 2017 Martens murder trial begins JURY selection gets under way today in the murder trial of Molly Martens and her retired FBI agent father, Tom over the 2015 death of her husband, Limerickman Jason Corbett. The process, say experts, will be lengthy and thorough. The judge in the case has ruled against US media requests for courtroom TV coverage. The process of selecting 14 jurors to decide their fate will begin today. ‘There will be many questions asked of each juror,’ said a member of staff from the Davidson County Clerk’s Office. ‘The hope is to get the best 14 jurors possible.’ Defence lawyers for Ms Martens and her father have indicated that the selection process will be lengthy and thorough. Independent.ie July 17th 2017 Jury to be selected in trial of Molly and Thomas Martens The painstaking jury selection process will begin today for the murder trial of a former American nanny and her father, who are charged with the killing of an Irish father of two. Efforts by the Martens family to have the trial moved out of Davidson County for legal reasons failed and the trial will begin today in Lexington before Judge David Lee. The Irish Independent has learned that an exceptionally large jury panel has been called amid expectations of challenges to any who may have known the parties involved or the witnesses set to be called by the prosecution. Jury selection is set to take up to two days, with the likelihood the prosecution opening statement may not happen until Wednesday. Independent tribune July 18th 2017 Jury selection starts in high-profile murder trial in Davidson County Out of 300 called, 143 prospective jurors showed up Monday for the first day of the trial in the brutal death of Irish businessman Jason Corbett nearly two years ago. Jason Corbett, 39, was a native of Ireland who moved to Davidson County with his second wife, Molly Corbett, and his two children, Jack and Sarah, from his first marriage. Now, Molly Corbett, 33, and her father, Thomas Martens, 67, a former FBI agent, are accused of killing Jason Corbett in the early hours of Aug. 2, 2015. They are each charged with one count of second-degree murder. Molly Corbett and Thomas Martens have pleaded not guilty and are claiming self-defense. Jason Corbett died of blunt-force trauma and, according to search warrants, he was beaten with a baseball bat and a concrete paving brick. Judge David Lee of Davidson Superior Court told the potential jurors that they must ignore media accounts and avoid discussing the case with anyone, including their friends and family members. “You and you alone determine the truth,” Lee said Monday. Freedman has sought to introduce a statement that Michael Fitzpatrick, the father of Jason Corbett’s first wife, Margaret Fitzpatrick Corbett, is alleged to have made to Martens during a 2012 family gathering in Tennessee. Margaret Corbett died Nov. 21, 2006 of a sudden asthma attack, and in court documents, Freedman said Michael Fitzpatrick, who is now dead, told Martens he believed that Jason Corbett was responsible for his daughter’s death. The Fitzpatrick family denies he made that statement, according to Irish media reports.

Greensboro News and Record June 2nd 2017 Motion: Father of Jason Corbett's first wife blamed Corbett for his daughter's death The father of Jason Corbett’s first wife believed Corbett was responsible for his daughter’s death, according to a motion filed by attorneys for Thomas Martens, who is charged in Corbett’s death. David Freedman and Jones Byrd, attorneys for Martens, filed a notice of intent to introduce statements Wednesday in Davidson Superior Court. The motion said Freedman and Byrd intend to introduce statements that Michael Fitzpatrick, father of Margaret Corbett, made. “The content of the statements were that Mr. Fitzpatrick believed that Jason Corbett had caused the death of Mr. Fitzpatrick’s daughter Margaret Corbett,” the motion says. “Mr. Fitzpatrick’s prior statements are offered in support of the defendant’s asserted defenses of self-defense and the defense of others, in that they are relevant to the defendant’s state of mind during the alleged altercation with Jason Corbett.” Irish Mirror June 9th 2017 Jason Corbett trial: Son of victim lied about witnessing domestic abuse, court hears THE son of an Irishman allegedly murdered by his American wife and her father lied about witnessing domestic abuse, a US court has heard. The judge in Friday’s pre-trial hearing deferred ruling on a motion to redact statements about domestic abuse that Jason Corbett’s two children made when interviewed after the alleged homicide. Testifying yesterday, Tracey Lynch stated that shortly after moving to Ireland, Jack told her he had lied about witnessing any domestic abuse and wanted to contact police in Davidson County. Lynch told the court: “He said he felt really bad about it. He said he wanted to tell the police he lied.” Judge David Lee said he preferred the lawyers argue before the judge presiding over the case at trial whether specific statements should be heard. Lexington Dispatch June 9th 2017 Corbett murder trial stays in Davidson County The judge in a pretrial hearing for the murder case against Molly Martens Corbett and her father, Thomas Martens, denied a motion Friday to have the trial moved to Mocksville in neighboring Davie County. Walter Holton and David Freedman, lawyers for Corbett and Martens, filed the motion to have the trial moved. They argued the amount of publicity the case has received in Davidson County has made it impossible to form an unbiased jury. “The defense has failed to find existing community prejudice that they can’t receive a fair trial,” Lee said. “There is no showing of prejudice in the investigation or proceedings ... to preclude selection of a jury.” Irish Examiner June 20th 2017 US attorneys admit error in preparing case for Jason Corbett murder trial Attorneys representing a US man accused, along with his daughter, of killing his Irish son-in-law have said that they made a mistake when submitting a controversial pre-trial statement on behalf of their client. Jason Corbett, 39, was found dead two years ago in the early hours of August 2 in the home he shared with his wife Molly Martens, 33, in Panther Creek, Wallburg, North Carolina. Ms Martens and her father Thomas Martens, 67, are charged with the murder of the Limerick native, but say that his death was an act of self-defence on their part. In court documents lodged earlier this month, attorneys representing Mr Martens said that Margaret Corbett’s late father Michael Fitzpatrick had told their client he held Mr Corbett responsible for his daughter’s death. However, the documents claimed that this exchange took place at the wedding of Ms Corbett and Ms Martens in 2011. Yesterday, Mr Fitzpatrick’s widow Marian told the Daily Mail that the claim by Mr Martens could not be true, as neither she nor her husband attended the wedding in 2011. Her account was supported by Mr Corbett’s best man and another guest at the wedding. Mrs Fitzpatrick described the claims made by Mr Martens as “extremely upsetting”, “deeply hurtful” and said that Mr Corbett was a “wonderful person” and a great husband to her daughter. Asked by the Irish Examiner to reply to Mrs Fitzpatrick’s comments, defence attorney David Freedman confirmed Mr Martens did not speak with Mr Fitzpatrick at the 2011 wedding. “This was solely a lawyer mistake and we had never received any information about what occurred at the wedding,” Mr Freedman told the Irish Examiner. Furthermore, Mr Freedman issued a copy of a correction that was filed with the courts on June 9, days after the original statement. “Counsel was mistaken, as the statement was communicated during a different gathering at Mr Martens’ home in Tennessee in August 2012,” the document read. While copies of the original statement lodged with the court were released to the media earlier this month, the correction lodged days earlier was not circulated among the press. The Irish Daily Mail July 15th 2017 Will Jason get justice? (Very Informative article) IT HAS been two years since Limerick father of two Jason Corbett was found bludgeoned to death in the master bedroom of his luxury North Carolina home. His wife, pretty, all-American girl Molly Martens and her father Tom, a former FBI officer, were later charged in relation to his brutal killing. The prosecution claim Jason wanted to come home to Ireland with his children and was preparing to leave his wife. Her side, on the other hand, say she is the victim. Her life was in danger, they say, and her father stepped in to protect her. This week, in a trial that looks set to grip the nation, an American jury will weigh up the evidence on both sides and ultimately decide who is telling the truth... The Irish Examiner July 15th 2017 Cameras banned from Corbett trial The US judge in the forthcoming trial of a woman accused, along with her father, of murdering her Irish husband has banned cameras from the courtroom. The trial is scheduled to commence on Monday, and Judge David Lee has ruled that there will be no still photography or video recording of proceedings by the media for the duration of the hearing. Evoke.ie July 22nd 2017 Jason Corbett’s family launch new legal action against Molly Martens A wrongful death suit has been filed against Molly Martens and her father Tom. Ms Martens, 34, and Mr Martens, 66, are already facing a US criminal trial on a charge of second-degree murder of Jason Corbett in August 2015. Now a separate civil suit alleging wrongful death is being brought against the pair by Mr Corbett’s brother-in-law David Lynch. The Irish Examiner 25th July 2017 Wrongful death lawsuit filed amid Jason Corbett murder trial David Lynch, the executor of Mr Corbett’s estate, filed the lawsuit in Davidson Superior Court last week and also named Molly Corbett’s mother, Sharon Martens, as a defendant. As reported by the Winston-Salem Journal, the lawsuit alleges that Ms Corbett and Mr Martens “intentionally, willfully and maliciously assaulted” Mr Corbett, using a baseball bat and a concrete paving brick. It also alleges that Mrs Martens “assisted, aided and abetted the defendants Molly Page Corbett and Thomas Martens in the killing of Jason Corbett and in the concealment and destruction of evidence related to Jason Corbett’s death”. Mrs Martens has not been criminally charged in Mr Corbett’s death. The lawsuit alleges that the defendants’ actions caused Mr Corbett “extreme pain and discomfort and death”. David Pishko, who represents Mr Lynch in his role as executor of Mr Corbett’s estate in the lawsuit, declined to comment over the weekend. David Freedman, Mr Martens’ attorney, said he and Walter Holton, attorney for Ms Corbett, had no comment on the lawsuit. He confirmed they were both served with the lawsuit last Thursday in Courtroom C of Davidson Superior Court, where the trial is taking place. Volume 0%

The Irish Mirror January 3rd 2017 WE’LL GET JUSTICE FOR JASON IN 2017. Family’s promise over brutal killing in US THE family of a man violently killed in his home are hoping 2017 will finally bring them justice. Jason Corbett from Limerick was found with fatal head injuries in the house he shared in the US with his second wife Molly Martens Corbett. She was charged along with her father Tom, a 66-year-old retired FBI agent, with one count of second degree murder and voluntary manslaughter by Davidson County District Attorney’s Office. The pair formally lodged not guilty pleas over the death of the 39-year-old in Walburg, North Carolina, in August 2015. Martens Corbett, 33, was also ordered by the US court not to make any contact with Jason’s children – Jack, 12, and 10-yearold Sarah. In a post on the Bring Justice for Jason Facebook page, the Corbett family said: “Thank you each and every one of you for your continued love and support on Jason’s journey. “Our wish for 2017 is to see justice for Jason. It will never bring him back but those who committed this heinous crime should be held accountable for their actions. “We wish you and yours a New Year full of good health, love, joy and abundance. But most of all we wish for justice for Jason and peace for his family.” The Irish Mirror March 4th 2017 Tragic Jason’s widow and father-in-law to go on trial for killing him. Pair claiming self-defence over murder and manslaughter rap. THE widow and former father-in-law of Irishman Jason Corbett are to go on trial for his killing in the US. Molly Martens and retired FBI agent Thomas Michael Martens are charged with second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter. Jason, from Limerick, was found bludgeoned to death in the home in the US state of North Carolina he shared with Ms Martens, a former nanny to his two young children, on August 2, 2015. A post-mortem found he died from blunt force trauma and multiple cuts and skull fractures. Search warrants filed in the case revealed Ms Martens hit Jason with a baseball bat and a paving stone. The accused have claimed self-defence. Prior to his death, Jason had sought to transfer $60,000 from North Carolina to Ireland, according to search warrants. Court documents also show that Ms Martens was trying to adopt his children but he refused to allow her to do so. After his death, a fraught custody battle ensued between Ms Martens and Jason’s sister Tracey and her husband David Lynch. Guardianship was ultimately awarded to the Lynch family after a practice legal battle, and the children now live in Limerick. A Star Wars fundraiser in Limerick last year raised thousands of euro to go towards the Jason’s Journey charity – set up by Mr Corbett’s family after they were hit with legal bills of more than €130,000 following the custody battle in the US. A source close to the Corbett family said they were relieved a trial date had finally been set. Meanwhile, in a statement last night, the family said: “We welcome the news that Molly Martens and her father Thomas Martens will go to trial on July 17, 2017. “The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine. The Irish Daily Mail March 16th 2017 Molly Martens and father to be tried jointly over killing PROSECUTORS in North Carolina have formally applied to jointly try the wife and father-in-law of Jason Corbett in July for his killing. The father-of-two was found bludgeoned to death in the home he shared with wife Molly Martens and his two children in Winston Salem, North Carolina, on August 2, 2015. Mr Brown stated that the charges they face were part of a ‘common scheme or plan’ and, as such, both parties should be tried together. The motion stated: ‘Each defendant has been charged in separate pleadings. The trial is expected to be held in Lexington Courthouse and will last two to three weeks. Mr Lee will act as trial judge. The Corbett family declined to comment on the latest development in relation to the case. The Irish Daily Mail June 3rd 2017 Family left outraged at new claim in Corbett death case THE father-in-law of slain Limerick man Jason Corbett has made a ‘shocking’ attempt to introduce evidence relating to the death of Mr Corbett’s first wife into the trial over his death. In a ‘statement of intent’ filed in North Carolina this week, lawyers for Tom Martens state that they intend ‘to introduce at trial’ statements made to their client by Michael Fitzpatrick, the late father of Margaret Corbett, Jason Corbett’s deceased first wife. ‘The content of the statements were that Jason Corbett had caused the death of Mr Fitzpatrick’s daughter Margaret Corbett,’ lawyers say. Family ‘shocked and upset’ Margaret Fitzpatrick, who was known as Mags, died in November 2006 following an asthma attack. Her father died last October. The Corbett family, preparing for a lengthy trial in July, are understood to be ‘shocked and upset’ by the latest development. The Corbett's and Fitzpatrick's have remained close since Mag’s death. In the wake of Jason Corbett’s violent death, his sister Marian and Mag’s sister Catherine gave several interviews attesting to the ‘loving, caring relationship’ Mag's and Jason shared, In an interview with the Mail, Ms Fitzpatrick, who was living with the Corbett family at the time of Mags’s death, said there was no way her brother-in-law was a violent person. She said: ‘He never raised his voice, never raised his hand. Never.’ The Irish Examiner June 5th 2017 Claim man killed in US ‘responsible for first wife’s death’ The claim has been made weeks after the prosecution accused Thomas Martens and his daughter, Molly, of using pre-trial submissions to make public claims that may not be accepted as evidence when they stand trial for the murder of Mr Corbett, Molly’s husband. The trial is due to be held this summer, and the pair is expected to argue that Mr Corbett’s killing was self-defence. Documents released by a North Carolina Court, last week, show that Mr Martens, 67, will claim that the late Michael Fitzpatrick — Mr Corbett’s father-in-law from his first marriage — had told him that he believed Mr Corbett ‘caused the death’ of his first wife, Margaret. A Notice of Intent to Introduce Statements, lodged with the Superior Court of Davidson County, states that Mr Martens intends “to introduce at trial statements made to the defendant by the late Michael Fitzpatrick, the father of Margaret Corbett, Jason Corbett’s deceased first wife.” The State of North Carolina rejected this, and claimed the Martens had used pre-trial submissions to make public claims that may not be accepted as trial evidence. The Irish Daily Mail June 9th 2017 Molly Martens’ tears at murder trial hearing. Murder accused breaks down during counsellor’s evidence ‘Victims of child abuse’ ‘Inflammatory and inadmissible’ MOLLY Martens broke down in a US court yesterday when a counsellor revealed her stepson said he had ‘negative feelings toward her’. During evidence given by counsellor Andrea Huckabee, it emerged Jack Corbett told her he had witnessed abuse taking place in the home. Ms Huckabee had a 45-minute ‘therapeutic therapy session’ with Jack and Sarah Corbett – the children of Ms Martens’s late husband, Limerick man Jason Corbett, from a previous relationship – in August 2015. She said that in that session, Mr Corbett’s only son made a point of telling her that Ms Martens was his ‘step-mom’ and that his first mother had passed away. Ms Huckabee said Sarah had not disclosed witnessing abuse, but that Jack had. Yesterday’s hearing also heard from a paediatrician who examined Jack and Sarah after their father’s death – who revealed that she had diagnosed them ‘as victims of child abuse’ Both defendants were present in court yesterday in Davidson County, North Carolina, as were Jason Corbett’s sister Tracey Lynch and her husband David. The couple travelled to the US from Ireland on Tuesday ahead of the planned two days of hearings. Paediatrician Dr Amy Suttel gave evidence yesterday at the hearing relating to the admissibility of evidence in the case – and said she gave a diagnosis that both of Mr Corbett’s children were ‘victims of child abuse due to exposure to domestic violence’. Dr Suttel carried out a medical evaluation at the facility in the days after Mr Corbett’s death. She added that she did not make any determination on who was responsible for the abuse. ‘That’s not my job,’ she said. Dr Suttel recommended that both children receive mental health treatment. In later evidence, Detective Nathan Riggs told the court that he had arranged the appointment for the children to attend Dragonfly House. He said that another colleague on the case had been told by the children that they had a ‘secret phone number’ to call their grandparents in Tennessee in case of emergency. The court also heard from Ms Martens’s ‘closest friend’, who said her statements to police were fabricated by detectives investigating Mr Corbett’s death. Shannon Grubb, who has only known Ms Martens since they became neighbours in 2011, claims she did not actually say what investigators recorded her as saying when she was interviewed. ‘It [the statement] said I didn’t believe her [Ms Martens],’ she told the court yesterday. ‘It was not what I had said.’ Detective Thompson was asked about details from a 911 call that appeared in the Irish media in the days after Mr Corbett’s death. Walter Holton, lawyer for Ms Martens, referred to a report that appeared in the Irish Daily Mail on August 18, 2015. Mr Holton claimed that according to the article, the paper was in possession of a police report that had been sealed by order of the court on August 3. ‘If the media was up at the sheriff’s office that morning [August 3], before it was sealed, then the media would have it,’ replied Detective Thompson. She told the court that police reports, once written, are a matter of public record in the county. In further evidence, Detective Thompson was asked what evidence she had to support a claim she made in a search warrant that Jason Corbett had moved a large amount of money from a US account to an account in Ireland before his death. ‘Interviews with people connected in this case,’ replied Detective Thompson. Tracey Lynch will today give evidence in relation to further statements that were made by both of Mr Corbett’s children upon their return to Ireland.

Irish Examiner March 09th 2016 Murder accused must return items taken from US home A consent order agreed between Mr Corbett’s estate and Ms Martens last September stated that she was not to remove any “tangible personal property” owned either solely by Mr Corbett or jointly by the couple. However documents filed by the Superior Court of Davidson County in North Carolina this week show that, on January 21, Ms Martens “took a majority of the tangible personal property located in the home and placed that property in storage”. The documents state that after Ms Martens had removed items from the house “the only property left in the home was Mr Corbett’s clothes, property that Mr Corbett brought to the home from Ireland, and items owned by Mr Corbett’s children”. SHIPWASH RULING ON ESTATE LINK The Irish Daily Mail 16th March 2016 Molly’s lawyers in new row MOLLY Marten’s lawyers have lashed out at the courts over the handling of the Jason Corbett murder case. A motion was filed on Monday by attorney Walter Holton and asked that Clerk of Superior Court Brian Shipwash be removed from the case. The legal team has accused the clerk of court and a lawyer representing her late husband’s estate with hiding unethical, secretive conversations. The motion has also asked for Mr Shipwash to hand over all his communications about it and for a judge to re - examine decisions about the guardianship of Jason Corbett’s two children. Mr Holton claims that ‘conduct by the Clerk is so egregious as to necessitate the disqualification of Mr Shipwash from any future proceedings in this matter’. Irish Daily Mail March 31st 2016 JASON’S FAMILY: MOLLY SENT US AMBULANCE BILL THE ambulance bill for the night that slain Jason Corbett was taken to hospital has been sent to his family by lawyers for Molly Martens, the wife accused of murdering him. Distraught relatives of the father, whose death left his two young children orphaned, are said to be ‘shocked and saddened’ by the arrival of the invoice. They received the bill over the Easter weekend, a time when the family were sure to have been trying to buoy the spirits of Jason’s bereft children, Jack and Sarah. The letter was described as a ‘very blunt and cold’ reminder to the family of the father of two’s death. It arrived just ahead of the murder co accused Ms Martens, 31, and her father Thomas, 65, appearing in court next Monday. A source close to the family said they were deeply upset by receiving the bill. ‘It came as a devastating blow,’ said the source. ‘It was very " Heartless’ and ‘vindictive’ and upsetting to read an invoice for an ambulance, very blunt and cold.’ Mr Holden said: ‘That is absolutely 100% false. Absolutely nothing has been sent by Molly or her lawyers and if anybody is saying that they are fabricating the story. ‘I’m not saying the invoice is fabricated, I’m telling you, neither Molly nor her lawyers sent that invoice.’ However he later admitted in fact they had sent the bills to the Lynch estate attorney Edward Griggs. Speaking to the Mail, Mr Holden added: ‘Apparently, about a month ago, Bryan Thompson on behalf of Molly [Martens], handed to Mr Griggs a number of bills and that’s been several weeks ago. So, Mr Griggs must’ve just mailed them to his client.’ When asked if the bills would have included the ambulance invoice, he said: ‘Yes. Sent in November or December to Edward Griggs [estate attorney for David Lynch].’ Mr Holden said: ‘Any medical bill would be sent to the estate, it’s up to the estate lawyers to notify the medical providers, like the ambulance, of their address and where the bills are to be sent. They have to send a notice to all creditors, which would include medical providers, of the address, where to send the bill. ‘David Lynch [Jason Corbett’s brother-in-law] is the executor of the estate, he is responsible for all bills of the estate. That’s the one that is legally responsible for any and all bills of the estate. Including medical bills.’ Efforts to contact the Lynches’ attorney, Edward Griggs, proved unsuccessful News and Record April 7th 2016 Attorneys representing daughter, father in Corbett case in Davidson County case say they are worried about clients getting a fair trial LEXINGTON — Attorneys for Molly Martens Corbett and her father, Thomas Michael Martens, said after an administrative hearing Wednesday they are concerned that their clients may not get a fair trial in Davidson County. During the hearing at Davidson County Superior Court, attorneys Walter Holton and Cheryl Andrews, who represent Molly Corbett, and David Freedman, one of Martens’ attorneys, voiced concerns that the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office may have seen and used information that is inadmissible because of attorney/client privilege. Freedman said the defense attorneys have extended openness to the sheriff’s office, and he hopes he can expect the same from them. “We’ve had Tom and Molly available for interviews, and they haven’t interviewed them,” Freedman said. “We said there wasn’t any need for search warrants because we’ll give them any information they want, but they went and executed all these warrants.” Lexington Dispatch April 12th 2016 Judge grants stay in Irish man’s estate case A Davidson County Superior Court judge has granted a stay in the clerk of superior court’s decision from March in an estate matter of the Irish man killed in Wallburg last year. Judge Mark Klass granted the stay Tuesday after hearing from the attorneys of Molly Corbett and Ronald R. Davis, an attorney for the estate of Jason Corbett. Corbett and her father, Thomas Martens, were both indicted Jan. 4 by the Davidson County Grand Jury on the charges of second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter in the death of Jason Corbett. “I thought it was a fair and the right thing to do to just stabilize the situation,” Walter Holton Jr., an attorney for Molly Corbett, said, referring to Klass’ action. Klass’ decision to stay essentially means that Davidson County Clerk of Superior Court Brian Shipwash’s order not be enforced at this time, Holton said. The motion to stay surrounds an appeal to Shipwash’s order. There is no court date set for the appeal. As part of the stay, Klass ordered that $600,000 in funds be held by the Davidson County Clerk of Court’s Office. Those funds, which according to courtroom remarks Tuesday are from a life insurance policy, were in a trust account. ″(Klass) also ordered that a car that was subject of the previous order be sold and those funds (placed) into the clerk of court as well,” Holton said. Shipwash previously ordered that all assets, including all insurance proceeds, be turned over to the court and be held by the court until the court or other courts with jurisdiction order otherwise. Evoke.ie April15th 2016 Lawyers for Molly Martens make new claims in Corbett murder case Lawyers for Molly Martens claim her husband was drunk and on antidepressants, which caused him to fly into a violent rage on the night he was killed. An ABC report in the US this week said the defence were claiming the medical autopsy report had found traces of an antidepressant drug in the father of two’s system. The autopsy report did find that Mr Corbett had a blood alcohol content of 0.02%, below the legal limit of 0.08% for the state. Walter Holton, attorney for Ms Martens, said: ‘The medical examiner report indicates that some 30 hours after his death they drew the blood and that blood had an alcohol content of 0.02% but it’s not indicative of what the content of his blood would have been on the night that this incident happened.’ Mr Holton told ABC: ‘[Mr Corbett] was violent that night, what caused that, whether alcohol contributed to that or whether a drug contributed to that is for experts to opine about. Speaking to EVOKE.ie previously Molly Martens lawyer David Freedman said Molly had been on ‘antidepressants’ when she was very young but had ‘not been on medications for years and years.’ It followed allegations by Molly’s sister in law Tracey Lynch in court filings after her brother’s death that Molly had been ‘diagnosed with bipolar disorder from a young age, and claimed the children’s stepmother left her lithium medication lying around, and also suffered from other medical conditions.’ Limerick Post May 10th 2016 Detectives investigating if Molly moved money to new account after Jason’s killing Investigators, under the power of a search warrant, are checking transfers made after to a Bank of America account in Molly Martens sole name after August 2 last. The money is alleged to have moved from a joint account held by the couple before Jason’s killing. Detective Wanda Thompson applied to the US courts to launch the probe as she had “probable cause to believe that within days of her husband’s death Molly Martens may have moved monies from joint bank accounts held by her and her husband and these monies were used to open a separate bank account in the name of Molly Paige Martens”. Detectives became aware of the account after a trawl of the financial records and Google accounts obtained under a previous warrant. It is alleged that in the days after Jason Corbett’s death, large amounts of money were moved from the joint account. It is also alleged that up to $60,000 was moved from Jason’s account just days before his death. Detectives say that Jason Corbett’s financial status was being investigated as a motive for his killing. The Irish Daily Mail May 13th 2016 Corbett's trail lawyers do not want children's statements used PROSECUTORS in North Carolina have moved to prevent interviews given to social workers by Jason Corbett’s two children being referred to in the trial over his killing. In a motion filed in North Carolina yesterday, the state has deemed that interviews with Jack and Sarah Corbett, carried out in August 2015 by various social workers, ‘constitute inadmissible hearsay’. Prosecutors have applied for a court order barring reference to any such interviews or recordings ‘unless and until the court conducts a hearing outside the presence of the jury and deems the evidence admissible’. In a further motion, the state has requested that the court orders that no request is made for the jury to ‘put themselves in the place of the defendant’. The motion states: ‘The state has concerns that the defence may ask jurors to put themselves in the position of the defendant in this matter in which the defence alleges ‘self-defence.’ Irish Daily Mail June 27th 2016 Molly's bid to block statement made by son of Jason LAWYERS for Molly Martens have moved to prevent prosecutors using a video interview with Jason Corbett’s orphaned son as evidence in her trial for the murder of the father of two. Jack Corbett was interviewed by prosecutors in May via video link from the Limerick home he now shares with his aunt and uncle. In documents filed in North Carolina this week, Ms Martens’s legal representatives allege that the May interview is ‘not trustworthy’ and is ‘inadmissible’ under the North Carolina rules of evidence. In outlining the case to have the evidence ruled out, it is alleged that separately, both Jack and Sarah were interviewed on several occasions in August 2015 in North Carolina. Ms Martens is not contesting the admissibility of these particular interviews. On Monday, August 3, 2015, personnel from the Union County Department of Social Services travelled to Ms Martens’s brother’s home, where Jack and Sarah were staying. Each child was interviewed separately in the home, in the absence of Molly Martens, who was in Winston Salem at the time with her father. On Thursday, August 6, 2015, immediately after a funeral service for their father, Jack and Sarah attended a child medical evaluation at Dragonfly House. This was arranged by the Davidson County Sheriff’s office. The child medical examination included individual, videotaped, forensic interviews with each child, followed by a physical examination by a paediatrician. Ms Martens’s lawyers allege that ‘ten months after the death of Mr Corbett’, the State obtained a video interview with Jack. It is alleged the statement was given in Limerick ‘in the home of the brother-in-law of Jason Corbett’. The document claims the statement ‘attempts to contradict the prior statements of Jack Corbett’ and contains ‘factual inaccuracies.’ In contrast, Ms Martens’s lawyers have no objections to the interviews of August 2015 being used in evidence. David and Tracey Lynch declined to comment on the allegations made in the latest court filings. It is understood that the interview did take place in their home, but neither Mrs Lynch nor her husband were present The Independent.ie Molly Martens defence team: Children saw slain Jason Corbett 'punch and hit her' The children of slain Irishman Jason Corbett told social workers he punched his wife in the face and rolled his car over her foot, according to court documents filed in the US. In documents seen by Independent.ie, a defence motion filed with Davidson Superior Court gives details from three separate interviews between each of the children and social workers last year. “Each child reported similar incidents of verbal and physical abuse by Jason Corbett upon Molly Corbett,” the motion claims. The filing refers to another meeting with a trained therapist three days later, which was observed by detective via a two-way mirror. During the interview, Sarah reportedly described how her father would start fights for “ridiculous reasons” and said he would “hurt her mom”. The documents include further allegations made by the child that Jason pulled Molly’s hair, rolled over her foot with a car, called her “worthless” and hit her in the face. The filing states that Jack claimed to have seen his father “punch, hit and push” his stepmother and pushed her down on one occasion because “he wanted to look through her phone”. He said Jason “would cuss and scream at her” and she “would cry and try to block her ears”. Jack claimed his father’s behaviour worsened and that Molly “would scream for him to stop but she would just ball up under the covers and block her ears”, according to the paperwork. The Irish Examiner October 13th 2016 Paediatrician who attended Jason Corbett's children must release notes Mr Corbett’s two children from a previous marriage were seen by a specialist paediatrician in the days following his death. Now Dr Evelyn Amy Suttle of Dragonfly House, North Carolina, has been instructed to produce all “medical records, reports, notes, forms, or other documents generated” relating to the medical examinations of Jack and Sarah Corbett during their time at the children’s advocacy centre.Court documents released last week have revealed the Superior Court of Davidson County in North Carolina last week ruled Ms Martens’ right to a fair trial “outweighs any confidentiality statutes or other confidential protections shielding the requested documents from production and the interests of justice require the materials be produced”. Greensboro News & Record December 20th 2016 Appeals court upholds district judge's decision in custody case involving children of Irish man killed in Davidson County The children of Jason Corbett, who was found bludgeoned to death last year in his Davidson County home, will stay with their aunt and uncle in Ireland after a decision Tuesday by the N.C. Court of Appeals, ending more than a year of an international custody battle. The children’s stepmother, Molly Corbett, 33, had sought custody and guardianship of the two children, Sarah, 9, and Jack, 12, soon after Jason Corbett, 39, an Irish citizen, was found dead on Aug. 2, 2015, in the couple’s house in the Meadowlands, a golf community in Davidson County. In August, Superior Court Clerk Brian Shipwash granted guardianship to the children’s aunt and uncle, Tracey and David Lynch, who live in Ireland. District Judge April Wood dismissed Molly Corbett’s request for custody. The appellate court said Tuesday that Wood’s decision was the right one. The mother of the children, Margaret Fitzpatrick Corbett, died of an asthma attack on Nov. 21, 2006. The Lynches are happy with the court’s decision, their attorney, Kim Bonuomo, said Tuesday. “They are overwhelmed and relieved,” she said. The custody battle was marked by allegations that Molly Corbett physically and emotionally abused the children. In court papers, Tracey Lynch accused Molly Corbett of being obsessed with getting the children to call her “Mom.” On one occasion, Molly Corbett held Jack in the sink as “water poured into Jack’s mouth,” Tracey Lynch alleged in court papers. Molly Corbett denied those allegations in court papers The Irish Daily Mail December 24th 2016 Meet Molly, the merry widow Charged with the murder of her husband, far from wallowing in grief, Molly Martens has returned home, gone back to college and is living the life Jason will never get to TO ONLOOKERS, the pretty blonde in the tiny blue shorts was just another runner. It was July 4 in Knoxville, Tennessee, and as the 34year-old mingled with families and participants at the Farragut Freedom run, nobody could have imagined she had any particular worries on her mind. Looking as insouciant as ever, she breezed over the finish line, clutching an iPhone in one hand and waving to onlookers with the other. Yet beyond all the smiles and laughter, few may have known that runner number 2103 might have been enjoying her last Independence Day as a free woman. Facing charges over the brutal death of her husband Jason Corbett, Molly Martens looks set to finally stand trial early next year. It was one of the last times she was seen in Winston Salem, North Carolina, where she lived with Jason and his two children up until his death. Since then, while quietly and relentlessly dragging Jason’s sister and brother-in-law through the courts to get custody of Jason’s two children, she has relocated back to her family in Knoxville, Tennessee, almost four hours away. From the comfort of her hometown and the added protective shelter of her childhood home, she has quietly begun ‘moving forward’ with her life. In a change from her previous incarnation as a ‘stay-at-home mom’ who was financed by her husband, she has enrolled as a student at Pellissippi State College, where she is studying interior design. Posting underneath pictures of Tom Martens at the swim meet, Wayne Corbett wrote: ‘It’s very frustrating to see Thomas Martens and Molly Martens attending public events and people are unaware that these people are charged with the murder of my twin brother. It is in the public interest to be aware that these people are charged with murder.’ He added: ‘And I know my twin Jason would love to walk around or swim and do every day things. But those things that everyone of us take for granted were cruelly taken away from my twin Jason Corbett... I just think the public should be aware who is walking around with them.’ An autopsy report on Jason’s body puts his time of death at 3.24am, when emergency responders found him at the scene. It is understood that expert testimony and forensic evidence will be used to suggest that Jason died before a 3am 911 call was placed by Molly. Investigators also plan to call a blood spatter expert to state that Jason was bludgeoned to death in a sustained attack when the case comes to trial. Sources close to the prosecution have indicated that the pattern of blood spatter in the master bedroom, where the alleged crime took place, is not consistent with the accused duo’s version of events. ‘We have a blood spatter expert who will talk about the pattern that was left at the scene,’ says a source. ‘His or her forensic evidence will cast doubt over the assertion that the accused parties acted in selfdefence.’ In the months that have passed, speculation is mounting as to when both defendants will stand trial. It’s understood that the Corbett family had hoped for a trial before Thanksgiving in November. However, this week the Davidson County District Attorney in North Carolina told the Mail that a trial was unlikely to take place for another few months. Between collecting race medals and interior decorating, she may have had little time to think about the year ahead. But for all the attempts to move on, Molly Martens — the ‘doting stepmom’, the ‘talented athlete’, the alleged ‘husband-killer’ — will soon have to face up to the past.

Fox 8 January 4th 2016 Wife, father-in-law indicted in Irish man’s murder in Davidson County DAVIDSON COUNTY, N.C. — A woman and her father have been indicted in the murder of an Irish man at his Davidson County home in August 2015, according to Davidson County District Attorney Garry Frank. Frank confirmed Monday the grand jury has indicted Molly Martens Corbett, 31, and her father Thomas Michael Martens, 65, with second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter. They are accused of killing 39-year-old Jason Paul Corbett Corbett’s death led to a custody battle between Molly Corbett and Jason Corbett’s family in Ireland. The custody battle sparked international attention, with the children’s aunt and uncle in Ireland ultimately gaining custody. Court dates for Molly Corbett and her father have not been announced. Daily Mail UK January 4th 2016 Glamorous former model lashes out on Facebook after she and her ex-FBI agent father are charged with murdering her husband, leaving his two children orphaned A former model has lashed out on Facebook after she and her former FBI agent father were charged with murdering her husband. Hours after the indictments were unsealed on Monday, Martens took to Facebook to rant that the truth apparently 'does not matter'. She wrote: 'I cannot believe the level of slander, harassment, lies and absolute utter corruption. The truth does not matter. 'Shouldn't the truth matter? Shouldn't the truth prevail? Doesn't anyone care about the truth?' It is understood that a grand jury took a day to consider the indictments and recommended that Martens and her father be charged on both counts. Thomas Martens is a retired FBI agent. Until August he worked as a counterintelligence officer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in Tennessee. He was placed on administrative leave after the police investigation opened into Corbett's death, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported. District Attorney Garry Frank said on Monday that arrangements were being made to bring Martens and her father before a court this week. ‘The grand jury returned true bills of indictment against Mr Martens and Mrs Corbett for second degree murder and voluntary manslaughter,’ he said. He added: ‘At the moment both defendants are out of the State and their lawyer is making efforts to bring them back by tomorrow (Tuesday) at the earliest. 'At this point in time they are like every other defendant, they are presumed innocent until proven guilty. They will have a court appearance sometime this week, a bond will be set and we will proceed to the next court hearing according to procedure.’ When asked if he was confident of securing a conviction in relation to the charges, Frank said it would be ‘improper’ for him to comment. He added: ‘I signed the indictments asking the jury to find probable cause that this is the charge. Now (for a trial jury) the standard of proof changes to beyond a reasonable doubt. I’m comfortable with the probable cause determination and now we will have to put on the evidence and see.’ Both charges can be pursued until the matter goes before a trial jury later in the year. The jury can hear the evidence and decide on which one, if any, to convict on. Both defendants are understood to be ‘outside the state’ and were notified of the charges via their lawyer David Freedman. Arrangements are being made for them to return to North Carolina so orders for arrest can be produced in open court and a bond set in relation to the charges. Independent.ie January 5th 2016 Mugshots of Molly Martens and father as they appear in court over Jason Corbett death The wife and father-in-law of an Irish man found dead last August in his Davidson County home were ordered Tuesday to turn over their passports and to not have any contact with the man's two children. Molly Martens Corbett, 32, and Thomas Michael Martens, 65, made their first appearance in Davidson Superior Court after they were indicted on second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter. They are accused of killing Limerick native Jason Corbett, 39. He was found bludgeoned to death in his home in the Meadowlands, a golf course community in Davidson County. Irish Daily Mail January 5th 2016 MOLLY MARTENS AND HER FATHER CHARGED WITH JASON’S KILLING MOLLY Martens and her father Thomas have been charged with the murder of Limerick father-of-two Jason Corbett in his US home. US District Attorney Garry Frank told the Irish Daily Mail that he hoped the pair would stand trial by the end of the year. A grand jury took a day to consider the case and recommended that Ms Martens, the victim’s second wife and former nanny, be charged with second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter. Her father Thomas, an ex-FBI agent, faces the same charges. The second-degree murder charges carry a possible life sentence. The news that Ms Martens and her father are to be tried for Mr Corbett’s killing was welcomed by his family last night. The charges against his second wife and her father were handed down after Mr Frank, the District Attorney, convened a special sitting of a grand jury in North Carolina on December 19. The grand jury finding was then sealed because of the Christmas holidays. Yesterday, however Mr Frank moved to formally process both parties. Mr Frank had sent forward two ‘bills of indictment’ for consideration by the grand jury – one for a charge of second-degree murder and one for a charge of voluntary manslaughter. Last night Mr Corbett’s sister Tracy Lynch and her husband David issued an emotional statement in response to the news of the charges being brought. The couple, who are now legal guardians of Jack and Sarah following a hardfought custody battle against Molly Martens last year, said: ‘ We want to express our appreciation to Davidson County District Attorney Garry Frank and Davidson County Sheriff David Grice and his investigators for their hard work and determination to uncover the truth. ‘We want all of the facts to go in front of a jury so that we can all know the truth. We continue to grieve over the murder of Jason. Jason’s children are doing well, given what has happened. ‘We are thankful that they are in Ireland, surrounded by loving family.’ When asked if he was confident of securing a conviction in relation to the charges, Mr Frank said it would be ‘improper’ for him to comment. He added: ‘I signed the indictments asking the jury to find probable cause that this is the charge. Now (for a trial jury) the standard of proof changes to beyond a reasonable doubt. ‘I’m comfortable with the probable cause determination and now we will have to put on the evidence and see.’ New York Daily News January 5th 2016 North Carolina woman, her former FBI agent father charged with murdering her Irish-born husband A North Carolina woman and her ex-FBI agent father have been charged in the August murder of her Irish-born husband, according to grand jury indictments unsealed Monday. Molly Martens Corbett, 31, and Thomas Michael Martens, 65, were both charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in death of Jason Corbett, the documents reveal. Irish Daily Mail January 6th 2016 JACK AND SARAH SENT: ‘ARE YOU TAUGHT TO HATE ME... LOVE MOM’ JUST hours after Molly Martens and her father were charged with murdering her husband, she sent a message to his children on Facebook, declaring that she loved and nurtured them to the best of her ability in ‘the environment we found ourselves’. Over the past months she has taken to Facebook making direct pleas to the children and often using pictures of them together. In one post she wondered if their ‘memories have been corrupted or polluted’ and if ‘someone has taught you to hate me’. She wrote yesterday: ‘I have loved, nurtured and protected you to the best of my ability in the environment we found ourselves. I do not know what you will remember about our lives but I know some of the things you are being told. I pray one day you are able to remember with truth and clarity some of the events of our lives. ‘You are my heart and soul, my sunshine and my happy, and I will always love you.’ Following her post others went online to support her. And on Monday she posted: ‘I cannot believe the level of slander, harassment, lies and absolute utter corruption. The truth does not matter. Shouldn’t the truth matter? Shouldn’t the truth prevail? Doesn’t anyone care about the truth?’ The post had been removed yesterday. Ms Martens’ message to the children read: ‘Some things are hard to imagine. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make them less true. It is unbearable to think of people purposely teaching you to hate the mother that has raised, nurtured, and loved you for as long as you could remember. ‘It is wrong and it is not in the best interest of anyone, certainly not you. I will love you unconditionally. If your memories have been corrupted or polluted, if you believe somehow that I was a bad person or a bad mother... Even if someone has taught you to hate me, I will love you.’ Lexington Dispatch January 7th 2016 Warrants reveal more details in Irish man's death New details surfaced Thursday surrounding the death of an Irish man who was killed last year at his home in Wallburg. The release of multiple search warrants came days after 32-year-old Molly Martens Corbett and her 65-year-old father were indicted for second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter in the death of her husband, 39-year-old Jason Corbett. A day after being indicted by a Davidson County Grand Jury, they appeared in court Tuesday and quickly posted $200,000 secured bonds. They are scheduled to appear Jan. 19 in court. According to the court document, Thomas and Sharon Martens were visiting from their home in Knoxville, Tennessee. They were staying in the guest bedroom in the finished basement portion of the residence. Thomas Martens is reported to have been awoken by the disturbance. According to the application for the search warrant, he went to the master bedroom and intervened with the use of an aluminum baseball bat, striking his son-in-law in the head while Sharon Martens stayed in the finished basement. "Additional information received from business partners of Jason Corbett indicated that in preparation for that trip, Jason Corbett allegedly discussed transferring some of his financial assets to include large sums of money, $60,000 from his bank accounts here in the United States to his home back in Ireland," the court document reads. "Investigators also learned from members of the Corbett family that Jason Paul Corbett was possibly concerned about the spending habits of his American wife, Molly Martens Corbett. Both of these issues were allegedly a source of conflict between the couple. Lexington Dispatch January 7th 2016 Mike Earnest Statement Video Link Irish Daily Mail January 7th 2016 Corbett toys ‘strewn in the garden’ TOYS belonging to the orphaned Corbett children were strewn outside Molly Martens’s house yesterday. Jack and Sarah’s legal guardian Tracey Lynch collected the sentimental items, as an uncle of murder accused Ms Martens defended her actions on the night Jason Corbett died. The belongings, which have been the subject of a protracted legal battle, had been haphazardly left in the driveway for collection, piled high and in full view of passers-by. Mr and Mrs Lynch applied through the courts in North Carolina on December 14 to have personal belongings, including home videos made by Mr Corbett featuring his first wife and children, handed over by Ms Martens, his second wife who – along with her father Thomas – is accused of murdering Jason. Other items included rings belonging to the children’s biological mother Mags Corbett, as well as photos of the family together before her tragic death in 2006. Documents stated that following the decision to award custody of Sarah, nine, and Jack, 11, to their aunt Tracey and her husband David, attempts were made to obtain several of the children’s belongings. In a motion filed by Tracey and David Lynch, they listed a number of items of sentimental importance to the children – in particular, hand and foot casts Mags and Jason made of the children soon after they were born; home videos of Jack’s second birthday and Sarah’s birth; Mag's engagement ring; and two eternity rings ‘gifted’ to Sarah. The court document stated that Mr and Mrs Lynch believed that the items were in Ms Martens’ possession and were being ‘kept from the minor children’ by her directly or by others at her direction. As the drama unfolded at the old Corbett family home in the US yesterday, Molly Martens’ uncle claimed her life was in ‘mortal danger’ on the night her husband Jason Corbett was alleged to have been murdered by her and her father. Michael Earnest put emphasis on the fact the Limerick father of two weighed a lot more than his wife and father-in-law Thomas and that the bat used to allegedly kill Jason was ‘for a child’. He added that they used ‘necessary and justified actions’. ‘Tom Martens would have been incapable of doing anything other than protecting himself and protecting his daughter,’ he told the Irish Daily Mail. ‘In his training, there are only two instances were lethal force can be used and that’s when your wife is in mortal danger or a wife of another is in mortal danger. And I know Tom so well that those are the only two times that he would ever consider using any type of force.’ According to police, Mr Corbett, 39, was found bludgeoned to death on a bedroom floor in his luxury home. Officers responded to the scene following a 911 call made from inside the house by Mr Martens. ‘Tom Martens would have been incapable of doing anything other than protecting himself and protecting his daughter,’ he told the Irish Daily Mail. ‘In his training, there are only two instances were lethal force can be used and that’s when your wife is in mortal danger or a wife of another is in mortal danger. And I know Tom so well that those are the only two times that he would ever consider using any type of force.’ According to police, Mr Corbett, 39, was found bludgeoned to death on a bedroom floor in his luxury home. Officers responded to the scene following a 911 call made from inside the house by Mr Martens. News and Record January 8th 2016 Autopsy: Jason Corbett died from blunt force trauma to the head An Irish man found bludgeoned to death in August in the bedroom of his Davidson County home died of blunt force trauma to the head and had multiple cuts and skull fractures, according to an autopsy report released Friday. His wife, Molly Martens Corbett, 32, and her father, Thomas Michael Martens, 65, have been charged with second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter in his death. The two are claiming self-defense, according to their attorneys. Corbett’s body was found in the master bedroom of the house. The investigative report said large amounts of blood were found on the bedroom floor, walls and furniture. The autopsy report describes Jason Corbett’s injuries in detail, including two large deep cuts to his scalp. He also had multiple skull fractures, including at the base of the skull. Corbett also had bleeding in several areas of his brain, including between the two membranes that surround the brain and between the brain and its outer covering, the autopsy report said. He also had bruises under his right eye and on the back of his left hand, according to the investigative report. Jason Corbett had a blood alcohol content of 0.02 percent, far below the legal limit of 0.08 percent. David Freedman, Martens’ attorney, and Walter Holton, who represents Molly Corbett, declined Thursday to comment on whether Jason Corbett was alleged to have physically abused his wife before. Davidson County sheriff’s detectives said in search warrants that Jason Corbett’s family members told them that Jason was planning to go to Ireland on Aug. 21, 2015, with his two children to live there permanently and that he had sought to transfer his financial assets, including $60,000 from North Carolina, to Ireland. Independent.ie January 8th 2016 Listen: Molly Martens dad's chilling 911 call: 'He's bleeding all over. I may have killed him' THE father of Molly Martens Corbett told a US police dispatcher he believed he may have killed Irish man Jason Corbett. In a chilling 911 call made by Thomas Martens (65) on the night Mr Corbett (39) was killed, he is heard saying: "My daughter's husband, my son-in-law, got in a fight with my daughter. I intervened and I think he's in bad shape. We need help. He's bleeding all over. I may have killed him." The dispatcher asked if Mr Corbett had been drinking, to which Mr Martens replied: "He had been drinking during the course of the day." She asked if he was conscious, to which Mr Martens replied: "No." Then the dispatcher asked if he was breathing. Mr Martens said: "I can't tell." WXII 12 January 8th 2016 Search warrants provide new details in Jason Corbett case. Wife, her father charged with involuntary manslaughter DAVIDSON COUNTY, N.C. — Search warrant documents released Thursday provided new details in the case of a man who was killed in his Davidson County home in August. Jason Corbett, who was originally from Ireland, died in the early morning hours of Aug. 2 at his home on Panther Creek Court near Wallburg. His wife, Molly Martens Corbett, and her father, Thomas Martens, turned themselves in Tuesday on charges of second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter. Both are being held under $200,000 secured bonds in the Davidson County jail. The case has made major headlines in Ireland and has included a custody battle with Jason Corbett's children, Jack and Sarah. Investigators allege in the warrant that the Martens "suddenly changed plans" on Aug. 1 to travel from their Knoxville, Tenn., home to North Carolina. According to the warrant, investigators said Jason Corbett may have planned to travel to Ireland without his wife in late August for the apparent purpose of moving himself and his children back to Ireland. Following Jason Corbett's death, a judge awarded custody to the children's aunt in Ireland. Investigators discussed money as a possible motive in Corbett's death, citing his "comfortable financial status," as well as the alleged large sums of money withdrawn from bank accounts jointly controlled by the couple since his death. Jason Corbett also was apparently concerned about Molly Corbett's spending habits, which was an ongoing conflict with the couple, investigators said in warrants. Independent.ie January 8th 2016 'Molly just flipped and completely lost control at her wedding' - Jason Corbett's sister MURDER accused Molly Martens Corbett has been portrayed as a violent fantasist who was anxious to leave her husband but desperate to keep custody of his children. A sister of her slain husband Jason Corbett (39) has alleged Ms Martens (32) engaged in a series of incidents involving violence against her young stepson Jack. Tracey Lynch also claimed the murder accused confided to a family friend she "wanted to leave Jason because she did not love him any more and did not care what happened to him". However, she could not bring herself to leave because she had no rights to her husband's two children from a previous marriage. Mrs Lynch said her brother made a deliberate decision to keep his Irish passport and those of the children because of "his concerns" about his wife. It is also claimed by Mrs Lynch in court papers that Ms Martens had a long history of lying, claiming she was an Olympic swimmer, a teacher, a foster parent to a six-year-old boy and a book editor. Mrs Lynch alleged Ms Martens would drink alcoholic margaritas throughout the day from a cup, including when she was driving Mr Corbett's young children. It was claimed the beverage was so strong that when Mrs Lynch tried one, she later had to be helped to bed and was ill for two days. The shocking claims are contained in affidavits and transcripts released by a court in the US. Independent.ie January 8th 2016 Martens 'confessed' to sister-in-law over death of husband Details of the alleged admission were outlined by the deceased's sister Tracey Lynch in court last August, but could not be reported until now. In a separate legal submission, Mrs Lynch also claimed Ms Martens had told a family friend she "wanted to leave Jason because she did not love him any more and did not care what happened to him". However, Ms Martens is alleged to have decided against this because she would have no right to his children. The allegations were aired at a behind-closed-doors hearing to decide on the guardianship of Mr Corbett's two children Mrs Lynch argued under questioning that the children needed protection from their stepmother, Ms Martens, who, she said, had admitted to killing her brother. "I spoke to Molly after the event, and her mother. Molly indicated she killed my brother," Mrs Lynch testified. Other sensational allegations were made by Ms Lynch at the guardianship hearing. These included claims that Ms Martens was violent towards Jack Corbett on a number of occasions and would scream at him. It was also claimed Ms Martens would drink margaritas from a cup throughout the day, including when she was driving the children. Ms Lynch said she had told Ms Martens she was "crazy" and shouldn't be doing it. She alleged Ms Martens was prone to bouts of erratic behaviour and had said that she suffered from bipolar disorder. Ms Lynch also told the court Ms Martens's relationship with the children was "unhealthy for very different reasons". "Molly was very possessive of Sarah and didn't really demonstrate a caring for Jack," she testified. Ms Martens has denied the claims made about her behaviour. Irish Daily Mail January 8th 2016 FULL EXPLOSIVE DETAILS OF THE KILLING THAT’S SHOCKED A NATION: US investigators last night released the damning details that led them to seek charges against Molly Martens and her father for the murder of Jason Corbett. In an explosive dossier, The shocking details were contained in a set of search warrant documents that were released by Davidson County District Attorney Garry Frank. The documents contain a series of affidavits from detectives assigned to investigate the case. In one affidavit, given by Detective B.M. Smith, he states that during initial interviews, ‘it was told that Jason Corbett was choking Molly Corbett inside the master bedroom door’. The document states claims that Mr Martens was ‘awoken’ by a disturbance. He went to the master bedroom and intervened with the use of an aluminium baseball bat striking Mr Corbett in the head. Detective Smith says Mr Martens described the altercation as a ‘Donnybrook’ – a public fight or an uncontrolled argument. He adds: ‘Throughout my law enforcement career, I have seen several what would be described ‘uncontrolled fights’. In my opinion, the struggle described by Ms Martens and her father ‘was not consistent with the evidence at the scene, particularly the master bedroom were Mr Corbett was killed’. An affidavit given by Wanda Thompson, the lead detective in the case, states ‘Large sums of money have been removed’ that, through Mr Corbett’s colleagues and friends, she had learned that he was planning to return home on or around August 21 The document states claims that Mr Martens was ‘awoken’ by a disturbance. He went to the master bedroom and intervened with the use of an aluminium baseball bat striking Mr Corbett in the head. Detective Smith says Mr Martens described the altercation as a ‘Donnybrook’ – a public fight or an uncontrolled argument. He adds: ‘Throughout my law enforcement career, I have seen several what would be described ‘uncontrolled fights’. In my opinion, the struggle described by Ms Martens and her father ‘was not consistent with the evidence at the scene, particularly the master bedroom were Mr Corbett was killed’. An affidavit given by Wanda Thompson, the lead detective in the case, states ‘Large sums of money have been removed’ that, through Mr Corbett’s colleagues and friends, she had learned that he was planning to return home on or around August 21. US. Sources say he and his wife had argued furiously over his wishes to take his children back to Ireland and that she was determined to cling on to them. Sources say the autopsy and crime scene evidence would be crucial to the case against Ms Martin and her father Thomas. The couple had discussed splitting after Mr Corbett repeatedly said he was homesick. He had moved to the US with the former nanny and his two children by his late wife in 2011. Ms Martens had told a family friend Lynn Shanahan, in the summer of 2013, that she had spoken to lawyers about gaining legal custody of her step-children if a divorce was to go through. The couple had been married in June 2011, two years before she confided in Ms Shanahan, and had started dating in 2008, two years after Mr Corbett’s wife Mags died from an asthma attack. Ms Martens was the fourth nanny he had employed after his first wife’s death. The Lynches hugged and consoled each other when they visited the house where Mr Corbett died after being hit with what is believed to have been a baseball bat. They were accompanied by police and court officials as they checked piles of toys which are to be shipped back to Ireland for the children. Mr Lynch told the Irish Daily Mail the children were settled in Ireland and doing well. She posted photos of them in much happier days and wrote: ‘I have loved, nurtured and protected you to the best of my ability in the environment we found ourselves. I do not know what you will remember about our lives but I know some of the things you are being told. ‘I pray one day you are able to remember with truth and clarity some of the events of our lives. Independent.ie January 9th 2016 Slain Jason Corbett's concerns over wife Molly's spending habits Slain Irishman Jason Corbett was worried about his wife's spending habits shortly before he was killed. It is also claimed murder accused Molly Martens Corbett removed large sums of money from joint accounts after his death. The records show how detectives mixed long-established investigative techniques with newer forms of inquiry, including tracking information stored by Google and Facebook and a number of banks, as part of the probe. One detective, WS Thompson, outlined how the Limerick-born pharmaceutical company worker had been planning a trip back to Ireland on August 21 "allegedly for the purpose of moving him and his minor children back to his native homeland permanently". In preparation for that trip, Mr Corbett (39) had discussed transferring $60,000 (€55,200) from US bank accounts to his home bank in Ireland. It said his plans to return home and his wife's spending habits "were allegedly a source of conflict between the couple". Attorneys handling Mr Corbett's estate also told detectives "large sums of money" were removed from joint accounts he held with Ms Martens after his death. "Jason Corbett's alleged comfortable financial status provides additional possible motive for his untimely death," the document said. As part of the probe, police also seized Mr Corbett's Dell Latitude computer. Another detective, BM Smith, revealed in an affidavit that police did not believe the account of events given by Ms Martens and her father Thomas about Mr Corbett's killing. Detective Smith said the scene was not consistent with claims by Mr Martens that there had been an uncontrolled fight prior to the killing. According to detectives, Mr Martens admitted to detectives that they struck Mr Corbett in the head with a concrete paving brick and an aluminium baseball bat. However, discrepancies have also emerged over Mr Martens' account of where he got the baseball bat. Mr Martens indicated he brought the bat to the residence as a gift to his step-grandson, Jack Corbett, but hadn't yet given it to him. However, police suspect the bat used was one given to Jack the previous summer which was stored in a sports equipment bag in the garage. If true, this undermines Mr Martens' story that he picked up the bat because it was close to him. Independent.ie January 9th 2016 'It is heart-breaking to see the lack of respect they had for him and my parents' - Jason Corbett's family disgusted by lack of apology from the Martens 'It is heart-breaking to see the lack of respect they had for him and my parents' - Jason Corbett's family disgusted by lack of apology from the Martens. The family of slain Limerick man Jason Corbett have said they are disgusted those charged with his murder have never apologised for his killing. Mr Corbett's sister Marilyn said is it heartbreaking and no one has said 'sorry' to her parents since her brother was killed. And she maintained that she became ill when she read the court and autopsy reports outlining how her brother died. "The one thing that is grating on my mind is that my parents lost their son and not one single member of the Martens family has muttered the words, 'I am sorry for the loss of your son'," said Marilyn Corbett. "None of them have said anything to express sorrow for my parents losing their son," she added. "Not publicly, not privately. Not a letter, not a phone call. "It is heart-breaking to see the lack of respect they had for him and my parents. "It is hard to comprehend that someone can act that way. It is cold, it is calculated and it is heartless and those are mild words compared to what they (the Martens) actually are. There is no integrity there." His sister said it is difficult to read reports outlining how her brother died. "I got the papers yesterday and when I saw them, I actually threw up. I was so upset," she said. "You cannot prepare yourself. You think that you can but it is impossible," she added. "I was in shock with all of the news breaking, even though I already knew a lot of it. All of the publicity around it and going in to work (is difficult)." "It is hard to believe that these people are so cold. That makes it so much harder to comprehend," she said. "In their eyes, we are nothing at all. They have destroyed our family's lives," she added. Court documents in the US show that Mr Corbett's other sister Tracey Lynch was also concerned about Ms Martens' volatile temper and friends have said that Mr Corbett was also concerned about his wife's temper. Two days before he was killed, Mr Corbett left a social function in the US early after he became upset and annoyed at his wife jeering him about his weight. "They were out having dinner with some friends on the Friday before he died when Molly started fat-shaming him," said the family friend. "Jason always took it to heart and it upset him. He left Molly there that night and went home on his own. He was mortified. She used to always call him 'fat ass' and he never liked it." Mr Corbett was so conscious of his weight that he had lost nearly a stone in the month before he died. "He was due to be best man at his best friend's wedding next summer so they both had a bet about who was going to lose the most weight," said the family source. "Himself and his best friend Paul (Dillon) were very competitive but in a good way. They were always trying to better each other." Irish Central January 14th 2016 Widow’s family investigated for attempts to access murdered Irishman’s office The uncle of Molly Martens, charged with the murder of her Limerick-born husband Jason Corbett, is reportedly being investigated for attempting to gain access to Corbett’s office the day after his murder. Mike Earnest, Martens’ maternal uncle who works for a US federal law enforcement authority called Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), is being questioned regarding alleged calls made to Corbett’s workplace, Multi-Packing Solutions, attempting to gain access to the office and telling staff he was a federal agent, Irish website Evoke.ie report. Although Earnest denies that he is under investigation, his employer SIGAR confirmed they were investigating contact he made with MPS on August 3. " SIGAR is conducting an administrative inquiry. We take all allegations seriously and review them thoroughly. Since this is a personnel matter we cannot comment further,” a spokesperson confirmed. Martens’ uncle is now also believed to be under investigation for alleged attempts to enter Corbett’s office at MPS claiming he was doing so as part of his role as a federal agent. After staff contacted police regarding the call he was refused access. Evoke.ie alleges that the children's passports were in the office. It is believed that Earnest also accompanied Martens to the office on August 4, two days after the death, as she collected her husband’s possessions as next of kin. Earnest has denied the claims, stating that he does not believe he made any calls to the plant but that he and his wife had made a lot of phone calls on the day following Corbett’s death in assisting his niece to organize funeral arrangements, insurance and arrangements for the children. He believes that if he did make a call to the workplace then it would have been a “diplomatic” call about the death. “That is a complete lie and fabrication. There could be nothing further from the truth,” he said. “‘It’s one thing to tell a lie about an average citizen. It’s another to tell a lie about a sworn US federal agent.” Irish Daily Mail January 18th 2016 A GENTLE GIANT WHO OUR FAMILY ADORED FROM THE VERY START Jason Corbett’s sister-in-law dismisses any allegations that suggest he was an abusive partner, saying ‘nothing could be further from the truth’ ‘He was a good husband. He was a good dad’ "Molly never had to work and he spoiled her" THERE is a small grave at the back of Castlemungret cemetery in Co. Limerick. On it, a granite headstone with a striking picture of a beaming bride and groom depicts a couple in the thralls of newlywed bliss. The picture, chosen by the couple’s two orphaned children, shows Mag's and Jason Corbett, a couple who in death, as in life, remain side by side. It is here that Jack and Sarah Corbett make visits to their mum and dad. Aged just 11 and nine, they are taken ‘when they ask to go’ and find comfort in the routine. They never leave the graveside without kissing the picture of their late parents. ‘It’s just devastating,’ says Mag's sister Catherine Fitzpatrick. In recent days, as it emerged that Molly and her father will claim selfdefence, allegations that he was an abusive partner look set to form the thrust of an attack on his character. For Catherine, the claims are seen as a shocking attack on the brother-in-law she loved. She lived with her sister and Jason on two separate occasions during their relationship — for six months before they were married, and for nine months prior to Mags’ death. Behind the closed quarters of their family home, not once did she witness any abuse, physical or verbal. ‘I never worried about my sister when she was with Jason,’ she says adamantly. ‘He never raised his voice, never raised his hand. Never, ever. Even if it was something that happened when I wasn’t there, Mags would have told me. ‘It would never have been part of their life. It never came on the radar. He was a doting husband and father and he gave them a great life. From what I saw in later years, he gave Molly a great life as well. Any suggestion otherwise is deeply damaging to his memory and that of my sister ‘It’s beyond reason,’ she says, her eyes flared with anger and tears. ‘If all this was going on behind closed doors why on earth would Jason bring my parents over to the States and run the risk of them witnessing it? ‘He had me over as well and countless others. No one saw anything but the Jason we had known before. Tragically, in the early hours of November 23, 2006, their blissful future together was brutally cut short. ‘I was there in the house that night when Mags passed away,’ says Catherine. ‘Mags had asthma all her life. It’s in the family, I have two brothers with it as well. It wasn’t bad, not anything that you would have been worried about. ‘That night, she gave out to the two of us because neither of us emptied the dishwasher. At 2.05am Jason knocked on my door and said he needed to bring Mags to hospital, that she was having a bit of an attack. I knew it was something different, something serious. ‘I knew there was something wrong when she got into the car in her pyjamas because she wouldn’t have gone anywhere without getting herself organised. They met the ambulance halfway and he tried to revive her in the car. He did everything. He was devastated, totally, totally heartbroken. We all were.’ A widower at just 30, Jason Corbett was left with a two-year-old son and a 12-week-old daughter. ‘I stayed on to help Jason,’ says Catherine. ‘But I needed to stay on for me, too. Eventually I had to go back to work and so did he. We shared the duties. He would drop the kids off and I would collect them. If I was home first I would make the dinner and if he was home first he would do it. ‘But my house was sitting [ready] and it was time for me to move on. He needed to get on with things as well. I was a constant reminder of Mags for him, we were very alike. He was just a broken man. He used to go to the grave on his lunch and read his newspapers and talk to her. The groundsman told my father that recently.’ Almost a year-and-a-half after Mags’ passing, Jason returned to fulltime hours at work. Jack and Sarah were being cared for in the crèche, but the father-of-two needed more help. After advertising for a nanny, Molly Martens, a striking blonde from Tennessee, flew to Ireland and took up the job. ‘He had two or three au pairs before that,’ Catherine says. ‘The language barrier was an issue so he wanted someone English-speaking. Obviously we were cautious about anyone who came into the house, that was a natural instinct. Evoke February 2nd 2016 Latest twist in Molly Martens’ ongoing legal battle with Jason’s family A judge is to decide whether Molly Martens breached a court order which prevented her from removing items from the home she shared with her late husband. Yesterday, Ms Martens appeared in a North Carolina court on matters regarding removal of items from the home. In the latest twist to the high profile case, a lawyer representing David Lynch went through an inventory of personal belongings removed from the Corbett home at the request of Ms Martens. According to a consent order in September 2015, Ms Martens said she would not remove items belonging to Mr Corbett from the home. According to a consent order in September 2015, Ms Martens said she would not remove items belonging to Mr Corbett from the home. The credit card was paid out of a joint account she had with Mr Corbett and the Bank of America account was mostly contributed to by Mr Corbett. The court did not make a decision yesterday on whether the consent order had been violated Irish Daily Mail March 4th 2016 Jason Corbett gave Molly Marten’s parents $80k before his death Molly grilled as it emerges murder co-accused father got money. MURDERED father- of- two Jason Corbett transferred $80,000 to Molly Marten’s parents – one of whom is accused of his murder – in May 2011. The revelation came as the Limerick man’s second wife, who also stands accused of his murder, answered questions about allegedly breaching a court order by having furniture and other items removed from the house where he died. During the grilling she admitted that she was a stay-at-home wife who did not contribute much income to purchase many of the items in question. Molly Martens, of Panther Creek Court, testified for nearly two hours regarding the controversial removal of property from the home on January 21. She had been summoned to the court by lawyers acting for Mr Corbett’s sister Tracey Lynch. The news of the clear-out of the house that Jason had shared with his second wife Molly, prompted Ms Lynch to contact her US lawyers over the matter. Presiding over the hearing, Davidson County Clerk of the Superior Court, Brian Shipwash, withheld a decision on the claim, saying petitioners were unable to point out specific violations, leaving him to sort through testimony and records to determine if any violation occurred. Attorney Edward Griggs questioned Ms Martens about items removed from the home by her legal team and family. Mr Griggs went item by item asking about her acquisition of everything taken from the home and who paid for any items purchased by the family. During her testimony, Ms Martens claimed the purchase of many items, saying she used a Chase credit card under her name to pay for furniture, groceries and clothing. Money to pay the credit card bills, she said, was taken from a joint bank account s hared between her and her husband. Ms Martens admitted to supplying ‘ not a significant’ amount of money to the joint account, saying she primarily stayed home with Mr Corbett’s two children. ‘He worked and he was my husband,’ she said of Jason Corbett. ‘I stayed home and was his wife.’ Mr Griggs asserted to the court even though Molly Martens’s name appeared on the credit card, funding for the bills came from an account supported primarily from her husband’s income. Those purchases, he said, cannot then be claimed as her property, rather that of the estate. Mr Griggs also raised questions about a transfer from the account of Jason Corbett to Molly Martens’s parents in the amount of $80,000 in May 2011. After her testimony, Mr Griggs asked for a pursuit of discovery, which would give him the authority to access bank records to determine if Jason Corbett provided money to Molly’s parents for any of the items in the home. Defending Ms Martens, attorney Bryan Thompson called for a denial of any violation by taking items, saying Mr Griggs and his team had had their day in court and were unable to provide any witness or testimony proving a violation occurred. Thompson said approximately $12,000 is owed on the Chase credit card and is being paid solely by Molly Martens. Ms Martens said she was recently working as a sales associate for Chico’s women’s clothing outlet in Knoxville, Tennessee, before being put on temporary suspension while her murder trial plays out.

Brian Shipwash Custody ruling Search Warrant Jason Corbett's Autopsy Report Report of Investigation by Medical Examiner Toxicology report Estate ruling Indictments Conditions of Release North Carolina Court of appeals 2018